Page 1 of Ellen Found

NINETEEN YEARS OLD. After a short lifetime of wanting little because she had nothing, Ellie Found decided she wanted more.

There it was, an ad in the Butte Inter Mountain . She moved the smelly fish head aside, supper for Plato the monster cat. “‘For the adventurous only,’” she read out loud, then read in silence about the Yellowstone Park Association needing a kitchen girl for the crew building a hotel near Old Faithful. “‘Room and board, thirty dollars a month,’” she read.

She needed a change from the Mercury Street Café. A month ago, Mr. Linson fired Addie Jackson. Ellie couldn’t help overhearing. “You sassed me once too often. Get out.”

Addie was gone by noon, telling Ellie, “Leave this dump.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t trust ’em.”

Ellie didn’t.

Addie Jackson was replaced by a cook who smoked constantly, the ash from her cigarette ending up in many a meal. Revolted, Ellie still found it fascinating how ash looked like pepper in the scrambled eggs. The cook never spoke. All she did was roll another cigarette and point to the next task.

“I can’t stay here,” Ellie muttered as she scraped a carrot. “Get a plan, Ellen Found.”

She tore out the ad and wrapped the fish head for Plato, the demon cat who barged into her life in a snowstorm and never left. Last year, when he limped toward her in the alley, she found a friend. As Ellie stared, he’d raised his afflicted paw. “Don’t scratch me,” she said. He yowled when she yanked out a thorn, then licked her hand and followed her into her miserable room under the Mercury Street Café.

She’d shared her dinner of soup and bread with him, explaining that he would eat when she did, and it might not be what he wanted. He curled up beside her on her cot, apparently willing to take the good with the bad, same as she did.

That was last year.

“Goodnight, Mr. Linson,” she said, hoping her boss’s slimy son wasn’t around. He frightened her too.

“Don’t be late tomorrow,” Linson said. She was never late, a lesson learned from the nuns of St. Catherine’s, who ran an orphanage and taught her to work hard and remember her lowly place.

Plato waited politely for her in the alley. She let him out every morning to do whatever a cat who looked like him did, but he always came back.

After a feast—for Plato—of fish head, and stew and stale toast for her, Ellie reread the ad, her eyes lingering over thirty dollars a month, plus room and board. She kept reading. “‘Work guaranteed until June 1904, when Old Faithful Inn opens. Continued employment possible.’”

Her letter went in the corner mailbox after breakfast. She found a stamp in the drawer under the cash register. While Linson argued with his son in the back, she addressed the envelope: Harry Child, Yellowstone Park Association, Bozeman, Montana .

Ellie knew better than to use the Mercury Street Café as a return address. She darted across the street to the Miners Emporium. The owner always smiled at her, so she did not fear him.

“May I use your address for this job application?” she asked, after a glance behind. She had never seen him inside the Mercury Street Café, so she knew he was wise.

He took the letter. “If a reply comes, I’ll get it to you.”

Ten days later, a bum palmed off a note into her hand. When Mr. Linson retreated, muttering, to his office, she hurried to the emporium. “Good luck,” the merchant said, handing her a letter.

“‘Dear Miss Found,’” she read later, “‘We are considering several applicants. Be in my office Monday, 1 p.m., Babcock Building, corner of Babcock and Timmons.’”

Others? Was this a yes, or as near as? Was she going? Yes , she told herself. I’ll get that job.

Ellie debated all weekend whether to say anything to Mr. Linson. She decided against it. Better to simply steal away.

Plato waited for her in his usual place that Sunday night. For a moment she debated whether to take him along, then knew she must. He was her only friend.

An earlier renter had left a shoddy carpetbag. She stuffed her belongings inside, including Plato. “You’re not going to like this,” she told him. “It’s an adventure. Curl up on my clothes.” In went his water bowl, and her toothbrush, hairbrush, and comb. “I don’t own much, do I?” she asked. “Neither do you, Plato.”

She kept her life savings—fifteen dollars—in her corset. She put six dollars of that in her pocket, knowing she needed tickets to the Northern Pacific Rail Road, then a little more to Bozeman.

Ellie closed her door quietly on the Mercury Street Café. At the depot, she spent one dollar and fifteen cents for the short line ticket. “That’ll be another two dollars and fifty cents when you get there,” the clerk told her. Three dollars and sixty-five cents gone so soon. She stared at her money, willing it not to shrink more.

She curled into a dark corner in the depot. The clerk ignored her. This was Butte; he had seen other hard cases.

“We’re going to get that job, Plato,” she said. “Butte, I have had enough of you.”