“Well, tell me the name of some one out this way, and I can say I’m goin’ there, and you can fix it by objectin’ to takin’ me.  Say, you didn’t know when I got on how far I wanted to go.”

“Some cute little fixer, you are,” Frank admitted, and this was the story Tessie clung to when Frank Apgar brought the girl into his mother’s house a few minutes later.

Thus began her adventure weeks ago.  Each day and every night adding new and more serious complications to the seemingly innocent quest for a broader life than could be lived in the mill end of Flosston, Tessie was compelled to add falsehood to fabrication, to bear out her original story, and save herself from being “picked up” and forcibly returned to her parents.

She knew the Franklin officer would trace her easily if she went by frequented ways, so instead of looking for work in a mill she sought and obtained employment in a family of rather influential suburbanites.  The scarcity of domestic help assisted her in this enterprise, and being really skilled in handling machinery and materials, it was not difficult for her to follow orders, and assist a cook who was overjoyed to have help of any sort in the big country residence.

But the little human butterfly had tried her wings, and she very quickly found life at Appleton too tame for her liking.  Directly upon receiving pay for her first two weeks of service, Tessie (her assumed name meant nothing to her or to us) said good-bye to Rebecca the cook, and taking no chances with members of the family who were “interested in her,” she left Appleton and journeyed forth again.

She had now acquired a new accomplishment.  She could serve as waitress or second girl, and this advantage almost assured her of success in any sort of well-built community.

But it would be tame, slow, as Tessie figured it out, and only a big city could possibly satisfy her ambition “to be somebody.”

Then came the temptation which resulted so disastrously.

Out in Elmhurst, her next stop, a troop of girl scouts was drilling when she stepped off the train.  New clothes and a better appearance, the result of that first pay at housework, had converted the mill girl into quite an attractive young lady, and as she waited at the pretty little square, watching the girl scouts drill, something like envy possessed her.

Why did they always seem so settled, so prosperous and satisfied!  What was there in a mere society that could do all that for any girl?

This question she asked almost audibly, for her lips moved and her face betrayed a puzzled and aggressive look of defiance.

It was always that way with Tessie.  She fought first and investigated later.  This unfortunate characteristic was responsible for much of her perversity.  She set herself against conditions instead of trying to overcome them.

Never had her unhappy self felt more aggressive than now, as she watched those girl scouts drill, every peal of laughter they sent over the velvet green seemed to hiss at her, and every graceful valiant maneuver of wig-wagging or physical drill added deeper envy to her smoldering jealousy.