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A Scale Of Values

JUDITH MEREDITH REICHARD

0 GAVE the swinging door a brisk kick. Her timing was perfect and
] she glided through it carrying the tray supported on her right
shoulder. A few steps in the right direction and she gracefully trans-
ferred the tray's weight to a nearby busstand.

"Wouldn't mind having a piece of that steak myself, Mrs. Har-
mon!" she teased, crinkling her sun-freckled nose as she smiled and
placed the dinner plate before the elderly woman.

"Oh, thank you so much, jo," the widow smiled. "I'll probably
have to sit here until breakfast to finish all of this. I think my eyes
are bigger than my stomach!"

As Jo placed the vegetables on the table, she thought about Mrs.
Harmon. She was a little old lady who always reminded her of an
Easter bunny with her lively dark eyes and snow white hair pinned
up on her head in a modest pompadour. She knew that the widow
had been living alone for ten years. Because of lack of family or other
interests, she spent the rest of the year planning and looking forward
to her ten days here at The Holiday Inn. J 0 still remembered the
way she had pressed the little envelope in her hand when she left the
hotel last summer. She closed her eyes and smiled to see how the
envelope was addressed, "To the loveliest waitress I have ever had,"
in a delicate spidery script. She smiled even more when she thought
of the amount-only two dollars for two weeks. But it was worth it
to have Mrs. Harmon as a friend, she thought.

With a glance at her watch she noticed it was only five more
minutes before the dining room would close. She didn't really mind
her job and she made enough money to pay her tuition at the u~i-
versity, but it always made the time pass faster when she thought of
seeing Gene after they both got off from work. It wasn't what they
did for entertainment, because unless you were a tourist, Bradford
Beach was not a lively place to spend a summer. In fact, after work-
ing all day at their jobs making a constant effort to please people,
they would rather be alone together or with a few friends than any-
thing else. They would sit around and talk most nights. But some-
times Jerry and Dave, Gene's roommates, would play on the ukelele
or the bongos and they'd all sit around on the floor of the tiny apart-
ment on pillows and sing or have a few drinks. This to Gene was so
different from anything he had ever known. He and Jo had often

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