JENNY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2622, 2 October 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

JENNY.

(By Richard Whiteing, Author of “No 5, John Street,” etc.)

“Look alive with the sausage and mashed!” “What about that rasher?’’ “Pint o’ cawfy and three slices!” “Call this a bloater, missus? —know what I call it! Buck up, Jenny, do!” So it went on all through the meal, in the cheap eating-house where Jenny held her court. Jenny was waitress, and drudge of all work, too. She was tho life and soul of the business, and the anaemic proprietor and his burly spouse would finally have starved in the midst of their rude plenty but for h«r. For she not only served the customers, but kept them ill order with rebuke and repartee. She stood up to the “iinperdent fellers,” and made the importunates wait their turn. No man could “take the change” out of Jenny. Her word, and the blow at need, were one and the same thing, for her tongue in the chastisement of insolence or the suppression of foul speech could, cut like a whip.

It was a trade perhaps more depressing in its nature than any other known to civilised man. Humanity is never quite at its best when eating and drinking, and when it eats by a time limit, and yells for its food like a hungry pack, it is seen at it s worst. The associations were repellent to the last degree. The steam rose to the blackened ceiling, alike from the kitchen in the rear and from the hutches in the front shop where the customers perspired at their messes.

The only quiet and self-possessed person in the place was Jenny, and this in spite of the occasional crack of her whip. She had to be so, for all depended on her knowing perfectly what she was about. It was her duty to keep all the reckonings in her head for :ho time of settlement, and to take care that the suspicious-looking customer near the door did not “do a bunk” behind her back before the settlement arrived.

She had a customer of that sort in her eye on the very day oil which we make her acquaintance. A forlornlooking man sat ravenously worrying his bite and sup by the entry; and her business instinct told her that bis glance was never so .intently fixed on the waitress as when her back was turned.

He forgot the mirror at the far end of the shop, so he had hardly gained the street, in the act of evasion, when her hand was at his elbow in a gentle but compelling touch, with her palm extended for her due. A policeman hard by, who happened to have taken stock of the proceeding, straightened and squared himself for action, and seemed only to wait her nod. “Cash, please,” said Jenny, “one small cup, couple 01,o 1, slices—two and a-half.”

The defaulter coughed, turned deathly pale, fumbled in his pockets, then, coughing again, cast a glance on her in which there was all the pleading of hunger and unutterable woe. The policeman looked towards Jenny, and now, in confident expectation of the decisive word, advanced one step nearer to his prey. The word came at last, but it wag a disappointment to the man of law. “All right, sir,” she said to the delinquent. “No small change I see. Next time you are passing. Good-day, brother, an’ God bless yer. Dull day, perliceman; expec’ we shall ’ave rain.” “And God bless you,” said the debtor; and in another moment he was gone. “Silly, I call it,” said the constable; “you’ll never see him no more.” “What about Heaven?” said Jenny, as she hurried back into the shop, where her first care was to transfer from the left hand pocket, in which she kept her slender tips, the sum of tuppence ha’penny to the right hand pocket, where she stored the takings for the day.

The whole scene admits of an extremely simple explanation —Jenny’s membership of the Salvation Army. All through the week she toiled as we have seen, to earn her full day off on Sunday, when she blossomed into the sainthood and glorification that made up for all. In mid-week too, after hours, there was the interlude of the prayermeeting at headquarters, which brought her again in touch with tbe soul of things.

Days passed and there was no sign of the defaulter, but what did Jenny care for that? It was Saturday now, a blessed day in this instance, as the one that came before the Sunday of the ecstasy of perfect fruition. The shop was closed all the day because the factory was closed, and the chance trade of the neighborhood was an item of no account.

Sunday at last and Jenny in full uniform, and early astir for a field day against tho enemy of mankind. He wag to be routed —horse and foot--there was no doubt of that—by the forces under whose banner she marched. The result was always the same,yet still it admitted of the exhilaration of hope, for Jenny might still be spared to witness liis final overthrow in the

decisive encounter that would herald the reign of the saints.

The uniform became her. She seemed transformed in the flesh, as in the spirit, by the trim serge, with its fringes of spotless linen,and by the poke bonnet that framed the pale yet healthy complexion, the ordered masses of hair, and the mellowed fire of the eyes into a picture of exultant bliss. Jenny’s Maker is notoriously no respecter of persons in the bestowal of the supreme gifts of the spirit. A duchess may enjoy them, but the slavey of the coffee house is not shut out.

The policeman happened to .be at hand again as she set forth, and it gave him a welcome opportunity of submitting his claim to a place among the minor prophets. “Seen that party again ” “What party?” for a moment the incident had passed quite out of her mind, under the stress of higher thoughts. “ ‘Old Cawfy and two Slices.’ Any sign of a dividend yet?” “Are you salvy, brother?” asked Jenny, with her sweetest smilo, and she was gone —it was her colloquialism for “saved.”

It wa s a great day. The march behind the band, in full blast of what seemed the music of heavenly hosts — the battle of tho penitent forms—the rallying cry of the hymns that marked its ups and downs-—the exhortations that were tho crying forces of its -moment of crisis. You have these excitements or you have them not. Tho lady Theresa had them, and her name is enshrined for ever in the calendar. Jenny was of the same sisterhood of election, though she was but a survitor in a slap-bang shop. The day passed all too quickly, with hardly a break in the holy war between the battle array of the morning, and the final roll-call of tho saved in the mission hall at night, amid the tumult of the shouts of victory.

Jenny was in full cry on the flanks of the routed enemy, when suddenly she became aware of a sinner advancing toward the penitent form with steps that halted and stumbled, because his eyes were fixed, in a sort of magnetised stare, full cn her face.

It was the insolvent of the coffee shop looking up, up, up at her, with the dazed surprise of absolutely unexpected recognition.

Jenny flew to him, and seized his trembling hand, “Salvy! Salvy! Glory! Hallelujah! No, brother; not that way.”

And in & gust of pity that was surely divine, she spared him the humiliation of the sinner’s form, and led him straight to the door. “Next time you pass, brother, next time you pass. Come and settle it with me, and we’ll settle it with God together. I’m in no hurry for your ha’pence, but oh, I’m hungry for your soul.”

When it was all over, Jenny sped back to her garret, folded up her uniform for the next field day, entered the portals of Paradise in her dreams, and then, sharp on the stroke <$ half-past five next morning, rose radiant for the drudgery of the week and the day.