From
The Jaws
The “spell” came upon me
when I was head draughtsman for a large corporation way down East. I was on the
verge of bachelordom at the time, and had never been in love. The chief trouble
with lot of young men is that they have too much money in their pockets and too
much time on their hands outside of business hours.
Next to my room was the
weaving department, with its clatter of a hundred looms. My duties as inventor
and designer obliged me to visit the weaving room frequently, where naturally I
made many business acquaintances. One morning – I could give you the year, the
month, the day and the hour – I found a dainty bit of humanity among that
motley throng of operatives which caused me to nearly stumble, and to make me
uncertain of my errand. No words of mine can picture her. There are but few
faces in the world that will set a man a-tremble at first sight. Mailie Ross
had such a face. Fresh from the fragrance of some outlying district, where
nature had lent her some of her own soft charms, she had come. And I, Manville
Mason, the cold and cynical, quailed under the glow of her wonderful eyes.
I was not long in making her
acquaintance. In fact it pained me to find that I could make it so quickly.
Then vanity stepped in and soothed my misgivings. Already in my swift
imagination I had a snug little home in Highland Park with Mailie the sunshine
of it all. She talked intelligently, and we attended the theatre regularly, and
life was a merry song. We kept our affair as secretly as possible from the mill
people so as to save annoyance at the hands of unfeeling ones.
One morning a month later –
here gain I could give you the exact day and hour – the foreman of the weaving
room strolled up to my table for moment’s
chat. He was the queerest combination of good-hardheartedness and unadulterated
cussedness it has been my lot to meet. But to the story. Our conversation
drifted from the machines to the operators.
“I’ve got to let one of them
go Saturday night,” remarked the foreman.
“Which one?” I asked mechanically.
“The doll.”
“The ‘doll’? That’s new to
me,” I replied.
“Why, don’t you know her?
The pretty one? The girls call her the ‘doll’.”
“What number?” I asked.
“Eighty-four.”
“Mailie Ross?”
“That’s the one.”
“What has she done?”
“Nothing, that’s the
trouble,” grinned the foreman. “She’s the laziest girl in the bunch. And swear!
She curses like an old sailor. She’s no earthly use here. They’ve got hold of
it in the office and she’s got to go. If I don’t run her out the girls swear
they will. Pretty face, but a d– bad disposition.”
“Haley,” said I, smothering my
agitation as best I could, “are you sure about this?”
“Sure? Why everybody knows
it. Didn’t you hear about the spool rocket?”
“No,” I replied, steeling
myself for further agony.
“Why yesterday she threw one
of those big spools t number ‘eighty-one’ which if it had struck her squarely
would have knocked her brains out. As it was she had to go home.”
Inwardly I groaned. The
foreman was called away, and the lines on my drawing paper became wriggly, like
strings that vibrate. A pain pressed my head and I longed for air. Fortunately
I had not become engaged to Mailie, but had intended to do so that very night.
Such a woman for a wife? No. My soul shuddered at the thought. I staggered to
the office, pleaded illness and secured my vacation two months in advance. And I
had intended Mailie should go with me!
The train appeared to crawl,
so anxious was I to get home and throw my feverish being under the tender
influence of a wise and saintly mother. When I returned the “spell” had
disappeared.
July 20, 1900
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