en he said to me,
'Sally Heffer, go to hell!' He was the first man to say such a thing to
my face. Well, one of the girls found me in the hall drying my eyes, and
when she got the facts she went back and told the others, and the bunch
walked out, leaving this message: 'Mr. Plump, we won't come back till
you apologize to Sally.' Well, we were out a week, and what do you
think?" Sally laughed with quiet joy. "Plump took it to the
Manufacturers Association, and they--backed him? Not a bit! _Made him
apologize_!"

Joe chuckled.

"Great! Great!"

"Oh, I'm doing things all the time," said Sally. "Organized the Jewish
hat-trimmers in Newark, and all my friends went back on me for sticking
up for the Jews. Did I care? Ten years ago every time the men got a
raise through their union, the girls had their salaries cut. Different
now. We've enough sense to give the easy jobs to the old ladies--and
there's lots of old ones trimming hats."

"What's trimming hats?"

Sally plucked up Joe's gray hat, and then looked at Joe, her eyes
twinkling.

"It's a little hard to show you on this. But see the sweat-band? It has
a lot of needle holes in it, and the trimmer has to stitch through those
holes and then sew the band on to the hat, and all the odds and ends. It
kills eyes. What do you think?" she went on. "The girls used to drink
beer--bosses let 'em do it to keep them stimulated--and it's ruined
lots. I stopped that."

Joe looked at Sally. And he had a wild impulse then, a crazy thought.

"How much do you get a week?"

"Fifteen."

"Well," said Joe, "I want a woman's department in the paper. Will you
handle it for fifteen a week?"

"But you don't know me!"

"Well," said Joe, "I'm willing to gamble on you."

Sally's low voice loosed exultation.

"You're a wonder, Mr. Blaine. I'll _do it_! But we're both plumb crazy."

"I know it," said Joe, "and I like it!"

They shook hands.

"Come over to-morrow and meet my mother!" He gave her the address.

"Good-by," she said. "And let me tell you, I'm simply primed for woman
stuff. It is the women"--she repeated the phrase slowly--"it is the
women, as you'll find, who bear the burden of the world! Good-by!"

"Good-by!"

He went down into the open air exulting.

He could not overcome his astonishment. She was so different than he had
anticipated, so much more human and simple; so much more easy to fit
into the every-day shake-up of life, and full of that divine allowance
fo