From the Improvement Era, January 1938 –

None but the Brave – A Short Short Story

By Mabel Harmer

Linda left the street car three blocks before her destination in order that she might enjoy the late autumn afternoon to the utmost. Occasionally she stepped off the paved walk to kick her way through piles of dry leaves, just as she had done as a child. She sniffed deeply of the faint odor of burning leaves and dreamed of crisper autumn days when perhaps she would do some such cozy thing as sit before a fireplace and make cinnamon toast while the fire roared defiance to the wind outside.

Ordinarily Linda had dreaded fall and the thoughts of winter coming. It meant more money for warmer clothing and more substantial food. But this year it was different. Linda was in love.

She was very much in love with Harvey Atwood, a tall young man who had not come out of the west but spoke vaguely at times of going there. Linda had not known him very long and she hadn’t the faintest idea whether or not he was in love with her. She only hoped he was.

She was not so dumb as to believe that a girl sat passively back waiting for a man to come and sweep her off her feet. Of course a girl pretended to let a man do all the wooing — it was a lost cause from the beginning if she didn’t — but Linda knew well enough that a subtle touch here and there was not to be scorned.

As she walked into her tiny apartment and drew off her wraps, she began systematically to take stock of her resources. Linda had spent the past two years as a filing clerk and had learned to be systematic even with her soul.

She was pretty, intelligent, and what is generally known as a ‘nice’ girl. Next — Linda couldn’t think of a ‘next’. She had no beautiful home in which to entertain. There were a few good friends but none that could be counted on as influential. There were no stunning clothes. If she only had a few lovely things! A black velvet dress, for instance, or a fur coat. Oh, if she could just get a fur coat! That would be her piece de resistance. In the novel she had just finished reading, it had been a pearl necklace but she was sure that a fur coat would be more practical in her case.

On her way to work the next day she glanced in every shop window to see if by any chance she had been mistaken about the price of fur coats. No, the prices today looked higher, just as the coats looked more desirable. One that seemed especially to beckon her was marked at one hundred and fifty dollars. Linda sighed as she thought of the mere twenty-five dollars that had been set aside toward a winter wardrobe.

She decided to save anyway in the hope that a miracle would happen. She could bring a sandwich for lunch and on the nights that Harvey took her out she would go without dinner. They usually had something to eat if it was only ice cream or a plate of chili.

Daily she searched through the newspapers for some ‘sale’ that might offer a purchase within her means. Finally in the classified section she ran across an ad that blazoned forth from the page and made her pulse mount. Someone wanted to sell “a luxurious fur coat, almost new, for only sixty dollars.”

She hastily copied the address and again began juggling figures in her head. There was a pay day due tomorrow but her slender check certainly held no surplus. There was one possibility. Nancy Grey had long wanted to share her apartment but Linda enjoyed privacy, so had never invited her to come. If she let Nancy in, she could save close to twenty-five dollars. If she allowed herself no spending money she might manage the other ten. This with the twenty-five she already had, would make it.

Of course there were possibilities that she might not want the coat or that it had already been sold, but Linda’s hopeful mind refused to dwell upon them. She must have Harvey and she must have a fur coat. In some peculiar way gaining the latter had become completely essential to winning the former, in her own mind.

Some few evenings later when Harvey called to take her out, Linda, outwardly calm but inwardly quivering with excitement, handed him the fur coat to hold while she slipped her arms into its comfortable sleeves.

Harvey whistled and turned her about twice. “Say, lady,” he began earnestly, “don’t you know you are going to get into trouble sooner or later if you rob the company safe?”

Linda laughed and retorted, “Nonsense, they sell these at the five and dime.”

“Yes, I know,” he answered, “the pictures of them.”

The effect of the fur coat apparently was all that Linda had hoped for and she was happy. It mattered little that she wore a shabby dress underneath, that her shoes were thin and her dinner meager. When she sat in a movie and saw the heroine throw the inevitable fur wrap from her shoulders, Linda raised her head proudly and said to herself, “I have one too.”

One evening in February, Harvey took Linda to dinner and a movie. She noticed, although she pretended not to, that he looked at her a great deal more than he did at the picture and she was flattered and excited.

When they reached home she threw the fur coat carelessly over a chair. This was only for effect — as if a fur wrap were a mere incident in her life. Usually she hung it up with great care. She sat down while Harvey took a couple of turns around the tiny room in not many more strides. Suddenly he stopped and then said abruptly, “I’m going away, Linda.”

Linda sat rather breathless and answered, “Yes?” There was so much to say but only Harvey could say it.

“You know I’ve been hoping for a chance to go west — to get into the ranching game. I suppose it sounds foolish to you that anyone would want to leave the city, but I’ve always had a yearning for the so called wide-open spaces and now I have an opportunity to rent a ranch from an uncle. Perhaps in time I can buy it. I had hoped at first to take you with me — but it wouldn’t be fair. I couldn’t ask you to leave the comforts of the city for the hardships of ranch life.”

He walked over and touched her coat, “I guess it was this coat that sort of scared me out. Beautiful things belong to you, Linda. You’re too lovely to have only the drab in life.”

Linda sat stricken and dumb. Her hopes had crashed so suddenly and completely that she couldn’t find any piece large enough to take hold of. Somehow they said goodbye, and Linda was left alone. Mechanically she picked up the coat and hung it up. She gave a hysterical little cry as she closed the closet door.

The dreary winter somehow dragged itself out. Spring came and she greeted the first robin indifferently, wondering why he was so foolish as to come to a city when he was perfectly free to go west and live on a ranch.

The hope that lived on in one small corner of her heart was suddenly rewarded one day when at last a letter came. She tore the envelope off and read eagerly:

“My dear Linda:

“Some smart guy once said, ‘Go West, young man,’ and I am sure that he had me personally in mind. I get up at five in the morning and milk hundreds of cows and then I feed them all day and milk them again at night. I go to bed so weary that I forget to wind the clock. But the sky is blue and the winds are fresh. I am doing a man’s work and some day I shall look over these acres and call them mine.

“I have even learned to be courageous. I was a coward when I left you. I was afraid of a fur coat. Now I have become brave to the point of asking you to share these acres with me. It’s hard work for a woman too, but I believe that you also have courage. There’s something very fine in your soul, Linda. Something I couldn’t resist.”

Linda finished the rest of the letter before she drew a real breath and then she flung a glance of superiority at the fur coat hanging in the closet. “Piece de resistance,” she scoffed.

She put on her new hat at an angle exactly attuned to spring and then went out to hunt for the nearest florist for she knew that she simply must have a rose-colored hyacinth.