Judge — August 9, 1919 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Bish, yet the neighbors said she was always round. All that she remembered of her father was that he had died when she was only a few weeks old. The Bishes were sorry all that day. Her mother—everyone right here will kindly shed a tear—was a woman. Only a woman, that is all, and yet it is through such noble creatures that life and love are possible. Let us pray. . . . From this disagreeable old half-washed harridan Angie inherited her sex which was, at least so far, female, and a wild old goldfish who looked like William Jennings Bryan in a globular glass globe. But hurry, reader, hurry; don’t stop to ask why! We must get us back to the shop to see our lovely heroine hard at work, the arctic zone of that hairy head wondering how to kindle the ardent temperament of her customers. And especially she marked with indelible attention the pretty plaid Mister with purple spots and a beautiful half-burnt cigar who stood breathing puffs of pepper- mint into her fascinated face. How eagerly, when he picked up a ham- mer, she wondered how that would strike him! And when he turned with a sneer to the chisels and scissors she was in agony lest he should cut her dead. But six-cent cutlery is dull—as dull as our own (surely we may now call her so) Angela Bish. The can-openers would have done far better to give her an opening Her hero only bought a pape of one-ounce tacks to put in hi friend’s dog food, and passed out of Angie’s young life. No, at this epoch, Angela knew as little of flirting as did the Swami Vivekananda, or Carrie Chapman Catt. For in those dull pre-Tango days ladies wore low- necked gowns only in the evening; and, save for mere feet, they had no visible means of support. Men, to virtuous Angela, were just a queer kind of women who wore pants and mustaches and hard hats, who smoked cigars, and, if they saw fit, married one. And yet Angie, pure as was her heart, longed wildly to be wild Every girl does; in fact, if not in fancy. That's why they are called girls We now come to the morning of Angela's first venture. Early was she awakened and cheerily by eight pounds of plaster falling from the ceiling upon her face, neck and suburbs. As usual, the vaudeville team in the room above were practising the shimmy dance and massaging each other with their feet. It always bored Angie, this time more than usual. She yawned, rose and went to work combing the lime powder from her ears and nostrils. “Oh, I’m going to have good luck today!” she exclaimed, as the toothbrush went through the locks of her glossy hair. Poor child! She had found only seven cockroaches in the water pitcher. Tt takes so little to make a young girl happy! An aged egg she fried in a sardine tin, over a candle, j ad- “Wity Hast You Broucut Me Here now, and washed it down with a biked ham and the northeastern half of an English plum pudding with champagne sauce, left over from her frugal little dinner of the night before. For her dessert—only the candle- end; and you know yourself how tasteless candles are, without sugar. Next, after oiling herself all over with butter, she wriggled into her blue sausage skirt, and puton her hat. It looked like a cuspidor, but it wasn’t. Angela never wore them. Then it was that her great moment came. For years and years she had tricd every morning, before the mirror, and every time she had failed. Today something seemed to snap in her—it must have been her conscience strings—and without the slightest effort she discovered that she could say it “Damn!” Sobbing, half with regret, gela knew that her childhood y over. She was free, free!—free to break hearts and” pocketbooks, free to wear long red earrings for- ever and forever—perhaps after- wards; who knows! In the ecstasy of ewomancipation she drank half a bottle of cologne and smoked two whole Chinese punk sticks She was free, fre Joyously she set out for the six-cent store, on the corner of 13th and 25th Streets, West Who would have suspected that, diagonally above that little tum, there beat a heart filled with naughty joy? Back of those black eves were thinks that would hav made Comstock weep. Yes, such sas Angie that morning, if not sucher. And behold, at 11.11 again He appeared where the hard hard- ware counter concealed the south- ern half of our little friend A. Bish. Her hero! The same plaid suit with the same dear spots, the same f-smoked cigar, the same sweet old breath, embalmed in peppermint, as per always. Over the top she cast her eye “Tsay, girly, how much are these? “Can't you read? Everything on this counter is six cents.” “What, everythin “Yes, everything!” — How great dramatic moments of life. A red light flared in his eyes. ‘Then I'll take you!” For a moment, perhaps for only a jiffy, Angie swooned. Love's hour had struck ONE! Then, ring- ing up his six cents, she gave a last look about at these to-be-forgotten scenes of her infancy, and calmly wrapped herself up in brown paper. “Here you are,” she said, firmly knotting the string about her waist. What she meant was, “Here I am!” But he understood. At such moments there is little need for words. One's instinct speaks. In another minute he was outside the store, and Angie, trembling like a kangaroo with the flu, felt her- self being carried down, down, down into the Subway. He caught them simple are the truly comicbooks.com