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All that day, at the bench, she was the reckless, insolent, audacious Tessie of six months ago. Nap Ballou was always standing over her, pretending to inspect some bit of work or other, his shoulder brushing hers. She laughed up at him so that her face was not more than two inches from his. He flushed, but she did not. She laughed a reckless little laugh.

“Thanks for helping teach me my trade, Mr. Ballou. ‘Course I only been at it over three years now, so I ain’t got the hang of it yet.”

He straightened up slowly, and as he did so he rested a hand on her shoulder for a brief moment. She did not shrug it off.

That night, after supper, Tessie put on her hat and strolled down to Park Avenue. It wasn’t for the walk. Tessie had never been told to exercise systematically for her body’s good, or her mind’s. She went in a spirit of unwholesome brooding curiosity and a bitter resentment. Going to France, was she? Lots of good she’d do there. Better stay home and–and what? Tessie cast about in her mind for a fitting job for Angie. Guess she might’s well go, after all. Nobody’d miss her, unless it was her father, and he didn’t see her but about a third of the time. But in Tessie’s heart was a great envy of this girl who could bridge the hideous waste of ocean that separated her from her man. Bleeding France. Yeh! Joke!

The Hatton place, built and landscaped twenty years before, occupied a square block in solitary grandeur, the show place of Chippewa. In architectural style it was an impartial mixture of Norman castle, French chateau, and Rhenish schloss, with a dash of Coney Island about its facade. It represented Old Man Hatton’s realized dream of landed magnificence.

Tessie, walking slowly past it, and peering through the high iron fence, could not help noting an air of unwonted excitement about the place, usually so aloof, so coldly serene. Automobiles standing out in front. People going up and down. They didn’t look very cheerful. Just as if it mattered whether anything happened to her or not!

Tessie walked around the block and stood a moment, uncertainly. Then she struck off down Grand Avenue and past Donovan’s pool shack. A little group of after-supper idlers stood outside, smoking and gossiping, as she knew there would be. As she turned the corner she saw Nap Ballou among them. She had known that, too. As she passed she looked straight ahead, without bowing. But just past the Burke House he caught up with her. No half-shy “Can I walk home with you?” from Nap Ballou. No. Instead: “Hello, sweetheart!”

“Hello, yourself.”

“Somebody’s looking mighty pretty this evening, all dolled up in pink.”

“Think so?” She tried to be pertly indifferent, but it was good to have someone following, someone walking home with you. What if he was old enough to be her father, with graying hair? Lots of the movie heroes had graying hair at the sides.

They walked for an hour. Tessie left him at the corner. She had once heard her father designate Ballou as “that drunken skunk.” When she entered the sitting room her cheeks held an unwonted pink. Her eyes were brighter than they had been in months. Her mother looked up quickly, peering at her over a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, very much askew.

“Where you been, Tessie?”

“Oh, walkin’.”

“Who with?”

“Cora.”

“Why, she was here, callin’ for you, not more’n an hour ago.”

Tessie, taking off her hat on her way upstairs, met this coolly. “Yeh, I ran into her comin’ back.”

Upstairs, lying fully dressed on her hard little bed, she stared up into the darkness, thinking, her hands limp at her sides. Oh, well, what’s the diff? You had to make the best of it. Everybody makin’ a fuss about the soldiers–feeding ’em, and asking ’em to their houses, and sending ’em things, and giving dances and picnics and parties so they wouldn’t be lonesome. Chuck had told her all about it. The other boys told the same. They could just pick and choose their good times. Tessie’s mind groped about, sensing a certain injustice. How about the girls? She didn’t put it thus squarely. Hers was not a logical mind. Easy enough to paw over the men- folks and get silly over brass buttons and a uniform. She put it that way. She thought of the refrain of a popular song: “What Are You Going to Do to Help the Boys?” Tessie, smiling a crooked little smile up there in the darkness, parodied the words deftly: “What’re you going to do to help the girls?” she demanded. “What’re you going to do—-” She rolled over on one side and buried her head in her arms.