The Cable by Marion Ames Taggart

Cis resumed her place at the long table, and slipped what she called / "her bridle" around her head with the cheerful philosophy customary / to her at this end of her eight-hours' employment. She had somewhere / in the back of her brain a suppressed consciousness that there were / pleasanter ways for attractive and lively youth to spend an evening, / but this was "her job. " "My job" summed up in Cis's mind and on her / tongue a whole unformulated, yet distinct code of duty. What was one's / job must be done, that was clear enough, and done well, no shirking, / still more, no neglect. If one took a job, fidelity was implied in its / acceptance: "Take it or leave it, but if you take it, take it down / to the ground," Cis would have put it. She despised a shirker and a / slacker; she "played the game straight," whatever game she entered / upon. "Her job" stood for the flag in a soldier's hand, the pledge of / an obligation. "If you take a man's money deliver the goods," Cis told / another girl who was not serving well her employer's interests. It was / not a bad code to steer by, as far as it went; if it did not imply / supernatural motives, it was a good foundation upon which to build / them.

The girl who had taken Nan's place while Cis was out, was by no means / Nan; she was an unattractive person to Cicely. Indeed, there was no / other girl in the room for whom friendly Cis, who felt kindly disposed / to them all, ready to oblige and amuse them, cared in the least. / Cicely, who had been graduated from high school, and Nan, the devout / little product of the parochial school, were better educated than any / of their companions. Neither Cis nor Nan had time, nor desire for much / reading; they were far from being cultivated girls, but they were well / taught, and they found little to attract them in the foolish interests, / badly expressed, the tiresome conversation of their working mates.