Cabin Fever

Dully she settled down in a cheap, semi-private boarding house to wait.

In a day or two she pulled herself together and went out to look for

work, because she must have money to live on. Go home to her mother

she would not. Nor did she write to her. There, too, her great hurt

had flung some of the blame. If her mother had not interfered and found

fault all the time with Bud, they would be living together now--happy.

It was her mother who had really brought about their separation. Her

mother would nag at her now for going after Bud, would say that she

deserved to lose her baby as a punishment for letting go her pride and

self-respect. No, she certainly did not want to see her mother, or any

one else she had ever known. Bud least of all.

She found work without much trouble, for she was neat and efficient

looking, of the type that seems to belong in a well-ordered office,

behind a typewriter desk near a window where the sun shines in. The

place did not require much concentration--a dentist's office, where her

chief duties consisted of opening the daily budget of circulars, sending

out monthly bills, and telling pained-looking callers that the doctor

was out just then. Her salary just about paid her board, with a dollar

or two left over for headache tablets and a vaudeville show now and

then. She did not need much spending money, for her evenings were spent

mostly in crying over certain small garments and a canton-flannel dog

called "Wooh-wooh."

For three months she stayed, too apathetic to seek a better position.

Then the dentist's creditors became suddenly impatient, and the dentist

could not pay his office rent, much less his office girl. Wherefore

Marie found herself looking for work again, just when spring was opening

all the fruit blossoms and merchants were smilingly telling one another

that business was picking up.

Weinstock-Lubin's big department store gave her desk space in the

mail-order department. Marie's duty it was to open the mail, check up

the orders, and see that enough money was sent, and start the wheels

moving to fill each order--to the satisfaction of the customer if

possible.

At first the work worried her a little. But she became accustomed to

it, and settled into the routine of passing the orders along the proper

channels with as little individual thought given to each one as was

compatible with efficiency. She became acquainted with some of the

girls, and changed to a better boarding house. She still cried over the

wooh-wooh and the little garments, but she did not cry so often, nor did

she buy so many headache tablets. She was learning the futility of grief

and the wisdom of turning her back upon sorrow when she could. The sight

of a two-year-old baby boy would still bring tears to her eyes, and she

could not sit through a picture show that had scenes of children and

happy married couples, but she fought the pain of it as a weakness which

she must overcome. Her Lovin Child was gone; she had given up everything

but the sweet, poignant memory of how pretty he had been and how

endearing.