Free The Odd Job by Charlotte MacLeod

their own. For women who couldn’t afford to be stylish, a fine head of hair might become a salable commodity, as witness Jo March’s great sacrifice in Little Women and the young wife in “The Gift of the Magi,” who sold her beautiful hair to buy the chain for the gold watch that her husband had pawned to buy fancy combs for his wife’s beautiful hair.
    Logistically, hatpins meant to anchor so formidable a freight of frippery to coiffures of such luxuriance had to be up to the job, to be instruments of strength and endurance as well as of fashion. The end meant to show would be ornamental: a gilded butterfly, a Chinese intricacy carved out of red cinnabar, a multi-colored glass marble, a cone or sphere set all around with imitation sapphires or rubies, pretty trinkets of no great value lending their own small touch of charm to milady’s toilette.
    The business end of the hatpin, on the other hand, would have been six or eight inches of tempered steel wire, stiff as a ramrod and sharpened to a point that was able to penetrate whatever elaborate concoction a milliner might dream up. It could glide through stiff fabric, through switch and rat, through whatever came in its way, emerge on the opposite side without inflicting painful wounds on a lady’s scalp, if she was careful, and send her out literally dressed to kill should the need arise. In an emergency, a few inches of needle-sharp steel vigorously applied could be an effective way to dash the hopes of a too-ardent male. Anxious mothers and saucy vaudeville performers alike were particular in reminding skittish young misses that girls who went strolling without their hatpins ran the risk of losing more than just their hats.
    Theonia Kelling had a fine head of hair all her own and had never, so far as Sarah knew, been forced to resort to cold steel when it came to cooling down a man with a plan. All she needed a hatpin for was to keep her hat on. Naturally Theonia didn’t want just any old toad-stabber after all the time and trouble she’d spent creating her antique hat. The previous week, she and Lydia Ouspenska had spent most of an afternoon scouring Boston’s many antique shops and come away empty-handed.
    There had been hatpins, but none that would suit Theonia’s purpose. Most of the big ones had been cut down; neither husbands nor policemen liked the idea of a dangerous weapon kicking around the boudoir. The few hatpins that were long enough had failed to come up to specifications otherwise. Once-jeweled ornaments had lost their stones, gilt gewgaws that had twinkled like stars a century ago were by now dull and unsightly, not worth restoring.
    Evidently Lydia had found a hatpin that she thought would do, and had got somebody or other to drop it off as a surprise for when Theonia returned. That would account for the bungled address; Lydia could barely speak English, much less spell it. Sarah slid the pin out of the envelope to get a better look at the head.
    Theonia was going to be disappointed. The head had been nothing special to begin with, just a small knob covered with tiny black beads, perhaps intended to anchor a widow’s long mourning veil. Too many of the beads were gone, the steel retained its sharp point but showed some rust and discoloration along the shank. Sarah got the impression that it might have been used to unclog a bottle of ketchup.
    Whatever had Lydia been thinking of? There must be other hatpins less ugly than this and in no worse shape. Perhaps she’d seen this one lying somewhere and taken it as a good omen. “Find a pin and pick it up and all the day you’ll have good luck” was a charm in which many people still believed; a pin this size ought to convey a whole week’s worth of good fortune.
    But Sarah didn’t think it would. Lydia took superstition seriously, she must know that luck wasn’t transferable. Furthermore, luck or no luck, Lydia would hardly have sent this ugly thing along without at least scouring the wire