The Prettiest Girl in the Land (The Traherns #3) Read Online Free

their pay right now. Come along.”
    We waited outside the door, and the owner asked several to show
him their pay. At first it looked like I was wrong, then three in a row were
two cents short, then another one.
    The owner gave them the right amount and took their names.
    “I’ve three shifts of workers. If he does this to just a few
workers each shift, every day, he is getting away with at least an extra day’s
wages. And giving me a poor reputation. Would you like his job?”
    “No. If you had a counter of some kind, a wooden holder where
the workers could see that they were getting the right amount, you could hire
anyone for that job.” I told him how the girls were to use their fingers.
    “Let’s see if they do it. Stay around until their shift is
over.”
    He took me to lunch with him at his club. It was all fancy, with
tablecloths on the tables and china so thin I was afraid to touch it with my
fork. I looked so out of place in my travelin’ gear, I wanted to hide. But the
mill owner said he didn’t care, so neither should I. I watched what he used to
eat with, of the extra silver, and copied him.
    We had us a fancy meal, of shrimp brought up from the gulf. I’d
never had that before, but it was right tasty and I told him so.
    Then he called three other men over to our table.
    “Ruth, this is Mr. Henry Debras, Mr. Will Franklin, and Monseiur
La Breu. They are owners in companies who might be able to use your talents.
Gentlemen, this is Ruth Trahern. She is the fastest, and most accurate, person
I’ve ever come across when it comes to moving figures around.”
    They said “Hello,” and looked at me like I had two heads.
    “Well,” Mr. Franklin said, “if Henry here had three thousand
pounds of cotton, fifty drums of cottonseed oil, six hundred and twenty pounds
of linseed, and wanted to ship it one hundred twenty miles at two cents a
pound, what would it cost him?”
    “How many pounds in a drum?” I asked.
    “Fifty.”
    I rolled them around in my mind a minute. “A hundred twenty two
dollars and forty cents.” I said.
    He nodded. “That’s right. I just paid that.”
    “Try mine,” Mr. Debras said. He was short and balder than a
peeled egg. He pulled out a piece of paper already filled with figures and read
it off to me.
    “That would be sixty two dollars and twelve cents.”
    “Sixty one,” he said.
    I rechecked my mind. “No. Sixty two. You’re short a dollar.”
    He sat down, took out a pencil stub and started figuring.
    The next gent asked me a question about miles and I converted
it.
    “How do you do that?” asked Mr. Franklin.
    “Was always able to,” I replied. “Numbers and me like each
other. They just line up and make sense.”
    Mr. Debras stood up and put his paper away. “She’s right. I was
off a dollar.” He looked at me. “Young lady, you say you’re looking for a job.
What kind of a job do you want? I have several places in our company where I could
use you.”
    “Sir, I’m plannin to see some country. Startin with California
and parts in between. I want work so I can go out there, get me an eyeful, then
go wherever else I can go. I figure I’ll have to work a year or more to earn
enough. So I’m looking for a high-payin job so’s I can get there quicker.”
    “How about you work here for me until you can prove you handle
the job. If you can, I’ll send you to California to work the shipping at that
end. You’ll work out there under my brother, who is great with everything but
numbers. The clerk who’s with him right now is better than most, but when he
makes a mistake, nobody catches him, and they are costing me thousands of
dollars.”
    “That was just what I was a’lookin for.”
    “Here’s the address of my company. Be there tomorrow morning at
seven.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Thank you, Warren.” He nodded to the mill owner who had brought
me to lunch.
    “We can’t beat his offer. Good luck, young lady.” The other two
tipped their hats and