Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman Part 13

The girls then had a serious business talk. The question of remuneration was satisfactorily settled.

"I wonder, now, if you could write me a reference for his nibs, Chester Hunt. I want to apply for the job of housemaid this very night. It isn't too late, do you think?"

"I'll do it immediately," laughed Alice. "What must I say?"

"That I am honest and willing and capable. I am all those things, I can a.s.sure you. Perhaps you won't think so when you see me get back to normalcy. I must change my make-up if I want a job as house servant. I think I'll be a Swede. Josie Larson will be a good name. I must say I feel better if I'm Josie. I'm always afraid I'll forget to answer as Sally."

Alice Chisholm's eyes danced merrily as she watched Josie O'Gorman make herself ready to apply for a housemaid's position. First the henna wig was pulled off and Josie brushed out her neat sandy braids that had been tightly coiled around her head. She parted her hair in the middle and then pulled it tightly back in a hard knot, carefully disclosing her ears, something no person of any breeding was supposed to do at that time. The knot was placed at exactly the wrong angle, giving a strangely comic look to her profile. The georgette dinner dress was discarded for the tweed suit but the suit was so put on that all semblance of natty cut was lost. The skirt was on slightly askew and pulled up in front and down in the back. The belt to the Norfolk jacket was drawn too tight and the effect was blousy from the rear and what Alice called "a poor white folk's tuck" in the fore. Josie's sailor hat she placed on the back of her head, carefully pulling it down so that one ear was pushed down by the crown. The despised rouge was wiped from her cheeks and artistically applied to her nose--not much, but just a suspicion.

"Splendid! Splendid!" cried Alice. "I don't believe you will need a reference. You would have to be honest to look like that."

The reference was written, however, and signed A. Chisholm. With it tightly clasped in a hand upon which Josie had drawn a large white cotton glove, a finis.h.i.+ng touch to her costume, the would-be housemaid silently crept from the Elberta Inn and, with an extra dull look in her eyes, rang the front door bell at the Waller house.

CHAPTER XII CHESTER HUNT'S NEW MAID

"n.o.body home!" was Josie's disappointed verdict after she had waited a few minutes and there was no response to her ring. She rang again, this time with sharp decision. She heard the opening of a door upstairs and then the lower hall was flooded with light and a sound of quick, light footsteps on the stairs and the front door was jerked open somewhat impatiently. Josie looked stolidly into the handsome countenance of Chester Hunt.

"Well, what is it?" he asked brusquely, taking in with some amus.e.m.e.nt the awkward little figure before him.

"I bane come to work for you."

"Oh! In answer to my ad?"

"Sure!"

"What can you do?"

"Anything with my hands but I bane not much good on head work."

"Can you clean a house and serve a meal?"

"Yah!"

"Perhaps you can cook too!"

"I can cuke some."

"What nationality are you?"

"I bane Luther."

"German?" smiling.

"Naw! I bane Swede," and Josie permitted an expression of disgust to flit over her otherwise blank countenance.

"Well, when can you go to work?"

"How much you bane pay?"

"Of course! How stupid of me! What do you ask?"

"I ask twelve dollar a week for cuking and ten dollar a week for claneuping but I bane get less than I ask. If I do cuking and claneuping both together I ask fifteen dollar a week but I bane come to you and see how you suit me for twelve. I bane a b.u.m at telegraphing."

"You mean telephoning?"

"Yah, telephoning, but I bane willing to learn. Have you bane keeping other help?"

"I try to but they have all left me lately. Would you work with colored people?"

"You bane meaning blacks? I do not love them but if you try me you find I do twice three time as much work as blacks."

"And your name?"

"Miss Josie Larson!"

"All right, Miss Josie Larson, suppose you come in the morning and go to work."

"I bane come tomorrow night and cuke the dinner. I got other business on hand for morning."

"Well, I'm sorry, but I fancy I can get along without you for twelve hours longer. Now, mind you, come in time. I have dinner at seven."

"I bane coming at five. Do you to market go yourself?"

"I'll have provisions in the house ready for you. After tomorrow you will have to do the housekeeping as well as cooking. If I have a friend in to dinner could you serve two of us?"

"Sure! I bane smart enough to serve eight if you have knives and forks to go round."

Josie made a stiff bow and backed awkwardly down the steps. When the door was closed she turned quickly and literally ran back to the Elberta Inn. She got safely to her room without being seen by any of the aristocratic boarders.

Alice Chisholm was waiting for her.

"Well, how about it?"

"Got my job as chief cook and bottle washer with the handsome Chester Hunt and will cook dinner for him tomorrow evening. In the meantime I have some work ahead of me. What I would have done without you, Alice, I do not see. I should have been forced to double-cross my boss, and I'd have hated it. My father always preached being faithful in small things."

The next day was a busy one for Josie as well as Alice Chisholm. Josie must lay in a supply of maid's uniforms, ap.r.o.ns and caps. She must write letters to Mary Louise and her partners of the Higgledy-Piggledy, also a business epistle to her boss of the household necessities and jeweled novelties. A cook book must be purchased of the latest and most approved recipes, Josie having mastered only a few of the simpler dishes, but she had always declared that the keynote to cookery was gumption and with a good recipe and plenty of that ingredient she could master even anything as intricate as angel's food.

"I can make biscuit and coffee and waffles and scrambled eggs and tea and cinnamon toast, too. I know so many ways to please an archvillain," she said to Alice.

"And I know how to make batter bread and jelly roll. I am certainly coming to see you some time and show you my stunts," said Alice.

"Fine but you will have to be a Swede. I didn't ask my new employer about company but I guess he won't object, just so I give him something fit to eat and clean up his house."

Alice Chisholm took over the business of getting canva.s.sers and planning the work with such efficiency that Josie was delighted. "I never could have done it so well. I know the boss will thank his stars that I had to go cook for Chester Hunt and was forced to employ a so-called a.s.sistant."

"I am quite crazy about it," said Alice. "I always loved organizing and bossing and it so happens I am always the one to be organized and directed. Now, my talents have full scope. I am going to canva.s.s some myself and I tell you I am going to show some of these women how to work."