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'THE OSHAWA DAILY TIMES, SATURDAY, JULY 16, 1932 IRISH EYL ' Chapter 1 To her own office desk, adjoin- mg that of Cecilia Moore, came Sheila Carscadden. It was half past five on a dark d heavy winter/day,- Most of the girls had gone home; a few were still lin- gering under the circles of light dropped by green, dangling lamps above their desks. The office was lighted only by these little, bril- liant cases; outside the night was already black. Cecilia was the familiar Irish- American type; small, thin, ea- ger, with. blue eyes and a very white skin, with a curled cap of black hair. Her expression was one of constant suspicious watch- fulness, shrewdness and mirth, She was an expert stenograpger and typist at twenty-one, and knew all about air mail and steamer sailings and special deliv- ery, and most of the firm's busi- ness as well. Cecilia even had a smattering of Spanish, for Marks and Manheim dealt in South Am- erican table exports; such brands as the "Marks of Quality" fruit pastes, avocados, bamanas and cocoanuts, and the "Wedding Feast" pineapple and date spec- ialties. Shelia was younger than her fice neighbor, but she looked than her twenty-one years; ia had been 'going with" s older brother Joe for some years, and the two girls were intimate, Sheila was taller than Cecilia, and broader of build; her white forehead was broad, under her loose dark-red hair; her slender shoulders were broad, even for young untrained | hands were square and boyish. For the rest, Cecilia was more boyish than Shelia, for was flat-built and thin, with ner- vous hands and narrow hips, and Sheila was rounded and generous in line; her white throat flawless, | her breasts high and firm under the shabby office silk, her chin a smooth curve and her whole body vibrant with a sort of warmth and light. + Even the frinze of hair that escaped in a silky film over her forehead, and the little | rebel curls that lay outside of the knot on her neck were un- eonventional, different, human The touch of her square, firm hand was human, as was the lock from her round, eternally prised blue eves. She had the daisy-white skin that goes with blue eyes and reddish hair; her mouth was large, her teeth were large, her voice was unexpectedly large and: vibrant. Altogether she did not fit into an office whose manager lived only to reduce the young women em- ployees to the status of gsmooth- running machines, and to ignore their individual personalities as much as possible. This girl introduced as "Miss Moore's friend," had been there for seven months now, and they had been stormy months. The heads did not understand her. She was the sort of person who is always trying to change things; she had a disturbing way of sug- gesting short-cuts, -of eliminating details, With the greatest sim- plicity and good humor she threatened the firm fortress of inefficiency that had supported the business of Marks and Man- heim for years and years. Sheila Carscadden had entered the of- fice knowing nothing; she knew little now. But she upset every- one; at her innocent questions time - honored customs shrank back into decent shadow. Her expression to-night was rueful, her surprised eyes more surprised than ever, "Call-down?"" Cecilia trying to read her face. Sheila seated herself at her desk, moved a paper, looked at the other girl unsmilingly and shrugged. "Ye good old bounce act," she Stated simply. And suddenly a delightful, broad all-enveloping smile lighted her face. "Don't look like that, Ceel," she said. "Fired!" Cecilia ejaculated, in a whisper. Sheila laughed jovously. 'What do you know about that?" ghe asked. Cecilia's ex- pression remained horrified. "Sheila--he didn't." "I tell you he did." "I don't see," Cecilia com- mented, after a space during 'which they had looked at each "other; "I must say that I dont «ee that it's go funny." © "Well, I think it's Bheila said, with a faint on the pronoun. 4+ "To be fired-" «. "By old Drayton. I don't .tare " the younger girl added, rafter a moment in a reckless " 'woice. + Cecilia saw that she did care, «that she was shocked and humili- a ted. After all, this was no year to be fired. Jobs were scarce. . There were breadlines and um- employment parades downtown. ¢ "What's he say?" : ,. "Drayton?" Sheila was looking into a desk drawer. "My gloves +" she said vaguely. She closed JAhat drawer, opened the one s@hove it. "Oh, here they are!" g8he said. a New purse?" Cecilia asked pot 11.384 asked, funny," accent cted, innocently interested, is purse dnd gloves were brought do the surface of the desk. #5 "Ten cents," Sheila answered, A %ciching Cecilia's face for appro- "al, "Ten cents." "That's all. Rummage Sheila explained briefly. "For. heaven's sake Why, it's marvelous," the older girl ad- miringly observed. "I thought it was mice. I lost my other--Ieft it in the pew Sun- day. You'd think anybody'd be afraid to steal in church." "You would think they'd be afraid," Cecilia agreed with an awed expression in her bright shrewd eyes. They both fell to thinking; Ce- cilia aroused herself with a start. "But go on. What'd Drayton say?" "Oh, a lot of hooey?!" Sheila answered, with an air of indiffer- ence. "Put what'd he say? You know, Sheila," C-cilla added, as the other girl made no immediate re- ply, "you're a hundred times bet- ter than Miss Hodgson, for in- stance, or Miss Grace. What'd he say?" "Oh, he didn't say anything against my wer", He said I took too much upon myself." "But for h-~ven's' sake, could you tale too much yoursolf?" ; "He gaid IT cheonged the young gentlemen's letters." "Who Foster's and Foote's, I suppose?" "And young Sig's," Sheila ad- mitted. with her sudden, irration- al smile. "What's funny about that?" "What I think of young Sig is funny, if he ever knew it,"" Shelia observed. sale," how upon Cecilia | coppery | sfiy- | "You didn't change ters?" "I certainly did." "The vice-president's son," Ce- cilia murmured. | "He could be the | dent's guardian anvel, and if he dictated the way he does, I'd change it. "You should of knew," |and *'it looks like what he done was did under the Impression {that ours of recent date wasn't nothing hut mavhe a blug," Shel- {ia eaunted with scorn. well, you his let- vice-presi- h can change 11 "What made him mad," the other girl said, after a reflective second, '""was that whem you boil | his silly letters down to what they really pme-=, take up | about two 1i . £' the top of the cheet. Fe lo.c-," ¢' a said, warm- they 3 | ing, "to co 'ee out here to - sometimes. | ut here to the of fice 17*2 in the afternoon, when the g "!s are all tired and began dictatinz his silly stuff." "There isn't an office in the world that hasn't got some young man in it doing that," Cecilia Moore observed mildly. "Wait! This is the letter that made the real trouble," Shelia said suddenly, jerking open a shallow central drawer, and tak- ing out her notebook. '""Mere fool you to then." "I didn't know it was going to make him mad." Sheila finzered the pages rap- idly; stopped, eved a few gym- bols with a knitted forehead, and looked up with a shamefaced half-smile. "Here's what he gave me," she said, and she read-aloud: "In reference to yours of the sixtenth ult.; regarding which your wire received, as per my answer today, would say to the effect that the delay in mail- ing caused us no inconvenience whatsoever, and trust it was not troublesome to you as goods were received in time for shipment. By this you will have had my fa- ther's letter confirming mine of the 22nd inst., in which a re-order write It, re that," Cecilia protest- | A Blue-Eyed Irish: Girl Faces the Trials, Temptations and Tribulations of Life in a large City A NEW KATHLEEN NORRIS SERIAL OF THE KIND YOU WILL EN- JOY STARTING IN THE OSHAWA TIMES Faced wtih a life of trials in a large city, Sheila Carscadden and the man she loves found themselves involved in the activities of ruthless gangsters before the final happy ending of the story is reached. Read of how this Irish girl matched h ers and finally won. is enclosed; [ am taking great pleasure in sending you a catalog, as you requested. Confident that you will give this matter your carliest attention, and assuring you that we shall await your re- ply with great interest, we beg to remain--" Sheila stopped short, and look- ed at her companion eloquently. 'I ask you!--' ghe began. "Well, what's the matter with it?" Miss Moore demanded, pati- ently. "They are all like that." "But will you kindly tell me why a boy of twenty-two can "What'd you send?" Cecilia Moore asked, after a pause, For answer Shelia ruffled through some carbon copies that lay in a wire basket on the desk, selected one, and passed it to the other girl for inspection. She watched her attentively, a pen- cil between her lips; Cecilia made short work of the note, which indeed comsisted of but three lines. "Thank you for your wire," she read. "We have re-ordered and are enclosing catalog. Yours truly." She had put on a shabby hat and coat, put them on with that dash and certainty that is typi- cal of the American-born Irish of- fice worker; now both the girls were walking toward the hallway and the elevators, They hed locked their desks, each girl had reached up a hand to extinguish her desk light, The great office was dim and deserted, but there was a faint, trembling green light beyond in Mr. Marks' office, where charwomen were busy. The hallways were clean, emp- er wits against the cruel and crafty law-break- The subway smelled of heat, cement, steam, heavily clothed, unclean bodies, A few passen- gers, angry and vituperauve, struggled out of the train's slil- ing meta] doors as the girls and the home-going crowd pushed 3 Cecilia and Sheila did not expect to be offered seats; they did nut wish to be. Getting home was an equally dull performance, whether one stood or sat, and anyway, the girls would have generously argued "The boys are tired as we are." - "§¥ "HE OSHA"/A TIMES is noted for its bright, readable and in- triguing serial stories, by the most popular of present day authors -- - Here is one just starting, by the {- vorite author of Times' readers. Read the first instalment and com- p'ete the story in succeeding issues of The Times. The next insta'ment will appear on Monday July 18th. wh TAR 2 keep me after stuff like that? Do you know who that letter is going to?" "What does it matter? Nobody ever reads em." "It's going to a drug store up here on Broadway. The custom- er in Rio wanted three jars of some» special lemon cream, and that's the way Sig handles it." "Oh, well, what do you care, as long as you get your salary?" Cecilia demanded. "Well, I think it's the limit. You can see," Shelia brooded, studying her notes, "that we've been wiring and writing for days about it. See where he says here about 'my father's letter, con- firming mine--"' ~ hours dictating | "You didn't have the nerve to cut that letter down to that!" Cecilia ejaculated. "Oh, 1 did!" Shelia answered impatiently. The older girl thoughtfully. "You might know you'd be fired," she observed. "Why, we send out a hundred Jstters a day that aren't as sensiole as that one of Sig's." "I know we do." "You certainly didn't think you could change things, Shelia?" "No," Shelia admitted, with her doubtful look followed by the characteristic wide &mile. "But I just suddenly got mad," she confessed. studied her Carscadden family. With Sheila and Joe both dismissed from i / I we their jobs, calamity had fallen all at once on the | laxation and enjoyment; ty, tiled. A red light glowed, faded; an elevator door clicked open. The two girls stepped in- side. They descended to become in-! stantly a part of the uproar and late-afternoon crowding of the streets, to,be drawm like two liv- ing, vital threads into the great pattern of the city's afternoon story. To both girls this was a commonplace; they felt neither particular interest nor any ap- prehension as they surrendered themselves to the clicking and hammering and jarring machine. Chapter mn The sidewalks were packed; the subway entrances were ed- dies of darkly dressed, hurrying folk, Underfoot, dry snow was blown in hard grains like dirty sugar, Frozen to,the sidewalks were occasional 'sheets and spcts of ice and the dark round discs so thick as to touch each other, that were trodden wads of gum. The air was hard and icy; the girls bent their heads to meet it, They linked arms, pushed resolutely on togethrr, dodging the crowds. In the centre of the street was an arrested river of motor ¢ rs with headlights shining brightly, | From the shabby shops that were jumbled with chocolate bare. magazines, newspapers, buns aud sausages, nuts, close to a hun- dred cheap wares, light beamed out across the dirty pavement. The cars began a plaintive honking and bleating; a police- man's whistle sounded at the cor ner under the roaring shadow of the elevated train, To the un- initiated the sion, the crossing of lights and mingling of pathways would have meant nothing short of pandema- nium and the Kostile steady push of the frozen alr might have meant a sudden inability to move at all and the sudden, sick waim breath of the subway tunnel might have meant suffocation, But Cecilia and Sheila moved through it all rapidly, almost ab- sent-mindedly. It was their na- tive air; it had environed then from babyhood. This was mere- ly a winter evening, an uninter- esting one; Wednesday might. Monday night was apt to be ting- ed with memories of Sunday's re- Fri day evening was definitely antici- patory, Wednesday evening was as nothing, uproar and confu- | At the express station they changed again and stood swaying and rocking above the line cf tabloids and sporting pages; again the train rushed on shriex- ing, stopped abruptly, jarred and was off again, "Hurt you, sister?" a man whose face all but rested on her shoulder asked Cecilia, and Ce cilia answered in a tone almost singing in its refinement. "Not at all." "Immediately, to cover her sudden flush, she spoke to Shella. "Going to tell your mother?" Sheila, as if their conversation in the office had been uninter- rupted, answered tranquilly: "Not right away. She'll me." id § said. "I wish kin love your purse," Cecilia you could have seen the coat 1 could have got for twelve, Twelve, mind you! I'll bet it cost sixty, I had her put it aside for me, It was dark blue, with a sort of rolled collar. It was simply grand)' Sheila said She fell to musing, She hated the word grand, thus misused. "5 --By-- The nun who had taught her English had always corrected that way of employing the word Coats were not grand, movies were not swell, good times were never simply elegant. She mused. "It was certainly a lovely coat," she corrected the phrase in her mind. Instantly she was wearing fh and a small dark-blue hat, ahd a ravishing wisp of nose veil, Could you get blue face veils- You certainly could, : She thought of meeting Peter when thus attired, Peter what? She did not know his last name. She could only think of him as Peter, But there was not an hour of her waking day that she did not remember the laughing face he had brought down from his great height close to her own, his hard brown hand cup- ping her chin, his lips meeting hers for a dizzying, drowning eternity of moonlight and sum- mer night, against a dim back- ground of music from the Casino, --waltz music, and the ceaseless rustle and swish of waves break- ing on the sand. She was still in the dream when Cecilia said suddenly, "Come on!" and it was time to jam their way out through the surge again, and ascend the pack- ed stairs to the icy cold wind and darkness and blowing films of dirty snow on One Hundred and Forty-ninth Street, Both girls were tired from the of'ice day, the assaulting cold wind, and the stupefying, poisonous air of the underground railway. They did not speak as they fought their way about the worst corner of all, and passed the crowded bright bakery and the movie en trance, away from the racket of the elevated train. Then, when they were passing the dark por- tals of the church, Cecilia made a faint inclination of her head toward them, "Want to go in for a minute?" Sheila urged her on. The wind was bad now, and speaking an affort. "I think Mamma'll probably make me come with her to the Mission!" she shouted, and Ce- cilia did. not contest it. They went on for three more blocks, made a last turning, and enter- ed the house that was home for both, and for thirty-eight other families, Above the three chipped brown-stone steps from the dirty street, where garbage cans, news- papers, tins of ashes and bundles of rubbish were all frozen into a permanent fringe on the side- walk, were double doors framing cold, tiled foyer walls lined with bells and mail-boxes. A dimly lighted hallway beyond was com- pletely unfurnished except for worn brown linoleum, and per- haps a dozen shabby baby carri- ages chained to the iron stair- way rails, There were a hun- dred children in the tenement, a third of them not yet old enough to walk, The air within the house was dank and chilly, yet some de- grees warmer than that of the streets. It was thick and fetid with the smells of unaired living quarters defective plumbing, dust human beings, and every sort of cooking and cleaning, Boiling cabbage, stove ashes, coal smoke, hot laundry suds, broiling meat, frying eggs, all united with a thousand other domestic scents to give it color; * drawn like a red thread through the web of odors was that of car- bolic acid. Sounds rang through the place; there was always crying here, always the sizzling of food and the slamming of doors, al- ways the droning of phonograph and radio, always loud voices and the rattle of cutlery and plates, "It's good to get home!" Sheila sald mounting. "Isn't it?' Cecilia agreed. "You think you'll never make it.' "Come up and have dinner re Im | iii Ng KATHLEEN with us, Ceel." ' "I can't, Mamma's alone, An I think it's the anniversary of my aunt's death or something. Auyvay, she was crying at break- ast." Cecilia stopped on the second floor. Sheila mounted on tothe fourth, as high as she could go. Her mother, a stout woman with graying hair, was cooking at the stove when she opened the door. There was no hallway, no foyer; the 'main artery of the house opened straight upon this small kitchen, fully furnished by the gas stove, the sink, the china cabinet, and the table and chairs. Off the kitchen on one side was a tiny bathroom; on the other side a dark bedroom with a double couch and a.single bed in it served as merely a wide pas- sage to the third and last room, where there were a couch, a radio, a phonograph, tapestry cushions, Nottingham lace eure tains, and other evidences testify- ing to its character as the parlor of the suite, Mary Carscadden, now cooking dinner, had, in defiance of all theories of housing, budgeting, and the bearing of young, brought seven children into' the world in these dark rooms and had raised five of them. How it had been done, how she had weathered widowhood, the child ren's illnesses, poverty, cold, ig- norance; from whence their thou- sand meals apiece per annum had come, she knew as little as the mice that hid behind her wood- box, or the dirty doves that came to her sooty fire-escape for crumbs "every morning, Her ane xieties had rarely gone ahead far- ther than the next meal, the next month's twenty-seven and a half dollars for rent, During the war the rent had jumped to forty-two dollars and Joe and Margaret mere children, had gone to work to help. But now the rent was lower than it had ever been and Margaret and the second son, Neely, were both married, and times were differ- ent. The broad. flushed face that was turned with a smile to wel come Sheila had no wrinkles in it, the teeth were still white, "Its a terrible night, {isn't it?" she said, "Awful!" Sheila agreed. Her mother made the tut-tutting sound that was her contribution to every conversation, soon or late. Cheerful and brave, she yet found much in life to deplore. She turned back to the stove. A black-haired young man was buried in a newspaper at the table, Sheila's brother Joe. She addressed him: "Aren't you home early, Joe?" Her mother caught her atten tion by a waving hand, signalled silence, "Leave him be!" her lips said soundlessly. Sheila raised her dark eyebrows. x With no further word, but with an elaborately bewildered expression, she went into the middle room, added her hat and coat to the general congestion' there, and returned to the kit. chen, moving her tired forehead and her silky hair with ten firm- ly pressed fingers. She sank into a chair at the table. Plates, pepper and salt, spoons and forks had been languidly dis tributed here and there; the mother immediately put on a large teapot. Butter appeared, and cream, thick and yellow oc- cupying two-thirds of a crusted and streaked bottle, "Come on, Joe," suddenly, "let's eat. Her sister Angela, seventeen and delicate, came limping in just before they began, and smiled .at Sheila as she slipped into her chair, Angela had been a "pos- thumious' child, according to her mother; she had been born in the very centre of the infantile paralysis panic, war clouds had cathered about her ~ fatherless little downy head. But Angela radiated sweetness, happiness, content, "I've been over at , Mrs, Burke's," she explained to Sheila. "'Expectin' company," the mother added, with deep signifi- cance, and a warning glance at the absorbed Joe. "Already!" Sheila 'exclaimed, pouring tea. "I thought it wasn't until next month. Poor thing--" Joe put aside his paper, was suddenly with them. His face was dark, "Joe," Angela said, pushing his cup toward him, "why don't you try Ragan's again? They liked vou, when you substituted there three years ago." '"Ragan's shut down: I 'was 'round there this afternoon," ' Joe answered, Nobody ever spoke roughly to Angela, but he spoke surlily enough, without looking Sheila said » up. Sheila sent a wide-eyed glance about the circle, nodded; Joe had been fired, eh? Joe--the 'ncomparable one-- "What do you know," she asked "I was fired this afternoon too!" Suddenly she didn't care. Let the skies fall! (Continue this thrilling serial in the Oshawa Daily Times of Monday, July 18.) 4 OTHER GOOD SERIALS WILL FOLLOW THIS ONE