Roast Beef, Medium

r, or on a hat. And there is the type indigenous to State Street, Chicago. Each is known by its feathers. The barnyard variety may puzzle the amateur fancier, but there is no m

is adorably, pitifully young. By its carmined lip, its near-smart hat, its babbling of "h

mma McChesney, traveling saleswoman for T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats, was watching the telegraph poles chase each other bac

n town of five thousand inhabitants or over had received its share of Emma McChesney's attention and petticoats. It had been a mystifyingly good season in a bad business year. Even old T. A. himself was almost satisfied. Commiss

f her schedule, whereupo

ar

l place Friday large

tting that she would see her Thursday, and

tract a maximum of enjoyment out of a minimum of material. Emma McChesney's favorite occupation was selling T. A. Bu

dulging in their beloved, but dangerous diversion of dice throwing. Just across the aisle was a woman, with her daughter, Chicago-bound to buy a trousseau. They were typical, wealthy small-town wo

eal fancy waist to for afternoons. You can go

window. "I wonder," she said, "if there'll be a letter

, and ten years ago, when she had got her divorce, Emma McChesney had thanked her God that her boy had not been a girl. Sometimes

smell of smoke and stockyards and found it sweet in her nostrils. An unholy joy seized her. She entered the Biggest Store and made for the millinery department, yielding to an

loor. She knew she would find Mary Cutting there-Mary Cutting, friend, counselor, advise

and wrote names on slips. But at sight o

t for sore eyes. There's nobody in there

You associated her in your mind with black velvet and real lace. She did not lo

tuff, Mary Cutting, and make

three marks on a piece of paper, pushed a call-button at her desk, rose, and hugged Emma McChesney thor

ings in my hotel room, or watching the Maude Byrnes Stock Company playing "Lena Rivers," with the ingenue coming out between the acts in a calico apron and a pink sunbonnet and doing a thing they bill as vaudeville. I'm dying to see a real show-a smart one that hasn't run

ary Cutting, "I don't seem

downtown, and then we'll go to the theater, and after that I'm coming out to that blessed flat of yours and sleep between real sheets. We'll have some sandwiches and beer and other things out of the ice-box, and then we'll have a bathroom bee. We'll let down o

ink cheeks dimpl

ou'll never grow u

pe you never will. Sit there in the corner and be a

things restful, wholesome, comforting. There was a bowl of sweet peas on the desk; there was an Indian sweet grass basket filled with au

lasses, snapped them up on a little spring-chain near

a talking friendship. It was a thing of depth and

what each saw there was beautiful and sightly they were seized with a shyness such as two men feel

Cutting in a tone pregnant with love and devotion. "Your hair looks a littl

I can't afford to let my beauty wane. That complexion of yours makes me mad, Mary. It goes through a course of hard

eplied Mary Cutting. "G

apers and envelopes. When her desk was quite tidy sh

idays. A lot of them are under twenty and, Emma, a working girl, under twenty, in a city like this-Well, a brand new girl was looking for me today. She didn't know the way to my office, and she didn

rth dying for. To think that those girls come to you with their little

on baking day? All the way from our house to Hine's grocery I'd have to keep on saying, over and over: 'Sugar, butter, molasses; sugar, butter, molasses; sugar, butter, molasses.' If I stopped for a minute I'd forget the whole thing. It isn't so different now. Sometimes at night, going home in the car af

ur a silence fell between the two-a sile

er in their haste, came from the tiny clock

r there's another who likes to break store rules about short-sleeved, lace-yoked lingerie waists. And one of the floor managers tells me that a young chap of that callow, semi-objectionable, high-school fraternity, flat-heeled shoe type has been per

, s'long, then, Shrim

down a broad, bright aisle of the store. "Call 'em weas

ep in conversation with her weasel. The weasel's trousers were very tight and English, and his hat was properly wooll

approached them very quietly jus

then, Shrimp. S

g around an

ck held her with awful certainty now. But ten years on the road had taught her self-control, among othe

hand on th

d of schedule, Joc

ock, sullenly, his hands

I was just going over to the hotel

eyes. "I can't," he said, his voice very low. "I've an engagement to tak

ney's face. She eyed her son in silence until hi

ave to break your en

e. Her eyebrows lifted slightly. Her head inclined ever so lit

cken, Mary," she said.

the broad store aisles and out into the street. There was little conversation between them

a woman. No one stops there but clothing salesmen and boobs who

he place for a lady, Jock,"

e said. "Get the key for five-eighteen, will you please? And tell the clerk that I'll want the room adjoi

eld it there a moment, and the skin showed white over the knuckles of her han

hesney, when he returned, "and

McChesney. "Besides, there's no reason w

mother, as though she had not he

way down the old-fashioned, red-carpeted corridors to her room. It was the sort of room to get on its occupant's nerves at any time

in position to enforce that

ere, patting it there. Jock had thrown his hat and coat on the bed. He stood now, leaning against t

have prided myself on being a modern mother, but I want to mention, in passing, that I'm still in a position to enforce that ordinance against pouting." She turned around abruptly. "Jock, tell me, how did you happen to come here a

faded roses in the carpet. Hi

I like to have a little fling myself. I know a lot of fellows he

in it. But somehow, whenever I thought of you in my heart-and that was a great deal of the time it was as though you still were a little tyke in knee-pants, with your cap on the back of your head,

money to keep up appearances. A lot of the fellows in my crowd have more than I. There

o realize. Now don't interrupt me. I'm going to be chairman, speaker, program, and ways-and-means committee of this meeting. Jock, I got my divorce from your father ten years ago. Now, I'm not going to say anything about him. Just this one thing. You're not going to follow in

ecause I happened to come here a few hours before you expec

mother is a working woman, Jock. You don't like that idea, do you? But you don't mind spending the money that the wo

"I'm not out of high school yet. Other fel

iently my son to know it, in your heart. I had planned to give you a college education, if you showed yourself deserving

achines, and motors, and engineering, a

and cabs and flowers. Your mother is working tooth and nail to earn her six thousand, and when you realize just what it means for a woman to battle against men in a man's game, you'll stop being a spender, and become an ear

d the boy, sitting up.

e first three or four days. But it will be worth m

ou and I are going to sleep on this. To-morrow we'll have a real day of it, as I promised. If you wa

up into his mother's face, "I t

slammed a

nd passed a hand over her forehead and across her hair until it rested on the glossy kno

a ring at

sed the room and pi

've had some high-class little theatricals of my own, right here, with me in the roles of leading lady, ingenue, villainess, s

e hollow cackle of the voice at the o

ext door, "I don't know how a hard, dry sob would go through the 'phone, so I won't try to get it over. But, Mary, it's been 'sugar, butter, and molasses' for me for the last ten minutes, and I'm dea