The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-08-07
Lucky Penny
From Mansion and Sables To a Job in a Hash House Is Quite q Step for Penny
Chapter ]

Flaming skies were no novelty to Penny Kirk. She had seen Lon- donss inferno of bursting bombs. She had raced against death in blazing France.
 Now Penny drove leisurely along a road canopied by heavens of red but this was different. The glare in the skies was friendly, comfort ing, reflecting the glowing furnaces of the Kirk Mills-her mills.
 This, Penny knew, was where she belonged. In all the years she had spent abroad she had never before thought of Kirktown as anything more than the setting for Grandfather Johns stories of 8 career that had brought him ex- citingly from poverty to riches.
 Now the Kirk mills belonged to Penny. For the first time in the g years of her leisurely lazy life, she felt 8 sense of responsibility, a sense that here she would find 8 constructive outlet for here ener- gies, meaning to living.
 She had been sheltered, too carefully, by indulgent parents who had sought to protect her from harsh reality. They had never taken an interest in the mills. Their life, and hers, had been luxuriously idle. Now, alone, she would have to rebuild her life from foundations shattered by the thunder of war over Europe.
 Penny felt as if she were riding in a fabulously rosy toy balloon. How different, she reflected from her last long ride through France. There, too, the skies were red. Death and destruction rode in the clouds that awful day.
 Penny shuddered, remembering that wild ride from her villa to the safe haven of port from which she could embark for the United States. She had been crowd- ed into an army car maneuvered by 8 sullen poilu in uniform. Her companions were a diplomats heavy set wife and trench-coated cor- respondent.
 The diplomats wife tainted reg ulariy every five minutes. The newspaperman betrayed his shaki- ness by smoking 8 maddeningly endless chain fcigarets. All about them were havoc, destruction, mis- cry.
 Penny had never realized how much the simple initials 'U. s. A." could mean. Not until she had croseed the dangeruos Atlantic in a blackened refugee ship. Not un- til she stood on deck and wept unashamedly, with all the rest of the passengers, at sight of the Statue of Liberty.
 That trip had done something to Penny's point of view. Having Pierre create a new coiffure for her every week didn't seem so important. He would have called the way her naturally beautiful tresses now lay loosely on her shoulders "ter-r-r-ible!"
 Her blue eyes had once ex- pressed a carefully affected bore dom, a coolnesS and hauteur. Aboard ship she had discovered they could inspire confidence and warmth in frightened fellow pas sengers.
 What good were formal evening gowns and a wardrobe that in- cluded the finest of Paris crea- tions when a trench coat provided so much protection against the sea- sprayed winds? Sophisticated con- versation meant nothing to young sters who had passed through ner-e shattering experiences. Mother Goose stories made them happy.
 So Penny learned to smile and to laugh. Her quiet thumbs up" inspired new courage in others, even when she shared their dread of what the next few minutes might bring.
 In New York, Penny had gone to only one cocktail party. It was no good. Che couldn't help con- trasting the false, forced gaiety of her placid friends with the natural laughter of the ship-board chil- dren who were so sincere in their
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