The Cable by Marion Ames Taggart — Read

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.