PAGE 2
Home Girl
by
The Calhoun girl, polishing the great black eyes of a pair of field glasses, would look up brightly to say, “Well, how’s the Invention coming on?” Then he would tell her.
The Invention had to do with spectacles. Not only that, if you are a wearer of spectacles of any kind, it has to do with you. For now, twelve years later, you could not well do without it. The little contraption that keeps the side-piece from biting into your ears–that’s Raymond’s.
Knowing, as we do, that Raymond’s wife is named Cora we know that the Calhoun girl of the fresh clear skin, the tailored white shirtwaists, and the friendly interest in the Invention, lost out. The reason for that was Raymond’s youth, and Raymond’s vanity, and Raymond’s unsophistication, together with Lucy Calhoun’s own honesty and efficiency. These last qualities would handicap any girl in love, no matter how clear her skin or white her shirtwaist.
Of course, when Raymond talked to her about the Invention she should have looked adoringly into his eyes and said, “How perfectly wonderful! I don’t see how you think of such things.”
What she said, after studying its detail thoughtfully for a moment, was: “Yeh, but look. If this little tiny wire had a spring underneath–just a little bit of spring–it’d take all the pressure off when you wear a hat. Now women’s hats are worn so much lower over their ears, d’you see? That’d keep it from pressing. Men’s hats, too, for that matter.”
She was right. Grudgingly, slowly, he admitted it. Not only that, he carried out her idea and perfected the spectacle contrivance as you know it to-day. Without her suggestion it would have had a serious flaw. He knew he ought to be grateful. He told himself that he was grateful. But in reality he was resentful. She was a smart girl, but–well–a fella didn’t feel comfortable going with a girl that knew more than he did. He took her to the theatre–it was before the motion picture had attained its present-day virulence. She enjoyed it. So did he. Perhaps they might have repeated the little festivity and the white shirtwaist might have triumphed in the end. But that same week Raymond met Cora.
Though he had come to Chicago from Michigan almost a year before, he knew few people. The Erwin H. Nagel Company kept him busy by day. The Invention occupied him at night. He read, too, books on optometry. Don’t think that he was a Rollo. He wasn’t. But he was naturally somewhat shy, and further handicapped by an unusually tall lean frame which he handled awkwardly. If you had a good look at his eyes you forgot his shyness, his leanness, his awkwardness, his height. They were the keynote of his gentle, studious, kindly, humorous nature. But Chicago, Illinois, is too busy looking to see anything. Eyes are something you see with, not into.
Two of the boys at Nagel’s had an engagement for the evening with two girls who were friends. On the afternoon of that day one of the boys went home at four with a well-developed case of grippe. The other approached Raymond with his plea.
“Say, Atwater, help me out, will you? I can’t reach my girl because she’s downtown somewheres for the afternoon with Cora. That’s her girl friend. And me and Harvey was to meet ’em for dinner, see? And a show. I’m in a hole. Help me out, will you? Go along and fuss Cora. She’s a nice girl. Pretty, too, Cora is. Will you, Ray? Huh?”
Ray went. By nine-thirty that evening he had told Cora about the Invention. And Cora had turned sidewise in her seat next to him at the theatre and had looked up at him adoringly, awe-struck. “Why, how perfectly wonderful! I don’t see how you think of such things.”
“Oh, that’s nothing. I got a lot of ideas. Things I’m going to work out. Say, I won’t always be plugging down at Nagel’s, believe me. I got a lot of ideas.”