The West Virginian

CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE

"I will confess to you, Margie," said Paula, describing the types found at her first boarding house, "that if you had told me, six months before I would sit at table with the people I have just been telling about, I would have thought you crazy."

Emma, all the while she was telling her story, was gesticulating with her knife and fork and committed other breaches of etiquette.

"And yet I began to see how very interesting were their lives and to realize that perhaps their summing up of our silly hypocrisies and conventional crust was more just than our opinions of their primitive manner."

"I sat at the table until almost everyone had gone, for I was afraid if I went out I would be discussed and labelled as were the others they had been talking about."

I went to my room, took off my clothes, and threw myself on the bed.

"At all once I remembered I had put all but ten dollars of my money in a little jewel bag inside my waist in the morning."

"I got up hastily and looked about the room. It was not there. My money—all I had in the world except ten dollars—was gone."

"For a moment I could not think, and then I remembered at luncheon time I had gone into the rest room of big department store, and, loosing my clothes, dropped down on one of the sofas for a little rest."

"Of course the store closed at 5 o'clock. There was no way of finding out if my money had been found."

I was frantic with fright. Suppose I could not get work the next day!

"My brain refused to contemplate the future, and with a sob I threw myself across the bed."

"I did not realize my door was slightly open."

"Here, here, buck up! buck up!—all is not lost save honor yet!" said in a loud voice, and I raised my eyes to look into the face of the talkative girl at the dinner table.

"My name is Emma," she said, "I could see you was up against it at the supper table, but I didn't think it was as bad as this. What's the matter, kid? Has your sweetheart turned you down? What have you left home and mother for?"

"You don't understand it," I said.

"I'll say I do," she answered. "Come on back up its little fancy tooth brush and hie itself back to the ones that are longing and waiting for thee, pretty one. There is just as much place for thee in this place as there is for those gold monogramed ivory backed brushes on that old broken legged chest of drawers."

"That is just it, Emma," I wailed. "There is no place for me and I have lost all my money and I can't get work and I want to die and—"

"Here, here, kid, one at a time! Begin all over and go slow!"

"Margie, I just had to tell someone, and so I began the whole story and before I got to where my mother died, that girl's arms were about me."

"You poor, lonely, little rabbit, don't you go out your head! I'll help you get a place tomorrow. If I've got canned we'll look for jobs together. Come over in my room and stay all night."

"Margie, I suddenly remembered the conventional note of condolence I had received from my companions at school and never a word since, and in my heart I made a little prayer. 'Oh, God, help me, too, to be just human!'"