Pearlie, sitting alone on the porch
in the dark, listened to these things and blushed furiously.
Pearlie had never strolled into the kindly shadows with a little
beating of the heart, and she had never been surprised with a quick
arm about her and eager lips pressed warmly against her own.
In the daytime Pearlie worked as public stenographer at the
Burke Hotel. She rose at seven in the morning, and rolled for
fifteen minutes, and lay on her back and elevated her heels in the
air, and stood stiff-kneed while she touched the floor with her
finger tips one hundred times, and went without her breakfast. At
the end of each month she usually found that she weighed three
pounds more than she had the month before.
The folks at home never joked with Pearlie about her weight.
Even one's family has some respect for a life sorrow. Whenever
Pearlie asked that inevitable question of the fat woman: "Am I as
fat as she is?" her mother always answered: "You! Well, I should
hope not! You're looking real peaked lately, Pearlie. And your
blue skirt just ripples in the back, it's getting so big for you."
Of such blessed stuff are mothers made.
But if the gods had denied Pearlie all charms of face or form,
they had been decent enough to bestow on her one gift. Pearlie
could cook like an angel; no, better than an angel, for no angel
could be a really clever cook and wear those flowing kimono-like
sleeves.
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