Seed on the Wind

She thought of him through the next day as she sat at the switchboard, yawning and wishing the buzzers would sound often enough to keep her awake. She had decided the first week that this job was far too monotonous, but there seemed to be no alternative. At least it was better than the piano lessons, which she had given up after a brief month’s trial. That had been late in November, and for a few weeks thereafter, until the time came for her and Cecelia to go home for Christmas, she had done nothing but loaf. At home she had not mentioned the abandonment of the lessons, and Cecelia had been sworn to secrecy. Returning to Chicago the third day of the new year, and letting it be known through Cecelia and Mrs. Ranley that she was seeking an occupation, she had been invited by Mr. Graham — timidly, by way of Mrs. Ranley again — to join the staff of the most sanitary candy factory east of the Mississippi. When she found that joining the staff, translated into concrete and specific terms, meant sitting on a stool nine hours a day connecting Mr. Warton with Miss Goff, or getting Michigan 3208 extension 41 for Mr. Graham, she felt mildly that she had been cheated; but after all she was only nineteen, totally without training or experience, and it was a clean agreeable quiet place to work, if only Miss Goff would quit sneezing her glasses off her thin sharp nose.

Each week, promptly on Tuesday morning, she received a check from her father, and each time she removed it from the envelope she felt guilty and uneasy; this was her first major deception. But she could not bring herself to tell him that the piano lessons were no more — not that she was afraid of him exactly, she had pretty well shown that she had a mind of her own — it was merely that she felt it undesirable and impolitic to reopen a painful question. Thus it was impossible to inform him that the remittance need no longer include the sum required for Mr. Burchellini’s fee; so each week after the check was cashed she carefully put away a twenty-dollar bill at the bottom of the drawer where she kept her handkerchiefs and stockings. Some day she could return it to him; that would be a pleasant surprise, she thought, and nothing to turn up his nose at, either; it was amazing how fast it piled up.

Joining the staff at the candy factory had somewhat disarranged the domestic scene. Whereas Lora now had to arise at seven and therefore needed to be in bed by ten-thirty or eleven, Cecelia did not have to appear at the School of Design before noon and could stay in bed till eleven if she wanted to. This had its drawbacks; they could no longer have pleasant leisurely breakfasts together by the sunny south window, talking over new acquaintances, mimicking Mrs. Ranley, recalling personalities and episodes and scandals from home, laughing at nothing and at each other. Lora missed this; so did Cecelia, who declared it was idiotic for Lora to waste her time sitting at a silly switchboard, actually getting up at seven o’clock six days a week for that; if she was really convinced she couldn’t do the piano — though for her part Cecelia thought she played very well indeed, take the Melody in F, for instance — she should try design, or modelling perhaps, if not sculpture then at least pottery — something worthwhile and creative. Unquestionably Lora had talent, she said — look at the decorations she had made for the high school pageant — everyone had been charmed by them. Which reminded her, why not try the stage? That was interesting and exciting and offered splendid opportunities for self-expression; she would like to take a go at it herself if she weren’t so buried in her career as an artist. Not that actresses weren’t artists too in a way...

Lora smiled and said nothing; her disagreement with this analysis was expressed only tacitly, in action. There were other disagreements — as to whether both windows should be left open on winter nights, for example — in which she was more vocal; but that and all others were friendly and without acrimony. The first that really produced heat was started by Cecelia’s objections to Pete Halliday.