The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-02-06
CHAPTER I

0OOAO o 44SCsA WSto 04S SS~~> ing, tears stung behind hel eyes, a lump in her throat refused to be swallowed. Nc one looking at Susie, polish ing the nickel-plated coffee urn, industriously wiping counters, filling little jugs with syrup, would have cred. ited her with emotions ot any sort. Somehow broken hearts and stinging tears were inconsistent wit h Susie's ponderous homeli- ness.
 Working at her tasks she kept one eye on the door, duly regarding the hand some young men and smart ly sophisticated girls who swarmed into the Waffle Shoppe in quest of Susie's golden brown delicacies.
 Wisecracking, patronizing smooth les, these college students, never treating Susie as a contemporary, never really seeing her.
 That is, none of them treated her as a contemporary except Dick Tremaine, and in Dick Tremaine lay the cause of Susie's despairing heart and the lump in her throat. It was for Dick that she watched and waited, whipping egg whites to frothy stiffness, folding them gently into a creamy batter. It was because of Dick that her heart did a sickening flip-f1op each time the door opened.
 It was the last day of the spring term and excitement pulsed through the Waffle Shoppe, tenseness, to gay Spirit of comradeship. a sub tie denaal that this was farewell. By tomorrow the campus would be de- serted, trains and cars and air. planes would have carried the beau- tiful young things away. By tomor- row Dick Tremaine would be gone.
 Always Susie had been heartsick at the end of the spring term, but never like this. Always she had been able to count the days until autumn always she had known that Dick would come again in the autumn, that he would swing through the door and greet her with his friend- Illness, bringing back the ache and joy of seeing him.
 It was different today, Dick had received his diploma that morning. Susie, sitting far back in the gall lery, had seen him walk across the platform and grin as he accepted the sheepskin. Dicks grin - Susie actually shuddered away from the delicious hurt of Dicks grin. A flash of white, an indented line in each of his lean cheeks, twinkle in his eyes. For a moment Susie leaned her forehead against the dish cupboard. Must it go on and on? Must she always be tortured by the longing to see Dick, to hear his voice?
 Standing there she was sudden ly caught by a ray of sunshine from an upper window, spotlight ed in all her drabness. Short and stout, heavy limbs ending in large, flat shoes, definitely outcurving waistline, thick shoulders, pudgy wrists and hands. Her clumsily solid body was topped by small, round head, made more round by short, bobbed hair and a limp fringe of bangs across her fore head. She had heavy. beetling brows which came together in a point over a ridiculously small nose. The nose was of the type called snub, tilting upward, the nostrils appearing like two sur- prised polka dots. Her thinly re- pressed wide mouth and the drowning brows were constantly contradicted by the silly little nose the apple round cheeks and chin.
 To make matters worse Susie's complexion was definitely on the sallow side, her frequent flush was of a purplish hue. Susie's eyes were long, of all things, and rather nicely lashed.
 The ray of sunshine passed on as if in distaste and Susie ladled a huge spoonful of batter to a sizzling waffle iron. She had not always minded being homely. Had she not come to the University town she might have settled into a comfort able, contented niche. It was seeing the young men and girls, having beauty showed down her throat every day and every day that had embittered her, it was witnessing the joyous fruits of beauty, 1t was Dick Tremaine ana her own frus- tration.
 A coed, smart in tailoring and jaunty in appearance, slid onto one of the counter stools, ordered waffle, Intently, she watched Susie fork a pat of butter, drop 1t in the exact center of the golden brown dish. Then she asked:
 "Where's your boy friend, Su- sie?" Impudently, she watched the slow flush mount to Susie's cheeks
 Susie said nothing. Once she had been breezy, snappy on the up-take That was before the quivering heartstrings had tied her tongue. The tears, so close to the surface, crowded upward and she saw the waffle irons through a blur.
 She knew the girls laughed be- hind hea. back, that they watched her wait on Dick Tremaine, lin- gering near him while he ate, with secret glee. And the girls knew the shameful story behind