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Pink Tights And Ginghams
by
She dropped the gingham apron in a circle at her feet, and stepped out of it. She walked over to where her own clothes lay in a gaudy heap.
“Exit the gingham. But it’s been great.” She paused before slipping her skirt over her head. The silence of the other two women seemed to anger her a little.
“I guess you think I’m a bad one, clear through, don’t you? Well, I ain’t. I don’t hurt anybody but myself. Len’s wife–that’s what I call bad.”
“But I don’t think you’re bad clear through,” tried Emma McChesney. “I don’t. That’s why I made that proposition to you. That’s why I want you to get away from all this, and start over again.”
“Me?” laughed Blanche LeHaye. “Me! In a office! With ledgers, and sale bills, and accounts, and all that stuff! Why, girls, I couldn’t hold down a job in a candy factory. I ain’t got any intelligence. I never had. You don’t find women with brains in a burlesque troupe. If they had ’em they wouldn’t be there. Why, we’re the dumbest, most ignorant bunch there is. Most of us are just hired girls, dressed up. That’s why you find the Woman’s Uplift Union having
such a blamed hard time savin’ souls. The souls they try to save know just enough to be wise to the fact that they couldn’t hold down a five-per-week job. Don’t you feel sorry for me. I’m doing the only thing I’m good for.”
Emma McChesney put out her hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I only meant it for–“
“Why, of course,” agreed Blanche LeHaye, heartily. “And you, too.” She turned so that her broad, good-natured smile included Ethel Morrissey. “I’ve had a whale of a time. My fingers are all stained up with new potatoes, and my nails is full of strawberry juice, and I hope it won’t come off for a week. And I want to thank you both. I’d like to stay, but I’m going to hump over to the theater. That Dacre’s got the nerve to swipe the star’s dressing-room if I don’t get my trunks in first.”
They walked with her to the front porch, making talk as they went. Resentment and discomfiture and a sort of admiration all played across the faces of the two women, whose kindness had met with rebuff. At the foot of the steps Blanche LeHaye, prima donna of the Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles turned.
“Oh, say,” she called. “I almost forgot. I want to tell you that if you wait until your caramel is off the stove, and then add your butter, when the stuff’s hot, but not boilin’, it won’t lump so. H’m? Don’t mention it.”