years--a lifetime--since she had elbowed her way up and down
those packed aisles of the busy little store in Winnebago--
she and that brisk, alert, courageous woman.

"Mrs. Brandeis, lady wants to know if you can't put this
blue satin dress on the dark-haired doll, and the pink
satin. . . . Well, I did tell her, but she said for me to
ask you, anyway."

"Mis' Brandeis, this man says he paid a dollar down on a go-
cart last month and he wants to pay the rest and take it
home with him."

And then the reassuring, authoritative voice, "Coming! I'll
be right there."

"Coming!" That had been her whole life. Service. And now
she lay so quietly beneath the snow of the bitter northern
winter.

At that point Fanny's fist would come down hard on her desk,
and the quick, indrawn breath of mutinous resentment would
hiss through her teeth.

She kept away from the downtown shops and their crowds. She
scowled at sight of the holly and mistletoe wreaths, with
their crimson streamers. There was something almost
ludicrous in the way she shut her eyes to the holiday
pageant all around her, and doubled and redoubled her work.
It seemed that she had a new scheme for her department every