Silhouette of a Sparrow

Light poured onto my bed the next morning like warm honey. I lay there, feeling the heat on my closed eyelids, clinging to the last shreds of a dream.

A sharp knock jolted me awake, and Mrs. Harrington’s voice came muffled through the door. “Wake up, Garnet. We should get there at opening time.”

I mumbled something that meant, “Let me sleep,” but then I realized what she’d said, where we were going, what today had in store. It was the thirtieth of June, and I, Garnet Grace Richardson, was about to become a career girl. I leapt out of bed.

Mrs. Harrington set a bowl of porridge on the table in the sitting room with a plunk. She must’ve asked the kitchen to send it up so we wouldn’t have to wait for breakfast in the dining room. She was already dressed in her albino peacock outfit—her favorite togs—and a look of impatience had already settled onto her face. Clearly she was finished with her momentary lapse into generosity and indulgence. I hadn’t expected it to last.

I made quick work of my breakfast and then hurried to dress, pulling on clean underclothes and stockings and a cornflower blue linen summer suit that looked nice with my eyes. I twisted my hair back under a smart blue hat that almost matched my dress and slid my feet into white shoes with low heels.

I checked my appearance in the washroom mirror. Mousy hair, freckled skin, lanky body. Just a girl trying to look like a woman. I sighed. At least I shared no family resemblance with the Harringtons. I had no round build or multiple chins. I had no pointy face or sharp-angled limbs. Even dressed in their finery, the pair of them made me feel positively beautiful. I’d actually never been so content with my plain looks and my simple clothing, girlishness aside.

“Is there a library in Excelsior?” I asked Mrs. Harrington as we bustled out the door and down to the lobby. I wasn’t sure I’d spelled the hummingbird’s Latin name correctly and I needed a bird book to check. In fact, I needed several bird books, I promptly decided. As many as a library might have. I kept one reference book at my window seat at home, but it had been years since I’d indulged in a stack of bird books from the library. Without Mother around to redirect me, I could linger over forestry records and biology journals to my heart’s delight—but I needed a library.

“In the Sampson House, I believe. I’ll point it out and you can stop on your way home this afternoon if you like.” She was used to getting exactly what she wanted, and she was so confident in our plan that she assumed I’d be working today. My heart raced at the thought and my hands trembled a bit. My fingers slipped into my pocket and found my scissors, stopping to caress the familiar metal.

“Personally I never bother with books,” Mrs. Harrington was saying. “I prefer the magazines and the newspapers, and that’s enough reading for me. Hannah doesn’t even care for those.” She whipped her fan out as the bellboy opened the front door, her gesture ending the conversation, and then descended the stairs with an air of royalty.

Main Street smelled like baking bread. The town was warmer than the lakefront, but not hot yet, and everything looked fresh in the morning light. We passed the drugstore, the grocer’s, the beauty shop, and the shoe store on our way to Miss Maple’s hat shop. Finally, we arrived at a brick storefront with a pink, flowery, painted sign and a cascade of frilly hats in the window. It was such a tiny place that I’d overlooked it completely on my first excursion into town.

The chimes on the door jingled cheerfully to announce our presence, and a tired but genteel-looking woman called hello over her shoulder as she arranged hats with netting veils on a tall rack near the counter.

The shop was in chaotic disarray, as Mrs. Harrington had said, but the hats were beautiful, like flocks of tropical birds roosting on wire trees. I set off down a row of wide-brimmed, flowery hats while Mrs. Harrington approached the petite woman and struck up a conversation. I peered at them through the hat jungle.

“Oh, a lifesaver you are,” the woman was saying a moment later. Relief erased the creases around her eyes for a minute. “My last girl quit on me two weeks ago. Husband said she shouldn’t have a job, said it made him look bad. Silliness.” She shook her head, clucking, not catching the stern look on Mrs. Harrington’s face or the fact that all three of her chins had dropped half an inch. “I’ve been trying to do it all on my own, but I’m afraid it’s just too much during the summer months. I really could use the help. Just mornings, maybe. Come here, dear,” Miss Maple called to me. I wove through the racks and approached the kind-faced woman.

“Garnet Richardson, ma’am,” I said. She reached out and shook my hand warmly. I looked down, a blush creeping into my cheeks, while she sized me up. Did she see a confused girl who was trying too hard, or a composed and competent young woman? Maybe both. She nodded and reached for a pile of hats on the counter.

“When can you start?” she said. I looked up, shocked and relieved by her quick decision. She grinned at me. A pink hat fell from the pile in her hands.

I laughed. “How about now?” I bent to pick up the pink hat and straightened its veil. I placed it on the rack and turned it until it was just so.

“A lifesaver, a lifesaver,” the woman sighed, hustling off toward the back room. “I’ll be with you in a moment and we can start your training today,” she called over her shoulder.

“Well, that worked out nicely, yes?” Mrs. Harrington said. “I’ll see you this afternoon, dear, back at the hotel. Have a lovely day.” She gave a little amused chuckle and then waddled out the door. The chimes jingled, and I let out a long breath that deflated a whole lot of tension.

I looked around while I waited for Miss Maple to come out of the back room. I took off my own hat and put on a green bell-shaped one, and then turned to look at myself in a mounted mirror. I laughed at the young woman staring back at me, the hat making my attempt to look modern and fashionable and grown-up even more obvious. Too many mirrors today, I decided.

Miss Maple came up behind me, and before I could take the hat off she reached up and tilted it at a jaunty angle. “Perfect,” she said. “It’s a cloche hat, like the flappers wear. Like Clara Bow in the pictures.” I looked nothing like the glamorous Clara Bow and we both knew it, not even with that beautiful hat on.

“How about this one?” She reached for a wide-brimmed peach-colored hat with a beautiful white feather tucked into the band. She settled it on top of my hair.

“Snowy egret,” I murmured, my brow crinkling involuntarily Egretta thula. Poached, I thought, recalling the Junior Audubon Society articles I read after Father set me up as a member. That’s illegal now, doesn’t she know that? Killing all those gorgeous birds just to dress ladies’ hats? It’s not only illegal, it’s appalling.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “It’s just a little old-fashioned for me, I think.” Embarrassed, I returned the hat to the rack and moved away from the mirror, sick of looking at myself. I couldn’t argue with my new boss about the crimes of the feather industry my first day on the job. Talk about starting off on the wrong foot. I grabbed my own hat and turned to face the confused Miss Maple.

After that one awkward moment, my first day went smoothly. I learned about all the kinds of hats—how to wear them, who would wear them, where and when they should be worn—as well as how to take orders and wrap parcels and make change.

I’ll like this job, I thought as I let myself out at noon and headed back toward the hotel. I tried to put the feathers out of my head—it would not do to oppose Miss Maple’s business decisions. And who was I to worry about things like that anyway? I was no naturalist. I was no activist. I was just a girl with her first job walking alone on a beautiful summer’s day, headed to the library for some decent reading material.