The day book. [volume], April 09, 1915, LAST EDITION, Image 18

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
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A MISUNDERSTANDING
By Maud Beasley
Lizzie Holt, attheperf umery coun
ter of the Twenty-five and Fifty Cent
store, looked up at Maggie Parsons,
her neighbor behind the toilet arti
cles. 1 "Gee! That's the third time old
.Simmonds has spoken to me this
morning," she remarked.
"He must be getting stuck on you,
lizzie," replied her friend.
Simmonds, the owner of the chain
of stores, was a man between sixty
and seventy years of age. He had a
fringe of white whiskers under his
cjiin, he was not particularly well
groomed or spruce; in shorthe was
not in the least the kind of elderly
gentleman who would attract the af
fections of a pretty girl of twenty.
Lizzie had secured her position the
first day she looked for one. She
had come up from the country, and
when she had saved up the price of a
trousseau a really elegant one
she meant to let George Robbins, at
present employed in their home town
as manager of a little local store, lead
her to the altar.
Simmonds certainly appeared in
terested in lizzie. Before the girl
had been in the store a month he had
already contrived to have her sum
moned to his private ctffice at least a
dozen times.
"How would you like to act as my
stenographer, Miss Holt?" he in
quired upon the last of these occa
sions. "I don't know much about stenog
raphy," admitted lizzie. "But I could
learn, I suppose," she added, thinking
of the increased salary and the 'im
proved, trousseau that would result
therefrom.
"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do,"
said the old man. staring at her in a.
way that brought the blushes to her
cheeks. "Ill pay for you to learn at
jthe night school on the nest block:
1 Then when you are competent, may
be there will be a place for you in
here."
Seventeen comely young women
looked daggers at Lizzie "when she
came out of the office.
"What d'he say to you, Lizzie?" de
manded Maggie resentfully. "Raised
you?"
"Not yet, but soon," said Lizzie,
humming a tune.
The stenography lessons were a
failure. lizzie made no progress at
lLmS 2v2& JMmmr-iA mm
t'" ' ' '-
RS
"He Must Be Getting Stuck on You,
Lizzie."
all. Her vain little head was filled
with the thought of the trousseau,
and the hooka would" turn the wrong
way, and the consonants turn them
selves Into impossible angles. Meari
while Lizzie1 continued at the store.
Simmond's attentions were now tie
talk of everyorie. Lizzie could stand
it no longer.
"If he wants' to take ait interest in,'