I Thought About This Girl
A cheerful Polish girl, working in a small bakery in the U. S. A. during World War II, suddenly became gloomy.
What had happened to cause her change of mood? Why did she wish to quit? What was the awful reason she finally
gave to the bakery owner¡¯s family?
1.
I thought about this girl quite a lot. We all did --- my mother, my father, my brothers, all of us. It seemed silly to let ourselves be upset by a girl who worked for us, but we couldn¡¯t help it. She worried us. All we knew was that for a long time she was happy with us, and then suddenly she wasn¡¯t.
2.
She said nothing, of course, right up to the end. She was too considerate and friendly and kind to say anything,
but we could tell. We could tell by the way she stood behind the counter in our little bakery, by the way she
served a customer. She used to laugh all the time and keep the whole store bright with her energy and her smile
and her pleasant voice. People spoke about it. It was such a pleasure to be served by her, they said.
3.
¡°The smartest thing I ever did, ¡° my father would say with a smile as he watched her. ¡°Hiring that girl was the smartest thing I ever did.¡±
4.
It wasn¡¯t that way very long, though. Not that we had any fault to find. She still came in early. She still
worked hard. She still was polite and friendly and quick, but it wasn¡¯t the same. She didn¡¯t laugh any more.
She stood very quietly when it wasn¡¯t busy and looked out of the window. She was worried about something.
5.
At first we thought it would pass away, but it didn¡¯t. It got worse and worse. We did the obvious thing, of course. We asked her what was wrong.
6.
¡°Nothing ,¡± she said at once, smiling quickly. ¡°Noting is wrong.¡±
7.
We asked her many times, but we still got the same answer, and knew it wasn¡¯t true.
8.
It annoyed my mother.
9.
¡°Why should we be bothered like this?¡± she asked sharply. ¡°We¡¯ve treated her like a daughter. Why should she be unhappy? Anyway, we didn¡¯t need her to start with.¡±
10.
And, of course, we didn¡¯t. We had always managed pretty well in the store. We were seldom overworked, because
it is only a small bakeshop, though business is brisk and profitable. It happened very simply. A woman, a very
good customer of ours, came in one day and told us about her --- a poor girl from Poland, whose parents were still
on the other side and who had no one here to take care of her except an old aunt, herself far from wealthy.
Wouldn¡¯t it be wonderful, this customer said to my mother, if it were possible to find some sort of job for
the girl, something to help her support herself and make her less of a burden to her aunt? My mother was sympathetic
and interested at once---she is always like that--- and the woman went on to wonder casually if we mightn¡¯t be able to
find a place for this girl in our own shop. Poor mother was too far gone in compassion to realize that she had been
trapped, and said quickly that we certainly could; she would talk to my father.
11.
At first, of course, we laughed. There was scarcely enough work in the shop to keep all of us busy. It seemed ridiculous to hire anybody else.
12.
¡°We¡¯ll be waiting on each other,¡± my father said.
13.
In the end, however, mother brought us around. We can afford it, she said, and think how nice it would be to have a young girl¡¯s face in the store, how nice for the customers. Her arguments weren¡¯t very impressive, but father seldom denies mother anything she wants, so he said all right, let¡¯s take a look at her. And them, of course, as soon as we saw her, we were lost. She was so fresh and cheerful and bright, with her round face and her ready smile and her yellow hair.
14.
¡°My God,¡± my father said, ¡°she looks like she was made for a bakery.¡±
15.
He pinched his chin between his thumb and forefinger and said well, maybe now he¡¯d be able to have a little time for himself. There was a book on elementary chemistry that he¡¯d been nibbling at cautiously for almost thirty years, ever since he came to America. Now, he said, he might get a chance to read it. There were also a lot of things my mother had always wanted to do. There were dishes she had yearned to make but never dared try. Now she¡¯d have time to experiment a little.
16.
¡°You¡¯ll be able to cook, ¡°my father roared. ¡°After thirty years you¡¯ll finally be able to cook.¡±
17.
It was a boisterous and happy occasion. The girl had done that for us.
18.
After she had been with us a short while, however, we began to notice that my father hadn¡¯t made much progress with
his chemistry and that there were no startling innovations at my mother¡¯s table.We knew the reason, of course.
The habits of thirty years are not easily broken, and they were spending as much time as ever in the shop.
But nobody seemed to mind. It was pleasant just to watch this girl with her bouncing energy and her happy laugh.
Often my father would cock his head admiringly and repeat, ¡° Smartest thing I ever did, hiring that girl.¡±
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