Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1940-04-18
CHAPTER II

Wnat! Joe exclaimed. Inelr
mother looked up, with her ready
tut-tutting noise.
cts a terrible winter; there's
many worse off than ourselves"
Mrs. Carscadden said, vaguely
moralizing.
Were going to be bad enough
off," Joe told his mother, darkly,
going on with his meal.
"Sheila, they never fired you'll"
Angela's grieved, sweet little. voice
said sadly,
Indeed they did, then. He said
I was too fresh"
Mrs. Carscadden was pouring tea
in her turn. She looked at her daugh-
ter patiently.
you'd be saucy to the boss" she
observed mildly.
ooh, well, this is only Wednesday,
and I'm there till Saturday." Sheila
said .lazily.
There's hard times coming to
this city that you don't know the
meaning Of" Joe observed, without
looking up.
), "But you'll get another job, >Joe,"
Angela said, anxiously.
ooh, sure I wilt" he answered,
glancing up with an effort. "But it
gripes me-" he added resentfully,
..'to have Sheila here act as if it
was all joke"
"Well, it is" Sheila assured him,
good-naturedly.
She was relaxed and lazy, her
senses dulled. by the food and
warmth and leisure into a pleasant
sort of torpor.
Joe looked at her, and her blue
and-cream-and-copper beauty blazed
back at him like a star. There was
a faint stain of color in her cheeks
now, her eyes smoldered with smoky
sapphire shadows, the film of silky
hair was sprayed once more across
her forehead.
"Sure, I'll get a job, all right"
Joe grumbled, Modified. He was
secretly proud of Sheila and even
cornforted, detp in His heart, by the
spirit she showed. But he was tired,
angry jobless, young and in love.
He thought of Cecilia.
AS if she read his thoughts-in-
deed, she often seemed to do So
Sheila's next words were of Cecilia.
1--WE came home together, Cecilia
and l."
"None of you'll ever know the
har'rd times I've KNOWN" the moth
er's voice said, dreamily. ~. /;
''1'm going down to see her, now"
"Going to tell her, Joe?"
"Ford,'' Joe said, brooding,
asked me would I take a stewards
job on fruit boat. A swell chance!"
ooh, heavens, what fun!" Sheila
exclaimed, her eyes dancing.
''F'orty "a month";" he muttered.
"But all your expenses, Joel"
II turned it down. I'm going to
get forty aweek, or nothing" he
said stubhornly..
eight pound a month would be
big money! at home," Mrs. Cars
cadden unused.
MRS Carscadden, me dear'r,"
said a gentle voice at the door. A
neighbor had. unceremoniously
opened it. "Mrs. Burke" she an
nounced alphabetically.
ooh, God help the poor soul-and
me ating me support" the other
woman exclaimed, instantly rising.
Immediately she was gone, and Joe
had disappeared, too, leaping down.
stairs on his long legs, to see his
Cecilia.
Sheila and Angela finished their
tea peacefully, cleared the kitchen
and then sat on lazily, chatting,
laughing.
'.'Oh,, wait until l show you my
new purse, Angela!"
Sheila went to get it. She re-
turned to the kitchen and put it into
her sisters hands, and Angela
turned the dark smooth beauty of
the leather back and forth admir-
ingly.
Guess what l paid for it. Ten
cents" >.
"You didn't"
II did. At the rummage sale at
st. Leo's. I went in there at noon"
"Ten cents!" .:t
''It has initials on it-they're in
side. That's why it was cheap. But
what do l care about that? I'll bet
it cost lot, once"
Angela opened the flap, looked at
the three initials.
&c. c. K.," she read aloud, and
then a number on East Eighty
eighth Street.
"Sheila, what do you suppose it
feels like?"
"To be rich?"
'Well. To have everything"
"Here's what I was thinking"
Sheila said, and hesitated again. 81
was thinking. she pursued, that
that there must be something
something in some girls that makes
them different from the others-that
lifts them out-out of it,
"Out of WHAT" Angela asked in
tently.. :.
"Well, everything. Poverty, hard
work-this," Sheila answered, with