Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 May 1910 — CELESTE’S CHANCE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CELESTE’S CHANCE

It was the lamb chops that began It. “Mother simply must have them," Celeste had said, with her crooked little smile, that was half pathos. She counted the money In the small pocketbock, and looked thoughtful. “It means that you and 1 will have soup again, ’Tttla," she decided, "I'll get a bone with a lot of meat on it, anu a choice collection of vegetables, and if It is a cold day It will be all tight, won't lti Letltla tried to respond with enthusiasm, but failed. "We have soup so often!” ahe murniured. Just thca from the next room came a tired voice: “Girls, If you are planning my dinner, I don't want anything but toast and tea." "0 dear, she heard!” and Celeste ■ltd down from the couch and limped to the door. “Mother, deary," she said, "wo shalL be rich to-morrow, when letltla gets paid for her music lessons." The little white lady, propped up gmofifc her pillows, smiled at the slender maiden with the crown of red*gold puffs. "Yes, and then you will buy bints for me. But 1 sha'n't let you." Celeste smiled her qrooked smile, ■ "You are like a bird yourself," she evaried. "If I were Muffles, I should eat you,” and she smoothed the great yellow cat, which lay like a spot of gold on the white cover. “Ah, Muffles"—the little while lady touched the soft head with her thin fingers- I —"he Is fat and lazy, but he loves me— —" “Everybody loves you," said Celeste, “and It’s too had that you have to be eo much alone. But I am so slow about things •” “Yes. my deary,” said her mother, pitifully, for Celeste's crooked smile was not the only crooked thing about her. There was the turned foot that made the little limp. “I wish I could do something besides housework,” Celeste confided, ns she and her sister ate a frugal luncheon of bread and Jelly on the kitchen table “If only I had some of your brilliancy, Tltla, dear." “You have a dozen talents in one." Letltla held her bread delicately In the tips of her long white fingers. She was tall and her hair was golden. Even In her shabby suit of gray she was exceedingly good to look at, and Celeste adored her. "You have a dozen talents,” she repealed, "if only you had a chance to develop them." If she only had a chance! Celeste thought about It as she made her limping way through the frosty streets to the provision shop. There did not seem to he much Chance for a girl with a limp and a crooked smile. If her father had lived, she might have learned to paint; that was the dream of her life-Mo paint as well as Letltla played. But there had been a friend of her mother's to teach Letltla. and no one had offered such an opportunity to Celeste. She sighed as she neared the little shop with the shabby sign, which read; C, Smith. Staple and Fancy Groceries and Meats. Vegetables, Fish and Oysters In Season. C. Smith was a chubby little man. who did not seem to get along very well In the wotjd. People were apt to pass the shop wtth the shabby sign for the more pretentious stores up the street. But Celeste liked him because #f his cheery smile, and because his meats were very fresh and very good. “But he doesn't know how to display bis wares." she thought, as she glanced toward the-little window, where everything was higgledy-piggledy. Her artist's soot revolted at the fly-speckled er»eker'boxe*|, the left-over vegetables, the tipsy signs. _ The lamb chops, however, warn kept ttt a whlfeeflTed refrigerator, and the meat-block and knives and C. Smith's own apron were tut clean as posrlb!**, “1 want another soup bone,” Olesfe stated, and amtted bar crooked smile, *lt probably seems to you that we are living on soup." C. Smith smiled back. “I know it Is i-o he s good soup,*' he remarked ] "Tbs vary sound of tbs vegetables* as

you say them over is different from th# way other people do It. You use red peppers and okra, don’t you?” “Yes. I had ths receipt from my grandomothcr. She called It creole soup. I believe cooking Is my only talent.” “vital 1, my talent Is cutting meat," C. Smith confided, as he wrapped up the parcels. "I don't seen/to succeed much at anything else,, Nobody would come here If It wasn't that I have the best meat. And as It Is, most of my trade Is leaving me—and I don’t see why.” j Celeste sat down on a box to talk. The limping little foot was tired, and she usually rested before she began the long walk home. "Well, maybe you are like me," she said. "I am sixteen, and I haven’t had my chance." “But I am three times sixteen," said C. Smith, thoughtfully, "and I am a man. It seems as if I ought to know how to work up trade." Celeste’s eyes wandered to tfie untidy window. "If you wouldn't mind a suggestion," she said, hesitatingly. "Not a bit,” said C. Smith, briskly, and sat down on another box. “Well, If you would fix up your window ’’ "I know," C. Smith agreed, “what you mean. But I haven't a bit of an Idea about things like that. And there’s mother. She lives over the store, but she has no Ideas, either —not about fixing up—and there you are.” "Maybe If you would Jiißt take out those cracker-boxes and ' put In fresh fruit and vegetables every day,” Celeste suggested. “Maybe it would help," he agreed, with enthusiasm; and Celeste, having rested the limping foot, went home and put on the soup to boll. It was really a very good soup. Lctitla admitted that. "You always manage to give it u distinct ilavor,” she said, as the two girls sat together at the little table, In the halo of soft lamplight. “Even the soup bone tastes like more expensive meat.” Their mother added her commendation when she drunk a cup of 11, strained, and Muffles, feasting on soup meat, expressed Ills feelings in an appreciative “Purr-up!” On the strength of their approbation, Celeste carried a pitcher of the soup the next morning to C. Smith. “I thought you and youi mother might

like It," she said, "and everybody can’t make It.” Smith flushed with pleasure. "You come right up and see mother," he said, so Celeste climbed the stairway haltingly, nnd came Into the bright room above. C. Smith’s mother warmed the soup at once. "Charles will like It for his lunch," she quavered, with a smile that matched C. Smith’s own for (1: eeriness. And presently, when Celeste went down-stairs, the owner of the shojv said to her, "How do you like the window?" Celesto looked at It, somewhat dubiously. The fly-speckled cracker boxes were ■tone, but the fresh fruit and Vegetables were la a Jumbled muss that did not tempt the eye. "It Is better," she said, "hut It Isn't best:" "I know," C. Smith admitted, "but somehow I haven’t the hang of that sort of thing” Celeste lmd an inspiration. "If you will let me come early In the mornlug' she said, “before many people are cn the street, I will fix It for you." "I couldn't trouble you,” he protested. but the look In his eyes said, "I wish you would." "It wouldn't be any trouble,” Celeste Insisted. "I could sit on the boxand direct you. And 1 am under a lot of obligations to you. You always give me more meat on the soup bone than just a dime's worth, nnd yesterday 1 saw' the prices on the okra In other windows, slid you couldn’t possibly have afforded to give me all that you did for a nickel." He flushed at that. "Oh, I wanted lo do it," he said, simply. “1 gueiS a man ha« n right to do as he pleases." "So has u woman," said Celeste, with her crooked smile,"and I’ll be here very early In the morning.” The west day people coming along the vijlnge street stopped.to gaze Into 0. Smith's window. There was nothing there but pumpkins and pineapple;. But the pumpkins were terraced In even rows, and between each pumpkin was placed symmetrically ,n pineapple, and the gold of the pumpkins and the russet and dull green of the pineapples were matched by the tints of the autumn leaves which framed the window. (' Smith sold all the pumpkins and all the pineapples, and the next mornJrijf people again stopped and stared, JO heboid a great block of ice. hollowed *0 hold a quart or more of luscious oysters. , . -A wreath of green hid the shallow pan In which the ICe was placed: ben rood thd# was another wreath of celery, while flanking the whole, boxes of crackers and IxritJes of catsup and *#oc*s suggested tb« appropriate ac"nofwnitnent to such a fpast, C. Smith had a run that day on sea

foods, and the next week the housekeepers flocked to see a triangle of green peppers outlined with a vivid lltie of fed txippers, while behind them was an orderly row of yopng cabbages, each topped by a tomato. A little sign told the housekeepers that now was the time for making pickles, and that a choice receipt for such pickles wpuld go with each order of vegetables. The receipt was written on cards In Celeste’s neat hand, and C. Smith told her radiantly that night that everything was sold. "But I don’t see what you are making out of It,” he said. “I am having the fun,”- said Celeste. "I like, to think of the window work as a study In still life. And 1 like to know that I can attract custom; it gives me n sense of power.” But C. Smith was thinking, and the next day, he made a suggestion. "Look here," he said, "you make some of your creole soup. Lots of my customers would like to have It. I can toll them that you will have it here hot In porcelain palls at twelve o’clock. You ought to earn something that way." And that was the beginning of C. Smith's delicatessen department and ,qf Celeste's success. And when, the day before Thanksgiving, the wonderful window was gorgeous with Its circle of crimson cranberries. Us gold of lemons and oranges, Celeste's masterpiece, a great roast turkey, stuffed with chestnuts and laid on a blue platter, had the place of honor. As the business grew, she hired a helper, and the creole soup, delectable little pots of baked beans and baked ham were served on alternate days. C. Smith took In a bright boy to wait on the customers who thronged the counter. There was no fly-speckled untidiness, and although Celeste was rarely In evidence, her influence was over It all. C. Smith even swung a new sign In the {dace of the shabby one, and prosperity reigned. “And the best of It Is,” said Celeste, as she. made plans for the summer which was to give her mother a trip to the mountains,, "the best of It Is that when wo come back 1 shall study painting." “And then you’ll have your chance," said Letltla. But Celeste smiled. "My chance came," she said, “with the pumpkins and pineapples In C. Smith’s window, and with that first pitcher of grandmother’s creole soup.”—Youth's Companion.

"I HAVEN'T HAD MY CHANCE.”