A HOTEL PORTER
THE HIGHLANDS, ORANGE COUNTY, N. Y.,
Tuesday, 25 August, 1891.
I am now a hotel porter. More strictly, I have just resigned my
position, and with the net proceeds of three weeks' wages, which amount
to four dollars and two cents, I am ready to make a fresh start in the
early morning. The leisure of this last evening at the hotel I shall
give to the task of summing up the fragmentary notes which I have made
in such chance hours of rest as were to be had in a service which has
kept me on duty from five o'clock in the morning until eleven at night.
Why I have lingered here so long I scarcely know. The time has flown
with amazing swiftness. I soon found my new job easily within my
powers, as compared with the last one, and I have felt a certain
restful security which has held me here for longer than I meant
to stay. But I am ready enough to set out now, and I feel again a
"yearning for the large excitement" that comes of life upon the open
highway, and the chances of a living earned by the work of my hands.
I am not twenty miles beyond my last station at Highland Falls. It was
raining when I left Mrs. Flaherty's home, and she pleaded with me to
stay; but I had nothing with which to pay for further entertainment,
and I certainly had not the courage to return to the job on the old
Academic building. And so we parted, Mrs. Flaherty standing with arms
akimbo in the open door of her cottage, a final protest against so rash
a venture as her last word, while I lifted my hat to her and to Minnie,
who peered at me from the shadow of the passage behind her mother.
It must be owned that the prospect was not encouraging to my new
departure. At intervals of less than a mile, sometimes, I was driven
to seek refuge from the rain. The mountain-road was soft with mud,
and a secure footing was a fruitless search. In the hot air the heavy
dampness added to the discomfort of walking. Only in a general way
I knew that the road would lead me eventually over the Highlands to
Middletown, which lies in my westward course. The beauty of the country
was lost upon me, for the mountain was cloaked in a heavy fog, and
all that rose visible were short, succeeding sections of muddy road,
bordered with forests of oak and hickory-nut and chestnut, with matted
weeds growing thick to the wagon-tracks, and clumps of blackberry
bushes standing here and there along the lines of tottering stone walls
and wooden fences.
In the middle of the noon hour I reached Forest-of-Dean Mines. A
general supply store stands on the roadside. It was thronged with
Italian laborers. I waited in its shelter until the one-o'clock whistle
recalled the men to their work, and then I made terms with an Italian
boy, who was left in charge, for a five-cent dinner. The child spoke
English with perfect readiness. Almost concealed behind the counter,
he looked wonderfully important and business-like as he reached up to
apply the weights and fixed his great black eyes shrewdly upon the
oscillations of the balance. For five cents he agreed to give me two
ounces of cheese and six soda-crackers.
This proved a hopelessly inadequate dinner, and by the middle of the
afternoon I was painfully hungry. It must have been between the hours
of three and four when, on a stretch of level road, I met a tall,
over-grown negro youth with a bucket of sour milk in each hand, which
was plainly destined for a pig-pen that I had passed but a few yards
back. Looming dimly in the fog behind him, I could see the outlines of
a large frame structure with lightly built verandas engirding it. I
asked the youth what it was, and learned that it was a hotel, the "----
House."
'Did he think that I could get a job there?' He was doubtful of that,
but advised my seeing the "boss," whom I should find in the office. The
office was deserted when I entered it. Some men were playing billiards
in the larger room beyond, which, with the office, forms the ground
floor of a building detached from the main hotel, but joined by a
veranda on the upper story.
I sat down, and began to dry my feet at a slow fire which burned
in an iron stove. Presently there came in a tall man, straight of
figure, with black eyes and hair and mustache and an uncommonly dark
complexion. I rose with an inquiry for the proprietor, and he sat
down with the assurance that he was the man. There were two definite
requests in my mind. I meant to apply first for a job; but, expecting
nothing of a permanent character, I resolved to ask work for the
remaining afternoon for the sake of food and a night's shelter from the
rain. To my surprise, instead of the negative I expected to my first
request, I found some encouragement in the proprietor's manner. He
owned to the need of a porter until the arrival, in a few days, of the
man who had been engaged for that position. I declared my willingness
to serve and to begin work on the moment. He pointed out that he did
not know me, and that he was not in the habit of engaging servants whom
he did not know. 'Besides, there was not much for the porter to do, and
for his services he was paid at the rate of eight dollars a month and
his board.' I was ready with a plea for a trial, if only for a single
day, and presently the proprietor consented.
He rose, and at once began to instruct me in my duty. Standing on the
threshold between the office and billiard-room, he pointed to the
bare floors, and explained that they must be scrubbed every morning.
He then indicated the score or more of oil-lamps with which the rooms
were lighted, and said that these must be kept clean and filled. Next
he opened a door from the office into a small room in which was a cot.
That was to be my sleeping-place, and he showed me, in one corner,
buckets and a mop and a broom, which were intended for the porter's
use. Quite abruptly he asked to see my hat, and, wondering at the
request, I showed him the stained black felt with ragged holes in the
crown. "That won't do," he said, and with the word he took down from
a peg a porter's cloth cap with a patent-leather visor, and bade me
wear it at my work. It was much too small, but by dint of holding my
head with care I could keep it on; thus balancing the cap as best I
could, and with the broom in hand, I followed my employer for further
instructions. He led the way to the verandas, and explained that they
must be swept each morning before the guests are up, and again in the
afternoon, at the hour when they are least in use. They were nearly
deserted now, and the proprietor told me to begin my work by sweeping
them, and then he left me.
I could have danced with sheer delight. Not if I had deliberately
planned it could I have effected a better arrangement. It fitted
my needs exactly. A change to lighter work for a time was almost a
necessity; for my hands were much blistered and torn, and they refused
to heal under the friction of my last employment. And then--and my
spirits rose buoyantly to this idea--here was a chance to see something
of domestic service, and such another, under conditions so favorable,
might not offer in all my journey across the continent.
"This morning," I thought to myself, "I was a roving laborer in search
of work and with but ten cents in my pocket; now I am a hotel porter,
with bed and board assured and an open field for observation, and some
certainty of a surplus, regardless of the weather, when I quit the job,
although, at its present rate, my daily wage is a fraction less than
twenty-seven cents."
As I swept the verandas my plans began to form themselves with exciting
interest. "Here is clearly a splendid opportunity. I have been frankly
told that a porter is already engaged, and is on his way, and that
my occupancy of office is simply for the interregnum. Plainly, if I
can give evidence, in the meantime, of usefulness such that, when the
regular porter comes, I shall be continued in some employment about the
hotel, that will be a distinct achievement; and it will not be without
a bearing upon the practical question as to what a penniless man may
do for himself in the way of winning permanent employment that offers
chances of promotion." I resolved to bend all my energies to that.
When the verandas were swept, I returned to the office and
billiard-room, and began to study the field. The floors were sadly in
need of scrubbing; many of the lamp chimneys were smoked, and all were
far from clean; the windows of both rooms were much weather-stained;
and the paint on the woodwork could be improved by a thorough washing.
I then went over the grounds, and found the walks in disorder, and the
lawns matted and strewn with litter.
I lit the lamps at nightfall, and awaited a summons to supper. While
in the region of the kitchen I noticed that an extra hand might often
prove of service there. Back in my own domain for the evening, I found
my offices in demand in attendance upon the billiard and pool tables.
By eleven o'clock the house was still, and I was at liberty to go to
bed. Among the furniture in the office was an alarm-clock. This I wound
up, and set for a quarter to five.
The morning was splendidly bright. When I stepped out upon the veranda
the sun had already cleared the tops of the wooded Highlands, and, with
the radiance reflected from infinite rain-drops in the forests, there
rolled from their "gorgeous gloom" the "sweet after showers, ambrosial
air." In no direction was the outlook wide; but the air gleamed in the
sunlight with the crystal clearness which gives its peculiar quality
to our autumn, and which so early as August can be had only at
considerable altitudes.
But the scrubbing awaited me, and was a task of much uncertainty. In
the kitchen I filled my buckets with water--cold water, I am sorry to
say. I threw wide open the doors and windows, and first sprinkled the
floors, as I had seen shopkeepers do, and then swept them thoroughly. I
tried to apply the water by means of a mop with a long wooden handle;
but failing completely in that, I detached the handle, and getting
down on my knees, I went carefully over the surface with the mop in
hand. Frequently I changed the water, and when the scrubbing was done I
looked the damp floors over with immense satisfaction.
Until I was called to breakfast I spent the time in sweeping the
verandas and clearing from the walks the twigs and dead leaves with
which they were strewn after the rain. In no way was I prepared for
the alarming surprise which was in store for me. When I returned to
the office I stood aghast at the sight of the newly scrubbed floors.
They were dry now, and were covered with fantastic designs. Every final
movement of the mop was distinctly traceable in streaks of unmistakable
dirt. And there was the proprietor at work at his desk, and he faintly
noticed me as I entered. I stood expecting my discharge, with what
fortitude I could summon, but receiving no further attention from my
employer, I hurried back to the work on the walks and drives. During
the dinner-hour I brought a broom to bear upon the coiling traceries on
the floor, and succeeded in softening their bolder outlines.
But scrubbing proved a peculiarly difficult art. On the second morning
I did all that I had done before, and then got buckets of clean hot
water and a fresh mop; and on hands and knees I went over the floors,
wiping them up with scrupulous care. The result was no better, once
dry, and the designs in daubs of dirt were as fantastic as ever. On
the third morning I tried still a new plan, but only with the result
of effecting a change in the designs. I was learning to scrub by an
empirical process, and the fourth venture approached success. Hot
water and soap, and a scrub-brush vigorously applied, and then a final
swabbing, left the floors comparatively clean, and free from the
persistent mop-stains.
Only one more of my duties I found difficult of mastery. Like scrubbing
the floors, washing the windows was full of surprises. From one of
the house-maids I learned that clean, hot, soapy water was the prime
necessity. I was delighted with the first result, for after the washing
within and without, I had visions of the glass in a high state of clean
transparency. But the sun had absorbed the water, and left stains
of tenacious soap, when I came to the polishing, and after hours of
labor I almost despaired of ever bringing the panes to a reasonably
untarnished condition.
The work has varied so little in detail that the history of a single
day is an epitome of the three weeks' service:
I am up at a little before five in the morning. The floors of the
office and billiard-room are my first concern; and by the time these
are scrubbed it is six o'clock. The _chef_ early noticed my willingness
to lend a hand in the kitchen, and he rewards me with a liberal supply
of hot water every morning, and a cup of coffee and a slice of bread at
six o'clock when he takes his own. Fortified in this way, I sweep the
verandas and walks, and rake the drives and lawns until breakfast.
There is a curious, horizontal, social cleavage among the "help."
I belong to the lower stratum. I first noticed the distinction at
our meals. The negro head-waiter, and the pastry-cook, and the
head-gardener, and the company of Irish maids, who do double duty
as waitresses and house-maids, take their meals in the dining-room
after the guests are served. The remnants of these two servings are
then heaped upon a table in a long, low, dimly lighted room which
intervenes between the kitchen and dining-room, and there we of the
lowest class help ourselves. Our coterie consists of an English maid, a
recent arrival from Liverpool, who serves as a dishwasher, three negro
laundresses, two negro stable-boys and myself, with a varying element
in two or three hired men, who drop in irregularly from the region of
the barns.
Martha, the English maid, is chiefly in charge here, and she bravely
tries to serve, and to bring some order out of the chaos; but the task
is beyond her. We take places as we find them vacant, and each helps
himself from what remains to be eaten of the fragments of the meal just
ended. There is always a towering supply, but an abundance of a sort
that deadens your appetite, like the blow of a sand-bag.
I reproached myself with fastidiousness at first, and imagined that to
the other servants, who shared it, the fare was entirely palatable; and
so I was surprised when, at a dinner early in my stay, one of the negro
laundresses seized a plate heaped with scraps of meat, from which we
had all been helping ourselves, and carried it out with the indignant
remark that it was fit only for the dogs, adding, sententiously, as she
disappeared through the door: "We are not dogs _yet_; we are supposed
to be human." And back to her afternoon's work she went, although she
had eaten only a morsel.
These meals were curiously solemn functions; scarcely a word was ever
spoken. Martha was "cumbered about much serving," and very heroically
she tried to impart some decent order to the meal, and a cheerfuller
tone to the company. I never knew the cause of the sullen unsociability
which possessed us, whether it was ill-humor born of the physical
weariness from which all the servants seemed constantly to suffer as a
result of the high pressure of work at the height of the season, or the
revolting fare which often sent us unrested and unfed from our meals.
It is the vision of supper that will linger clearest in my memory. The
long, reeking room seen faintly in the yellow light of one begrimed
oil-lamp; the ceiling so low that I can easily reach it with my
upstretched hand, and dotted over with innumerable flies. The room
is a paradise for flies, which swarm most in our food that lies in
ill-assorted heaps down the middle of a rough wooden table. Here we sit
in chance order, black and white faces often alternating; the white
ones livid in their vivid contrast with the background of the room's
deep shadows, and the others ghastly visible in the general blackness
from which gleam the whites of eyes. Sometimes the two stable-boys find
seats together; and then they bid defiance to the general gloom, and
are soon bubbling over with musical laughter, that rolls responsive to
the least remark from either. It is interesting at such times to watch
Martha's face. The nervous energy which is always struggling there
against a look of utter weariness shines victorious now, in the light
of a new hope that a better cheer has come at last to her table.
From breakfast I hurry back to the work of putting the grounds in
order. The walks I sweep every morning, and then rake the drives and
the lawns.
It was at this work that I early found convincing proof of the
completeness of my social change. The lawns at certain hours are in
the possession of nurse-maids and infants. I have never calculated
the number of children in the hotel, but their ages apparently mark
every stage of advance from a few weeks to as many years. My liking
for children amounts to reverent devotion, and it gave me a shock,
from which I have not recovered, to find that, unshaven and uncouth in
workmen's clothes, I had become for them a bogey with whom their nurses
frighten them into obedience, warning them in excited tones with "Here
comes the man to take you away!"
It was at this work, too, that I once incurred the avowed displeasure
of a guest. She was a beautiful Philistine, with a keenly penetrating
twang and turns of speech that bespoke the regions of Sixth Avenue and
Fourteenth Street. But she was remarkably handsome, tall and graceful,
and of high-bred bearing and of a thoroughly aristocratic type. It must
be confessed that whenever she was visible from my regions the section
of the grounds which commanded a view of her, and was yet fairly
beyond the sound of her voice, received assiduous attention from me;
for she was highly remunerative to look at. I was sweeping a section
of the walk immediately in front of the hotel. Unlike the work at
West Point, a porter's duties do not preclude mental effort. Absorbed
in thought and quite unconscious of my surroundings, I was suddenly
recalled to them and to my station in life by nasal accents raised
in strong reproof. I looked up in bewilderment, and saw confronting
me the beautiful Philistine, holding a little child by each hand.
Very straight she stood and bright-eyed, with her head thrown back,
and an exquisite flush over her face, and her beautiful lips curled
in anger, as she scolded me roundly for raising so much dust. I was
unfamiliar with the etiquette of the situation, so I held my peace, and
respectfully touched my cap, inwardly calling her the beauty that she
was as she stood there, and ardently hoping that she would scold me
more.
[Illustration: I HELD MY PEACE, AND RESPECTFULLY TOUCHED MY CAP,
INWARDLY CALLING HER THE BEAUTY THAT SHE WAS.]
From the lawns I go to the kitchen, and offer my services to the
_chef_. Usually he has ready for me a basket of potatoes to peel. In a
little shed by the kitchen-door I sit and peel endlessly. The servants
are flocking in and out through the open door in the fetid air. The
heat is of the suffocating kind, in which the heavy air lies dead.
It is nearing the dinner-hour, and everyone must work with almost a
frenzy of effort. The high tension communicates itself to us all, and
we feel the nervous strain upon our tempers. The hundred and one petty
annoyances which cause the friction of household service prove too
much, and the tension bursts into a furious quarrel between the Irish
pastry-cook and the negro head-waiter. No one has time to heed them,
but his storming oaths and her plaintive, whining key, maintained with
provoking tenacity, whatever relief they bring to them, are far from
soothing to the rest of us.
The maids are gathered from all parts of the hotel. Most of them have
been on duty since six o'clock, and after the morning's work there
now awaits them the rush of serving dinner. Want of sufficient sleep
and utter physical weariness have drawn deep lines in their faces.
Presently one of them, a slender young girl, sinks exhausted into a
seat, and we hear her notion of the _summum bonum_: "Oh, I wish I was
rich, and could swing all day in a hammock!" I follow the direction
of her eyes. Across a wide stretch of lawn and in the shade of some
clustering maples I see the gleam of a white dress rocking gently in a
hammock, and I catch the flutter of a fan and the light on an open page.
Sometimes I am in the region of the kitchen during the dinner-hour
itself. As an experience, I fancy that it is not unlike that of being
behind the scenes in the course of the play. The kitchen and pantry
are ill-ventilated, and are hot to suffocation. About a counter-like
partition which separates the two rooms crowd the eager waitresses,
rehearsing in shrill tones their orders to the _chef_ and his
assistant. There is a babel of voices striving to be heard, and a
ceaseless clatter of dishes, and a hurrying to and fro. The _chef_ is
not a bad fellow, but his temper is rarely proof against the harassing
annoyances incident upon serving a dinner, and he loses it in a torrent
of oaths. The volume of noise increases until the height of dinner is
reached and passed, and then it subsides, quite like a thunder-storm.
The afternoon's work keeps me, for the most part, in my own
regions. The lamps must first be cleaned and filled, and then the
billiard-tables brushed for the evening play, and there may remain
unfinished work on the grounds, which claims me until it is time to
sweep the verandas again.
When I am out of the office I must be careful that the doors and the
windows are open, and my ears attentive to the bell; for I am porter
and bell-boy in one.
A bell-boy is sometimes at a disadvantage. He is not supposed to
explain, and circumstances may wrong him.
The bell rings. I run to the indicator, and then climb to the door that
bears the corresponding number. A lady asks for a pitcher of ice-water.
Unluckily the ice-chest is locked, and the key, I learn, is in the
keeping of the head-waiter. After hasty search, I find that official
seated on a rock in the shade behind the barn, conversing with some of
the hands. He tells me that there is no ice in the chest, and advises
my going to the ice-house. I do so with all possible speed, and am
fortunate enough to find a piece of loose ice not far below the surface
of saw-dust. Back to the kitchen I run with it, wash it, and chop it
into fragments. But all this has taken time; it is very hot, and the
lady, no doubt, is very thirsty. As I hand her the pitcher of water,
her caustic acknowledgment expresses anything but gratitude.
The verandas are no sooner swept for the afternoon than the stage
appears from the station. I must be in attendance to relieve the newly
arrived guests of their lighter luggage and, with the help of one of
the stable-boys, to carry their trunks to their rooms.
It was in such services as these that I met with an insuperable
difficulty. Before I launched upon the enterprise of earning my living
by manual labor I settled it with myself that I would shrink from no
honest work, however menial, that might fall within the range of my
experiment. I confess that, in my present avocation, when it came
to the necessity of cleaning the cuspidors used by a tobacco-eating
gentry, the task was accomplished only after hard setting of teeth,
and much involuntary contraction of muscles. But I hasten to let
fall a veil already too widely drawn from the hidden rites of a
porter's service. The difficulty in point was of another kind, and
had to do with tips. I was not unprepared for the emergency, for the
proprietor had hinted, in our first conversation, with every mark of
embarrassment, and with a tone of apology for the eight dollars a
month, that that amount was sure to be supplemented by gratuities.
It might have been different under other circumstances; but when I
had seen the guests and noted the unmistakable marks of residence in
cheap flats and low-rent suburban cottages, and realized the careful
husbanding of funds and the close calculation which make a summer
outing possible to them, their fees were some degrees beyond the
possible to me.
In the case of the luggage, it was easy to bow acknowledgment and to
decline in favor of Sam, the stable-boy, who, beaming with delight,
stood ready to receive gifts to any amount, and who loved me warmly.
But when I was alone with some guest in the act of a personal service,
the situation created by a proffered fee proved embarrassing to us
both, and was not to be relieved by bows and expressions of sincere
appreciation.
The evening's duties are usually the lighting of the lamps at
nightfall, and assorting the mail that comes in after supper, and
attending the billiard and pool tables, and answering the bell-calls.
Saturday afternoons and evenings are varied with industrious
preparations for extra guests. This makes added demands upon us all,
and the servants dread Sunday as bringing always the severest strain of
the week. My own share of extra work is confined to Saturday afternoon
and evening, when I put up cots, and carry bed-linen and blankets
about, under the orders of the house-keeper, usually until midnight.
And when I go to sleep at last it is on the hay in the barn, for my
room is swept and garnished on Saturday and given up to a guest. It is
no hardship to sleep on the hay, but, through knowledge gained from
the scale of prices posted in the office, I can but understand what an
admirable business arrangement it is for the proprietor to so utilize
my room over Sunday. The added revenue which is thus yielded during my
stay amounts to fifteen dollars, and as the total sum of my wages for
the three weeks is five dollars and sixty-seven cents, the net returns
to the proprietor in service and profit speak well for his management.
But there is other evidence of good management, and in a quarter that
appeals to me more. His treatment of the "help" is so uniformly fair.
I do not like him; but, so far as I know, I am alone in my dislike
among all the servants of the house; and I cannot fail to see that a
feeling of personal loyalty is behind much of the patient, enduring
service to which I have been witness. Only once was there an approach
to a collision between us, and certainly I emerged from that in rather
a ridiculous light.
It was but two or three evenings ago. Usually I have been able to
eat at our table enough at least to deaden appetite, but on that
evening I could eat nothing. As I passed through the pastry-kitchen
on my way back to the office I saw a few pieces of corn-bread which
were apparently to be thrown away. I asked the cook for some, and she
readily told me to help myself. On a flagging near the kitchen-door
I sat down to eat the bread, and the proprietor must have seen me
there in the dim light. I had not finished when the negro head-waiter
came upon me in much excitement. I belong to a lower order of service
than he, but he treats me civilly, and there was nothing more than
nervousness in his manner now.
"You mustn't get cheese from the pantry without leave," he was saying
in high agitation.
I thought that he had gone mad, but he presently made clear that
the proprietor had come to him with the complaint that I was eating
cheese, which is kept in the pantry, and is not intended for the lower
servants. The supper-table had upset me, and the corn-bread which
caused the present trouble had been cold comfort. I was furiously angry
now, hot and aglow with a passion of rage which at that moment was a
splendid sensation. With great civility I thanked the head-waiter, and
explained the mistake, and showed him a fragment of bread still in my
hand, and then asked where I should find the proprietor. He had gone to
the office, and I followed him there, scarcely conscious of touching
the ground. It was close upon the mail-hour, and the office was crowded
with guests. Near the stove stood the proprietor, and he saw me as I
approached him. I was looking him full in the eyes when I told him,
without introductory remarks, that if he had any further criticisms to
offer upon my conduct he was at liberty to bring them directly to me.
If I had had any sense of humor left I should have laughed then at his
appearance, and have forestalled the ridiculous scene, in which, with
a look of distressed embarrassment, he edged toward the door, and I
followed, with my eyes on his, as I treated him to the most cynically
patronizing sentences which I could frame, while the guests looked on
in silence.
Once in the quiet of the veranda, he explained to me that, since he
holds the head-waiter responsible in such matters, he had naturally
complained to him, and added that he was sorry if any mistake had been
made. I pointed out the mistake, and felt the fool that I was, and
spent the evening in a long walk over the hills, returning only in time
to lock up and put out the lights.
As a basis of comparison I have now the two short terms of service at
West Point and here. I received employment at both places as almost
any laborer might have done, and I found in them both the means of
livelihood. But as a servant, I have found more than that. The man who
had been engaged as porter appeared about a week after my arrival. He
proved to be Martha's brother, and a newly landed immigrant. There was
no mistaking the last fact. His peaked countenance, with surviving
traces of ruddy color; his queer pot-hat, that rested on his ears; his
bright woollen tippet, defying the heat; his baggy suit, which had
doubtless served for day and night through all the voyage; his heavy
boots--all proclaimed him the raw material of a new citizen. Nor
could there be a doubt of his kinship with Martha. She stood with me
awaiting the stage, directing eager glances down the carriage-drive
and excitedly asking questions about its coming. She was the first to
see it, and to recognize her brother on the seat with Sam, and she
fluttered about in the unconcealed delight of affection, perfectly
unconscious of everyone, until her arms were about her brother's neck,
and she was leading him away to the kitchen.
Nothing was said to me about leaving; Martha's brother became her
assistant as a dishwasher, and learned to lend a generally useful hand
in the kitchen.
And so I had fairly won my place, and had open before me a way of
promotion. Experience alone could disclose the value of the opening;
but the "---- House" is a winter as well as a summer resort, and
a porter's services are therefore in demand through the year. If
efficient, intelligent labor could not eventually win higher and more
responsible position in such an enterprise, and possibly gain, at last,
an interest in the business, the case is surely exceptional.
It is the change in external conditions and its bearing upon me as a
human worker which have most impressed me, in contrast with my first
experience.
I worked for nine hours and a quarter at West Point, and had, at the
end of the day's labor, if the weather had been good, eighty-five cents
above actual living expenses. Here I have usually worked from five
o'clock in the morning until eleven at night, at all manner of menial
drudgery, and have gone to bed in the comfortable assurance that, in
addition to food and shelter, I have earned twenty-six cents and a
fraction. And yet, as a matter of choice, purely with reference to the
conditions under which the work is done, I should infinitely prefer a
week of my present duties to a single day at such labor as that at West
Point.
The work here is specific, and it is mine, to be done as I best can.
Responsibility and initiative and personal pride enter here, and render
the eighteen hours of this work incomparably shorter than the nine
hours of my last. It is true that it partakes of the character of much
household service, in that it is ever doing and is never done; but
there is a feeling of accomplishment in the fact of getting my quarters
clean and the grounds in order, and in keeping them so, although it be
at the cost of labor always repeated and never ended.
Perhaps it is because I am still haunted by the thought of the cruel
bondage of unskilled labor, under which men exhaust their powers of
body and mind and soul at work that, in the very conditions of its
doing, seems to harden them into slaves, instead of strengthening them
into men, that I fail to feel keenly the want of time that I can call
my own. I have an independence of vastly better sort in having work
which I can call my own, and which I can do with some human pleasure
and interest and profit in its performance, however hard it may be.
Slender as is my acquaintance with either, I yet see, with perfect
certainty, that the standard of character is higher in this company
of servants than among the gang of unskilled laborers. Other causes
may have a share in this result, but the efficient cause is clear
in the better moral atmosphere in which the work is done. I do not
know how conscious is the feeling of unity of interest with their
employer, or of copartnery with one another in labor, or of personal
responsibility; but all these motives must play a part in effecting the
successful accomplishment of the house-work, with its intricacies and
interdependencies which render constant personal oversight impossible.
Of course the proprietor has much trouble with the "help," and there
are frequent changes among them; but the body of the company remains
the same, and some of the servants have been here for several seasons.
Certainly one is obliged to look elsewhere than to wages for a cause
of better work as showing a finer moral fibre, if I may judge from my
twenty-six cents a day. I dare say that mine is the minimum wage. The
_chef_ told me that he gets sixty dollars a month, and I fancy that his
is the maximum sum. It is purely a guess, but I venture it, that the
average among us would not exceed five dollars a week. Five dollars a
week above the necessaries of life will buy much among the commonest
proletariat. Under certain conditions that, or even a less sum, might
buy industrious and almost continuous effort for fourteen or eighteen
hours a day, but not, I fancy, in the present economic condition of
household servants in this country. There must be other causes to
account for that.
The want of time which is at one's own command is the commonest
objection urged against domestic service as accounting for the ready
choice of harder work with far less of creature comfort, but with
definite limits and entire disposing of the rest of one's day. Stronger
than this, I fancy, as an objection, is a social disability which
attaches to service, and under the sway of which a house-maid has not
the prospect of so good a marriage, socially considered, as a factory
girl, who earns a scanty living, but is subject to no one's command
outside of the factory gates.
The strength of social conventions is a force to be reckoned with among
the working classes. It may seem that below the standing of folk gentle
by birth and breeding there are no social standards or social barriers
of serious strength. I begin to suspect that distinctions are as
clearly made on one side of that line as the other. Very certain I am
that the upper servants here and the nurses and house-maids are removed
from us of the clothes-washing and dish-washing and floor-scrubbing
fraternity by a very considerable social gulf.
A course of eighteen hours of continuous daily duty soon gives one
a surprising relish for the pleasure of doing as you please. I know
now something of the delight of a "Sunday off." I got my first leave
of absence one afternoon when I was allowed to go to the village of
Central Valley to have my boots mended. Not since I was a small boy at
boarding-school have I felt the same vivid pleasure in going freely
forth, knowing that, for the time, I was my own master; and when I
returned to the hotel, it was very much with the school-boy's feeling
of passing again under the yoke.