, but runs shallow. In the children, vitality is
exhausted early. The roots do not go down into anything very strong.
Illness and deaths and funerals, in her own family and in those of
her friends, had come at frequent intervals in Annie's life. Since
they had to be, she and her sisters made the best of them. There was
something to be got out of funerals, even, if they were managed
right. They kept people in touch with old friends who had moved
uptown, and revived kindly feelings.

Annie had often given up things she wanted because there was
sickness at home, and now she was patient with her boss. What he
paid her for overtime work by no means made up to her what she lost.

Annie was not in the least thrifty, nor were any of her sisters. She
had to make a living, but she was not interested in getting all she
could for her time, or in laying up for the future. Girls like Annie
know that the future is a very uncertain thing, and they feel no
responsibility about it. The present is what they have--and it is
all they have. If Annie missed a chance to go sailing with the
plumber's son on Saturday afternoon, why, she missed it. As for the
two dollars her boss gave her, she handed them over to her mother.
Now that Annie was getting more money, one of her sisters quit a job
she didn't like and was staying at home for a rest. That was all
promotion meant to Annie.

The first time Annie's boss asked her to work on Saturday afternoon,
she could not hide her disappointment. He suggested that they might
knock off early and go to a show, or take a run in his car, but she
grew tearful and said it would be hard to make her family
understand. Wanning thought perhaps he could explain to her mother.
He called his motor and took Annie home.

When his car stopped in front of the tenement house on Eighth
Avenue, heads came popping out of the windows for six storys up, and
all the neighbor women, in dressing sacks and wrappers, gazed down
at the machine and at the couple alighting from it. A motor meant a
wedding or the hospital.

The plumber's son, Willy Steen, came over from the corner saloon to
see what was going on, and Annie introduced him at the doorstep.

Mrs. Wooley asked Wanning to come into the parlor and invited him to
have a chair of ceremony between the folding bed and the piano.

Annie, nervous and tearful, escaped to the dining-room--the cheerful
spot where the daughters visited with each other and with their
friends.