Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1940-06-20


past nine at night tremendously
good-natured and apologize persons
were arriving for dinner. This was
all very well for Miss Watts, the
gracious and capable and specta-
cled head waitress, who got the big
tips, but it told heavily on Sheila
and the other girls. They had to
take on. extra tables, to hunt about
for tablecloths and napkins not orig
inally provided, to apologize for food
that had been used up, and to make
additional trips for substitutes.
They worked in an enormous PAN
try served from the kitchen below
by dumb-waiters. The order slips,
with Mr.. Benny's o. K. on them,
went down on the empty elevators;
each tray had slip on it when it
came up. Sometimes when big
party required more than one tray
a bus boy was summoned to assist.
But the girls were not allowed to
ask for help; Mr.. Benny decided
that, and if he did not like girl
he would smile teasing smile and
observe that she Scould make two
trips of it, just as well. The girls,
except perhaps for the favorite of
the moment, detested him; when
they were especially tired or nerv-
Gus he could make things hard for
them, and they wasted needed en-
ergy in despising him.
They ran to and fro breathlessly;
their collars wilted, their little but
terfiy aprons wilted; the girls them
selves wilted. Sheila never had had
much color, but she developed
pallor that was new. Her film of
copper hair stuck to her wet fore
head, her clothes adhered to her
soaked body. She flung aside crum-
pied tablecloths and napkins, piled
dirty plates, checked penciled or
ders feverishly. She talked so lit
tie and worked so hard that Miss
Watts, the head waitress, soon sin
gled her out for special impositions.
"Mary, there's party just down
from New York; I'm sorry. You'll
have to start the order anyway
took it,
cat twenty-five minutes of ten,
mindja," Nelly might say pityingly.
Sheila would eye the slip.
t'Four mock turtle, three supreme
of grapefruit, seven oyster cocktail,
four bouillon, two cream of let
tuce-"
When Nelly, in the beginning, had
told her that in the quiet hours, say
between eleven and twelve each
morning, and three and five each
afternoon, she would be free to come
up to the dormitory loft and lie
down, Sheila had secretly laughed.
Lie down-with Atlantic City's win
ter boardwalk, and the glorious
ocean at her very door-not she!
But by the third day she had dis
covered that these intervals of rest
were all too short. She was not rest
ed by an hour or two; fiat and ex-
hausted, on her back; she could not
even begin resting in so short a
time. She ached all over, her nerves
throbbed and quivered, her head
was dizzy with confused thoughts,
her breath was short and her mouth
dry.
cts a great life!" she said to
Nelly.
cts a great life if you have an
infected corn, let me tell you," Nelly
said. Sometimes I wonder why l
ever left home. My mother run a
clearinghouse; lots of the railroad
fellers come over for meals. But my
stepfather done it, RELY. He was ten
years older than Mamma, and what
he put over on her you wouldn't be-
lieve. He knew I was onto him!"
Much of the talk Sheila heard now
adays was coarse, but most of the
girls were good girls.
Once she heard her own name.
Four of the six girls in the rather
small room were lying on their beds
one winter afternoon when one of
them said suddenly:
''That Carscadden girl we were
talking about is supposed to be stay
ing with friends. They were mar
ried all right. The Nc Cams have
scads of money, and they hushed
the whole thing up"
Sheila lay perfectly still, her very
heart stopped. But when girl idly
spoke again, it was on a different
topic.
She had left note for her mother
on that dreadful last afternoon of
packing and tears and flight. Dear
Ma, I am safe and well; I will be
good. Sheila," she had written. And
every few days since she had seized
some opportunity to send further
reinsurance. Once she had gone
into Philadelphia for an hour or two
and mailed a postcard picture of a
church from there. On this she had
written, II am praying for you. Pray
for Sheila."
Almost every night she cried her
self to sleep, longing for her moth
er. But no matter how hard the
work in the dining-room was and no
matter how lonely and homesick her
free hours, she would not give in.
The loneliness of life-Sheila had
never known it-never suspected it
before. How lonely they were, these
Irish-born and Russian-born girls,