Something about the clear simplicity and uprightness of the firm little figure appealed to Nap Ballou.He used to regard her curiously with a long, hard gaze before which she would grow uncomfortable."Think you'll know me next time you see me?" But there was an uneasy feeling beneath her flip exterior.Not that there was anything of the beautiful, persecuted factory girl and villainous foreman about the situation.Tessie worked at watch****** because it was light, pleasant, and well paid.She could have found another job for the asking.Her money went for shoes and blouses and lingerie and silk stockings.She was forever buying a vivid necktie for her father and dressing up her protesting mother in gay colors that went ill with the drab, wrinkled face."If it wasn't for me, you'd go round looking like one of those Polack women down by the tracks," Tessie would scold."It's a wonder you don't wear a shawl!"That was the Tessie of six months ago, gay, carefree, holding the reins of her life in her own two capable hands.Three nights a week, and Sunday, she saw Chuck Mory.When she went downtown on Saturday night it was frankly to meet Chuck, who was waiting for her on Schroeder's drugstore corner.He knew it, and she knew it.Yet they always went through a little ceremony.She and Cora, turning into Grand from Winnebago Street, would make for the post office.Then down the length of Grand with a leaping glance at Schroeder's corner before they reached it.Yes, there they were, very clean-shaven, clean-shirted, slick- looking.Tessie would have known Chuck's blond head among a thousand.An air of studied hauteur and indifference as they approached the corner.Heads turned the other way.A low whistle from the boys.
"Oh, how do!" "Good evening!"
Both greetings done with careful surprise.Then on down the street.On the way back you took the inside of the walk, and your hauteur was now stony to the point of insult.Schroeder's corner simply did not exist.On as far as Megan's, which you entered and inspected, up one brightly lighted aisle and down the next.At the dress-goods counter there was aneat little stack of pamphlets entitled "In the World of Fashion." You took one and sauntered out leisurely.Down Winnebago Street now, homeward bound, talking animatedly and seemingly unconscious of quick footsteps sounding nearer and nearer.Just past the Burke House, where the residential district began, and where the trees cast their kindly shadows: "Can I see you home?" A hand slipped through her arm; a little tingling thrill.
"Oh, why, how do, Chuck! Hello, Scotty.Sure, if you're going our way."At every turn Chuck left her side and dashed around behind her in order to place himself at her right again, according to the rigid rule of Chippewa etiquette.He took her arm only at street crossings until they reached the tracks, which perilous spot seemed to justify him in retaining his hold throughout the remainder of the stroll.Usually they lost Cora and Scotty without having been conscious of their loss.
Their talk? The girls and boys that each knew; the day's happenings at factory and express office; next Wednesday night's dance up in the Chute; and always the possibility of Chuck's leaving the truck and assuming the managership of the office.
"Don't let this go any further, see? But I heard it straight that old Benke is going to be transferred to Fond du Lac.And if he is, why, I step in, see? Benke's got a girl in Fondy, and he's been pluggin' to get there.Gee, maybe I won't be glad when he does!" A little silence."Will you be glad, Tess?Hm?"Tess felt herself glowing and shivering as the big hand closed more tightly on her arm."Me? Why, sure I'll be pleased to see you get a job that's coming to you by rights, and that'll get you better pay, and all."But she knew what he meant, and he knew she knew.
No more of that now.Chuck--gone.Scotty--gone.All the boys at the watchworks, all the fellows in the neighborhood--gone.At first she hadn't minded.It was exciting.You kidded them at first: "Well, believe me, Chuck, if you shoot the way you play ball, you're a gone goon already.""All you got to do, Scotty, is to stick that face of yours up over the topof the trench and the Germans'll die of fright and save you wasting bullets."There was a great knitting of socks and sweaters and caps.Tessie's big- knuckled, capable fingers made you dizzy, they flew so fast.Chuck was outfitted as for a polar expedition.Tess took half a day off to bid him good-by.They marched down Grand Avenue, that first lot of them, in their everyday suits and hats, with their shiny yellow suitcases and their pasteboard boxes in their hands, sheepish, red-faced, awkward.In their eyes, though, a certain look.And so off for Camp Sherman, their young heads sticking out of the car windows in clusters--black, yellow, brown, red.But for each woman on the depot platform there was just one head.Tessie saw a blurred blond one with a misty halo around it.A great shouting and waving of handkerchiefs:
"Good-by! Good-by! Write, now! Be sure! Mebbe you can get off in a week, for a visit.Good-by! Good----"They were gone.Their voices came back to the crowd on the depot platform-- high, clear young voices; almost like the voices of children, shouting.
Well, you wrote letters--fat, bulging letters--and in turn you received equally plump envelopes with a red emblem in one corner.
You sent boxes of homemade fudge (nut variety) and cookies and the more durable forms of cake.
Then, unaccountably, Chuck was whisked all the way to California.
