Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 162, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1916 — ANNE’S FELLOW-BOARDER [ARTICLE]

ANNE’S FELLOW-BOARDER

By CATHERINE CRANMER.

Anne sat before her dressing table and surveyed the satisfactory, result of her latest attempt at millinery. The tiny rose-colored toque with its wreath, of shaded pink roses emphasized the corresponding tints in her smooth skin an(L carmine lips, and made her dark eyes look darker still. But as she looked the color paled on her rounded cheeks, her pretty mouth quivefed into wistfulness and her big eyes looked plaintively into their counterparts in the little oval mirror. “What’s the use of it all, Anne Murray?’’ she asked her reflection. “Here you are> four and twenty, with a peaches-and-cream complexion, a pretty hat and a decent suit, but who really cares whether you are thus or whether you are four times twenty, with a wrinkled skin and a bonnet and shawl?” Indulging in thoughts like these had brought Anne to a more or less pessimistic viewpoint of life in general. The next morning, as she went to her desk in the offices of a big corporation, she felt little interest or ambition in her work. She had hardly time to. put her purse in its accustomed place in her desk and to open the typewriter shaft before an office boy came briskly up. “The big boss wants you in the stock-room,” said the boy, ‘‘an’ he says to bring your notebook. There’s somethin’ doin’ around here, but so far I can’t quite catch the drift.” Anne hastened away to comply with the unusual demand. She found her employer engaged in a conference with the manager of the stock department, and she was instructed to make notes of the questions asked and the suggestions made by each mail. Later they went to other department managers, and by luncheon timt» they had made the rounds of the various departments, and Anne’s notebook held enough work to keep her steadily busy all the afternoon. To complete the task, she remained a quarter of an hour later than usual, and as she left the building some thoughtless boys who were also late in leaving gave the revolving door a big push Just as she entered it, and its suddenly acquired speed and force almost hurled her out against a man who had preceded the boys and who stood lighting a cigarette while a newsboy stuck an evening paper into hls hand. As the man recognized Anne, he tossed the cigarette aside, raised hls hat and asked whether the thoughtless boys had caused her any injury. "Not at all, thank you, Mr. Mills,’” responded Anne, as she recognized the manager of the credit department, whom she had met for the first time that morning. A few moments later on the street car she found herself standing crowded close to Mr. Mills. “Mr. Granby’s little quiz this morning was a part of his ‘get-acquainted” scheme, I suppose,” began Mr. Mills, but seeing Anne’s puzzled look, he added: “At a meeting of all the department managers the other day Mr. Granby told us that the lack of general fellow-feeling among the workers and the employers was becoming a serious defect in this company’s management, and he purposed to try to bring about a better understanding all around. I supposed you were ‘in’ on the little plan.” “Oh. no,” Anne shrugged as she spoke, “stenographers, especially when they happen to be girls, are expected to be just automatons, without desire or capacity for Initiative thinking or acting any more than any other office fixture. So, after awhile, one feels an utter misfit in any sort of human relationships.”

“Oh, come now,” laughed Mr. Mills, “you’re in the very frame of mind that I was before Mr. Granby gave us that corking good talk the other day, but I got to thinking that perhaps my own mental attitude had more to do with my difficulties than anything else, and so I sat down for one whole evening and Ipoked myself in the face, as it were, and sized myself up, with the result that Pve determined to get right with myself and others Just aa soon as possible.” Mr. Mills ushered Anne into a seat that had become vacated, and seated himself beside her, continuing his part of the conversation. “I’ve decided that indifference breeds indifference, and I'm going to start out and try to find all that’s praiseworthy and interesting in the plain, everyday men and women I meet. As a step in that direction, I’ve given up expensive apartments in a bachelor establishment, and am going back to one modest room in a first-rate boarding house managed by a capable, motherly woman.” “Well,” said Anne, with a long sigh, “you’ve given me just the thought I needed to turn my mind from the pessimism I was falling into.” Mr. Mills reached for the hell. Just as Anne finished speaking, and somehow both of them felt embarrassed, when it developed that they left the car at the same place. "We must be neighbors,” said Mr. Mills, as he escorted Anne from the car step to the curb. “I’ve taken a room at Mrs. Elmore’s. Do you happen to. know her house?” ‘Tve lived there for two years,” said ’Anne. And that is how one man and his wife began their acquaintance. (Conyright. 191#. by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)