Page 31 - 1913 November - To Dragma

36 TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

" DUMB. DRIVEN CATTLE "

Although Boston is generously sprinkled with "beauty parlors"
Madame Angelo's hair shop had perhaps the largest number of regu-
lar patrons.

Madame herself, a thin lipped, narrow eyed woman melted into a
black crepe gown was of the Canadian French variety, tho' her cus-
tomers were led to believe that Paris had had the honor of being her
birth place.

She heartily agreed with Americans that only by being an expert in
one line could success be won, so she devoted her energies to supplying
the demand for false hair. Her selection of rats, transformations,
turbanettes, puffs and braids was endless. She did hair dressing
also but the other branches of the beauty business she left to her
rivals.

She always managed to get clever girls to work for her. A good
judge of human nature was Madame and the said judgment was
seldom obscured by compunctions of any kind. "To get them smart,
but not too smart, that is indeed the problem" she used to sigh.

"Too smart" meant to her those abandoned creatures who joined a
Union, and so couldn't work till ten or twelve at night i f business
were rushing. To obviate this difficulty she tried always to get girls
of different nationality, knowing well the underlying contempt the
average emigrant has for every other foreigner who hasn't happened
to be born in his particular country.

Her present force made her smile with satisfaction. Ireland in
the person of Hannah Grady, Germany's daughter Gretchen Nico-
demus, a waif from Sweden, Cimbria Anderson, and a fellow country
woman of Madame's, Sophy Willett, made up the personnel. They
were all good workers and life looked a fair and gracious thing to
Madame one July afternoon as she moved about the cool shop ob-
serving with pleasure the line of autos waiting at the curb.

In the room behind her the girls worked steadily. To prevent
idleness when she was not present she had lately established a neat
little system of fines—if the pile of finished pieces beside any one
girl wasn't as large as Madame thought it should be, her wages were
docked a quarter. Under this spur the girls had responded gallantly,
but naturally, as Hannah expressed it, "We are not W A S T I N G our
love on Madame."

The room was fairly large, with three windows, the outlook from
them being into back yards.

Around the wall were arranged pigeon holes in which were "hanks"
of hair ranging in color from palest straw to jet black.