Part 18 (2/2)
In two or three instances her intent black eyes and manner seemed to attract attention and arrest the steps of those who had no intention of stopping. One case was so marked that the alert foreman drew near to note the result. An elderly lady, whose eye Belle had apparently caught by a look of such vivacity and interest that the woman almost felt that she had been spoken to, came to the girl, saying, ”Well, my child, what have you that is pretty to-day?”
”Just what will please you, madam.”
”YOU please me, whether your ribbons will or not. It's pleasant for a customer to be looked at as if she were not a nuisance,” she added significantly, and in a tone that Belle's companions, with their cold, impa.s.sive faces, could not fail to hear. ”You may pick out something nice for one of my little granddaughters.”
Dimpling with smiles and pleasure, Belle obeyed. Feeling that the eye of the arbiter of their fates was upon them, the young women near might have been statues in their rigid att.i.tudes. Only the hot blood mounting to their faces betrayed their anger. There was evidently something wrong at the ribbon counter--something repressed, a smouldering and increasing indignation, a suggestion of rebellion.
So the foreman evidently thought, from his frequent appearances; so the floor-walker clearly surmised, for with imperious glances and words he held each one sternly to her duty. Belle was smiling and working in the midst of a gathering storm, and she was becoming conscious of it. So far from cowering, her indignation was fast rising, and there was an ominous glow kindling in her dark eyes.
Their seemingly unwarranted hostility and jealousy were beginning to incense her. She believed she had as much right there as they had, and she resolved to maintain her right. Catching an ireful glance from the girl in charge of the counter, she returned it with interest. Even this spark came very near kindling the repressed fires into an open flame, regardless of consequences. The bread of these girls was at stake, but women are not calculating when their feelings are deeply disturbed.
At last, just as the wretched afternoon was ending, and preparations to close were in progress, a pale, thin girl, with a strange and rather reckless look, came in, and, sitting down before Belle, fixed her gaunt eyes upon her.
”So you were heartless enough to take my place away from me?” she said slowly, after a moment.
”I don't know what you mean,” answered Belle indignantly.
”Yes, you do know what she means, you little black snake in the gra.s.s,” whispered one of the girls in her ear while pretending to put a box upon the shelf.
Belle whirled upon her with such a vivid and instantaneous flash of anger that the girl stepped back precipitately and dropped the box.
Just at this moment Mr. Schriven, in the act of departure, came out of his office and witnessed the whole scene. He stopped and smiled broadly. The foreman had informed him from time to time of the little ”comedy” progressing at the ribbon counter, and the two potentates felt quite indebted to Belle for a sensation in the dullest of dull seasons, especially at the girl's conduct was wholly in the line of their wishes, regulations, and interests. ”She's as plucky as a terrier,” the echo of his chief had said, ”and the time will come when she'll sell more goods than any two girls in the store. You made a ten-strike in effecting that exchange.”
It was rich sport for them to see her fiery spirit arousing and yet defying the intense and ill-concealed hostility of her companions--a hostility, too, that was extending beyond the ribbon counter, and had been manifesting itself by whispering, significant nods, and black looks toward the poor child all the afternoon; but so far from shrinking before this concentration of ill-will Belle had only grown more indignant, more openly resentful, and unable to maintain her resolute and tantalizing serenity.
Feeling that it would compromise his dignity and authority even to appear to notice what was going forward, Mr. Schriven wrapped himself in his greatness and pa.s.sed down the shop, sweeping the excited group--that was restrained for the moment by his presence--with a cold, nonchalant glance, from which, however, nothing escaped. When in the street his characteristic smile reappeared.
”By the Lord Harry!” he muttered, ”if she isn't the gamiest bit of flesh and blood that I've seen in a long time! She's worth looking after.”
Since his eye and restraining presence, however, were now absent from the store, there would have been no small tumult at the ribbon counter had not Belle by her straight-forward, fearless manner brought things to a speedy issue. There were now no customers in the shop, and the discipline of the day was practically over, therefore the girl on whom Belle had turned so pa.s.sionately, having reached a safe distance, said, outspokenly, ”I'll say it now, so all can hear, even if I lose my place for it. You are a mean, p'ismis little black snake in the gra.s.s. We all know how you got this girl out of the place she's had for years, and I want you to understand that if you stay you'll have a hot time of it.”
”And I want you to understand that if I've a right to stay, I WILL stay,” cried Belle, in a ringing voice. ”I'm not afraid of you, nor a thousand like you. Either you're all cats to treat a young girl as you've treated me the last two days, or else there's something that I don't understand. But I' m going to understand it here and now. You hold your tongue, and let this girl speak who says I've taken her place. She's the one I'm to deal with. But first let me say how I got this place--I asked for it. That's the whole story, and I didn't know I was taking it from any one else.”
Belle's courageous and truth-stamped manner began to create a diversion in her favor, and all near listened with her to what the dismissed girl might say. The latter did not in the least respond to Belle's energy, but after a long, weary sigh she began, without raising her head from her hand as she sat leaning on the counter, ”Whether you're right or wrong, I'm too badly used up to quarrel with you or to answer in any such gunpowdery fas.h.i.+on. I'm dead beat, but I thought I'd like to come in and see you all once more, and my old place, and who was standing in it. You are at the beginning, my pert one. If I was as young and strong as you I wouldn't come and stand here.”
”How is your mother?” asked the girl in charge of the counter.
”She's dying, starving,” was the reply, in the same dreary, apathetic tone, and black looks were again directed toward Belle.
She heeded them not, however. For a moment her eyes dilated with horror, then she sprang to the girl, and taking her hands exclaimed, ”Good G.o.d! What do you mean? Let me go home with you.”
The girl looked at her steadfastly, and then said, ”Yes, come home with me. That's the best way to understand it all.”
”We'll bring your mother something by and by,” said two or three of the girls as the poor creature rose slowly to follow Belle, who was ready instantly, and whose course compelled a suspension of judgment on the part of those even the most prejudiced against her.
CHAPTER XVIII
”I BELIEVE IN YOU”
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