Plain Jane and pretty Betty

The owner of the petulant voice was the most beautiful being Jane had ever seen; she was quite sure of that.

This was a girl of about her own age, perhaps a little older. It was hard for Jane to judge, dazzled as she was by the magnificence of the girl.

The latter was dressed in sheer, rose-colored organdy that set off the heavenly blue of her eyes and made them appear a deep violet. She wore white shoes and stockings and no hat whatever on her head. Her hair was thick and curling and the color of imprisoned sunshine.

Jane had never seen anything so lovely as this girl, and for a moment she could only stand in helpless admiration.

But the eyes of the pretty girl did not return this admiration. Oh, dear, no! They stared angrily at Jane and the pretty lips were caught for a moment in a very unlovely droop.

“Stupid!” the girl muttered again angrily.

Jane saw what she had done. In opening the store door so abruptly she had evidently jerked the door knob from the hand of the girl in the pretty frock, causing her to drop her bundle.

With a murmured apology, Jane stooped now, picked up the package, and handed it to the other girl.

“I’m awfully sorry,” she said. “I did not know you were just coming out.”

The pretty fair-haired girl accepted the package without comment. She seemed to think the service unworthy even of a “thank you,” and without another word stepped daintily from the store and out into the sunshine, leaving Jane to stare after her with a hurt, questioning look on her face.

“I would at least have said ‘thank you,’” she thought. “If people are going to be as unkind to me here in Greenville as they were in Coal Run, then I—I—don’t know what I shall do!”

The hurt, miserable tears of angry humiliation were in her eyes as she turned back into the store.

It happened that Billy Dobson was behind the counter at that moment and it happened also that Billy Dobson had witnessed the encounter between the two girls. He was sorry for the plain, poor girl, and his humorous eyes proclaimed his sympathy.

“Polite, wasn’t she?” he commented as Jane slowly approached the counter. “But then, if you live in Greenville long you’ll find that the Rose Hillites don’t think they need politeness like common folks.”

“Rose Hillites?” repeated Jane, as she spread Mrs. Powell’s long list out on the counter.

“Folks that live on Rose Hill—swell folks,” Billy elucidated as he cast an experienced eye over the list. “They have plenty of money and put on a lot of dog and don’t notice folks that haven’t a French car and a tiled bathroom—or six or eight of ’em! Let’s see, you want five bars of laundry soap——”

There was no one else in the store, and Jane’s mind was still filled with the vision of the beautiful girl with sulky eyes who had not thought it worth her while to be polite to one less fortunate than herself. She could not resist the temptation to question this good-looking, amiable young man who offered her sympathy and seemed to share her resentment.

“Does she,” with a little jerk of her head toward the door, “live on Rose Hill?”

“Betty Browning? I’ll say she does! The Brownings are the swellest of the swell. They have the biggest house, the biggest car, and the worst manners. That goes for Miss Betty and her mother. The old man’s all right, though. A pretty good sport.”

“The old man?” Jane prompted.

Billy had made a neat pile of the articles on Mrs. Powell’s order. Now he wrapped them in a piece of stout paper and bound them about with twine, skilfully inserting a handle in the top of the bundle.

“By the old man I mean Mr. Browning.” Billy grinned good-naturedly at her. “He’s all right, nice to everybody in town. I bet if he’d seen Betty hand you that haughty stare this morning he’d have wanted to spank her. He wouldn’t have done it, though,” he added, with a chuckle. “Miss Betty and her mother have pretty much everything to say in their house, I shouldn’t wonder! Say, now, this bundle’s pretty heavy,” he added, as Jane lifted the package from the counter and her young shoulder sagged under the weight of it. “If there was any one else in the store I’d walk home with you and carry it.”

Jane smiled and shook her head.

“That’s nice of you,” she said. “But I don’t live far and—and I’m used to heavy bundles.”

Despite the attempted lightness of her tone there was a quaver in her voice as she said this that made good-natured Billy Dobson spring to the door and hold it open for her.

“You’re new in town, aren’t you?” he asked, as she smiled her thanks.

“Yes,” returned Jane. “We just came last night.”

“Hope to see you again, then,” said Billy, with his cheerful grin. “Deal at Mason’s. Best store in town. We carry a full line of merchandise and will cheerfully refund money on all articles not meeting with your entire, complete, and unqualified approval!”

“Sounds good,” admitted Jane, smiling at his nonsense. “I’ll be back—probably this afternoon.”

But once away from Mason’s and Billy Dobson’s cheerful smile, Jane’s spirits drooped. The first person she had met in Greenville—excepting her eccentric next door neighbors, of course—had treated her with disdain, as some one not even important enough to merit ordinary politeness.

What was it about her that made people treat her so? she wondered. Was it her plain clothes or her plain face or something, perhaps, inherently lacking in her make-up?

Jane longed for a chance to make something of herself, to prove to disdainful, pretty Betty Browning that even Plain Jane Cross was worth a little notice!

“I have a fine chance of that,” Jane thought, laughing bitterly at herself. “I suppose if I live in Greenville all the rest of my life Betty Browning will not even know that I am here!”

Having arrived at the little house where everything was still in an appalling state of confusion, Jane tried to forget the unpleasant incident of the morning by throwing herself with feverish energy into the work of getting settled.

They really did accomplish wonders, and as the shadows of the long afternoon began to lengthen into dusk, Mrs. Powell was able to announce that “by this time to-morrow afternoon we’ll be able to live in the place, anyway.”

They had found in unloading the furniture that fewer objects had been damaged by the smash the day before than they had feared. A rocker was off one chair, the whole side of another was staved in, and some of the smaller pieces of furniture were rather severely scratched. But aside from that the damage was negligible.

Mr. Powell, recovering his good temper, had told the moving-men before he started for his new place of business that morning that he would say nothing concerning the accident. Such a complaint might lose the men their jobs, whereas he himself would be able to repair the damage done to the furniture.

This was a relief to all concerned and to Jane in particular. She had liked the good-natured driver of the moving van and the man who had picked her out of the bushes after the accident, and was reluctant to see them punished for what really might have happened to any one.

At noontime Marion came bobbing and smiling in, carrying a tray heaped with sandwiches. She set this down on a table and vanished to return almost immediately with a teapot and three cups.

Jane hugged the poor little woman, for she was becoming very fond of these kindly, eccentric next-door neighbors, and she and Mrs. Powell sat down gratefully to the appetizing lunch, not waiting for Mr. Powell, who came in later.

“There are kind people in Greenville,” Jane thought, as she tried valiantly to banish the unpleasant memory of the morning. “There are these neighbors; there is the pleasant clerk behind the counter at Mason’s!”

And yet—there was Betty Browning, pretty Betty Browning who had not noticed plain Jane Cross except to call her stupid!

“I’m not stupid!” thought Jane, in a sudden rush of hot anger. “And some day I’ll show Betty Browning that I’m not, that I’m worth knowing and speaking to politely, even if I am ‘plain Jane.’”