Gertie had a country-bred horror of holey stockings. She darned
the hole, yawning, her aching feet pressed against the smooth, cool
leg of the iron bed. That done, she had had the colossal courage
to wash her face, slap cold cream on it, and push back the cuticle
around her nails.
Seated huddled on the side of her thin little iron bed, Gertie
was brushing her hair bravely, counting the strokes somewhere in
her sub-conscious mind and thinking busily all the while of
something else. Her brush rose, fell, swept downward, rose, fell,
rhythmically.
"Ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety -- Oh, darn
it! What's the use!" cried Gertie, and hurled the brush across the
room with a crack.
She sat looking after it with wide, staring eyes until the
brush blurred in with the faded red roses on the carpet. When she
found it doing that she got up, wadded her hair viciously into a
hard bun in the back instead of braiding it carefully as usual,
crossed the room (it wasn't much of a trip), picked up the brush,
and stood looking down at it, her under lip caught between her
teeth. That is the humiliating part of losing your temper and
throwing things. You have to come down to picking them up, anyway.
Her lip still held prisoner, Gertie tossed the brush on the
bureau, fastened her nightgown at the throat with a safety pin,
turned out the gas and crawled into bed.
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