Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 295, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1915 — Getting Ready [ARTICLE]

Getting Ready

"There!" exclaimed the little stenographer, taking her watch from her belt and setting it in front of her. “I’m going to hold my breath till it’s 5 o'clock and then I'm going to run! I've always felt above watching the dock, but I’m beginning to understand a few things! Besides, I've had a horrible time today trying to get ready for the Fourth." The bookkeeper slid his ledgers back on the shelf. "Now what's the matter?" he asked, with an exaggerated air of resignation. “Oh, Fm tired to a frazzle and as cross as two sticks!" The little stenographer exploded. “Well, don’t take it out on me!" objected the bookkeeper, amiably. “What has happened, anyway?" “Everything!" returned the little stenographer dramatically. “I’ve been turned into a housekeeper, general utility man—anything but the stenographer I thought I was, the stenographer trying to get things shipshape In preparation for the holiday. “This morning I had to devote two solid hours to checking up his club bills for Mr. Gray! And my flies a mile behind, waiting for a clear minute! If those men don't hear my typewriting machine rattle they think I've nothing to do! And they bother around for an hour, to think up something to help me pass the time. Mr. Gray smiled generously when he handed me his bills as if he were giving me the time of my life by permitting me to see how he spends his money—and incidentally keep his personal accounts for him!

“When I finished that, Mr. Nicholas called me in and said his wife had asked him if I wouldn’t be so kind as to write out her club programs for the whole of next year! The club was about to adjourn until fall, and it was saving money by doing its own programs instead of having them printed. Mr. Nicholas beamed on me as if he were conferring an honor upon me that could never be estimated in letting me get so close to his wife’s club as to spend a few hours writing out the club programs! Then she’ll feel so righteous when spending on charity the money I’ve saved for her, when the fifll credit —well, it belongs elsewhere, if I do say it myself! “Just when I was working as hard as I could to get that finished, so that I could get started on that awful filing, who should come out and look over my shoulder I ut Mr. Brown himself! I could tell that he thought that I was presuming a good deal in writing something that was not business letters, so I hastened to explain what It was I was doing. That gave him an idea and he went back into his office and returned presently with his silk gloves. “ *Won*t you, please, when you have a little time, just catch these threads together?* he asked. And he showed me fingers of his gloves that were almost entirely gone at the tips! ‘Cateh them together!’ Why, I had positively to crochet new tips on them! And I didn’t dare do anything but my very carefulest work for him.

"That’s the way it’s been all day long! Mr. Gray asked me to pack his suitcase —from that drawer yhere he keeps shirts and - collars, you know — for he had to go out of town for the Fourth. And while I was at it that Mr. Vandewater had a bright idea. He suggested that I phone a reservation for him —and then run down and get it! And —oh, well, what’s the use? I’m going home!” She half arose from her chair. As she did so Mr. Brown emerged hastily from his office. "Here,” he said, "I’ve got to run for my train. Will you shut my desk and close the window and sign the letters I left there?" The little stenographer nodded and said no word. "And," called the bookkeeper, as he poked his head back through the door as he was leaving, “don’t forget to put the cat out and wind the clock.”