the _billets-doux_ written to one another by the papas. At Amoy, a
marriage was recently concluded between the respectable houses of Tan
and O; on which occasion the following epistles passed between the two
old gentlemen:--
From Papa Tan: "The ashamed young brother, surnamed Tan, with
washed head makes obeisance, and writes this letter to the greatly
virtuous and honorable gentleman whose surname is O. I duly
reverence your lofty door. The marriage business will be conducted
according to the six rules of propriety, and I will reverently
announce the business to my ancestors with presents of gems and
silks. I will arrange the things received in your basket, so that
all who tread the threshold of my door may enjoy them. From this
time forward the two surnames will be united, and I trust the
union will be a felicitous one, and last for a hundred years, and
realize the delight experienced by the union. I hope that your
honorable benevolence and consideration will defend me unceasingly.
At present the dragon flies in Sin Hai term, the first month, lucky
day. I bow respectfully. Light before.
TAN."
From Papa O: "The younger brother, surnamed O, of the family to be
related by marriage, washes his head clean, knocks his head and bows,
and writes this marriage-letter in reply to the far-famed and virtuous
gentleman surnamed Tan, the venerable teacher and great man who manages
his business. 'Tis matter for congratulation the union of 100 years. I
reverence your lofty gate. The prognostic is good, also the divination
of the lucky bird. The stars are bright, and the dragons meet together.
I, the foolish one, am ashamed of my diminutiveness. I for a long time
have desired your dragon powers: now you have not looked down upon me
with contempt, but have entertained the statements of the match-maker,
and agree to give Kang to be united to my despicable daughter. We all
wish the girl to have her hair dressed, and the young man to put on his
cap of manhood. The peach-flowers just now look beautiful, the red plum
also looks gay. I praise your son, who is like a fairy horse who can
cross over through water, and is able to ride upon the wind and waves;
but my tiny daughter is like a green window and a feeble plant, and is
not worthy of becoming the subject of verse.
"Now, I reverently bow to your good words, and make use of them to
display your good breeding. Now, I hope your honorable benevolence will
always remember me without end. Now the dragon flies in the Sin Hai
term, first month, lucky day. Obeisance! May the future be prosperous.
O."
THE TRIALS OF A NEEDLEWOMAN.
BY T. S. ARTHUR.
CHAPTER I.
Needle-work, at best, yields but a small return. Yet how many thousands
have no other resource in life, no other barrier thrown up between them
and starvation! The manly stay upon which a woman has leaned suddenly
fails, and she finds self-support an imperative necessity; yet she has
no skill, no strength, no developed resources. In all probability, she
is a mother. In this case, she must not only stand alone, but sustain
her helpless children. Since her earliest recollection, others have
ministered to her wants and pleasures. From a father's hand, childhood
and youth received their countless natural blessings; and brother or
husband, in later years, has stood between her and the rough winds of a
stormy world. All at once, like a bird reared from a fledgling in its
cage, and then turned loose in dreary winter time, she finds herself
in the world unskilled in its ways, yet required to earn her bread or
perish.
What can she do? In what art or profession has she been educated? The
world demands service, and proffers its money for labor. But what
has she learned? What work can she perform? She can sew. And is that
all? Every woman we meet can ply the needle. Ah! As a seamstress, how
poor the promise for her future! The labor market is crowded with
sewing women, and, as a consequence, the price of needle-work--more
particularly that called plain needle-work--is depressed to mere
starvation rates. In the more skilled branches, better returns are met;
but, even here, few can endure prolonged application--few can bend
ten, twelve, or fifteen hours daily over their tasks, without fearful
inroads upon health.
In the present time, a strong interest has been awakened on this
subject. The cry of the poor seamstress has been heard; and the
questions, "How shall we help her?" "How shall we widen the circle
of remunerative employments for women?" passes anxiously from lip
to lip. To answer this question is not our present purpose. Others
are earnestly seeking to work out the problem, and we must leave the
solution with them. What we now design is to quicken their generous
impulses. How more effectively can this be done than by a life-picture
of the poor needlewoman's trials and sufferings? And this we shall now
proceed to give.
It was a cold, dark, drizzly day in the fall of 18--, that a young
female entered a well-arranged clothing store in Boston, and passed
with hesitating steps up to where a man was standing behind one of the
counters.
"Have you any work, sir?" she asked, in a low, timid voice.
The individual to whom this was addressed, a short, rough-looking man,
with a pair of large black whiskers, eyed her for a moment with a
bold stare, and then indicated, by half turning his head and nodding
sideways towards the owner of the shop, who stood at a desk some
distance back, that her application was to be made there. Turning
quickly from the rude, and too familiar gaze of the attendant, the
young woman went on to the desk, and stood, half frightened and
trembling, beside the man from whom she had come to ask the privilege
of toiling for little more than a crust of bread and a cup of cold
water.
"Have you any work, sir?" was repeated in a still lower and more timid
voice than that in which her request had at first been made.
"Yes, we have," was the gruff reply.
"Can I get some?"
"I don't know. I'm not sure that you'll ever bring it back again."
The applicant endeavored to make some reply to this, but the words
choked her; she could not utter them.
"I've been tricked in my time out of more than a little by new-comers.
But I don't know; you seem to have a simple, honest look. Are you
particularly in want of work?"
"Oh yes, sir!" replied the applicant, in an earnest, half-imploring
voice. "I desire work very much."
"What kind do you want?"
"Almost anything you have to give out, sir?"
"Well, we have pants, coarse and fine roundabouts, shirts, drawers, and
almost any article of men's wear you can mention."
"What do you give for shirts, sir?"
"Various prices; from six cents up to twenty five, according to the
quality of the article."
"Only twenty-five cents for fine shirts!" returned the young woman, in
a surprised, disappointed, desponding tone.
"_Only_ twenty-five cents? _Only?_ Yes, _only_ twenty-five cents! Pray,
how much did you expect to get, Miss?" retorted the clothier, in a half
sneering, half offended voice.
"I don't know. But twenty-five cents is very little for a hard day's
work."
"Is it, indeed? I know enough who are thankful for even that. Enough
who are at it early and late, and do not even earn as much. Your ideas
will have to come down a little, Miss, if you expect to work for this
branch of business."
"What do you give for vests and pantaloons?" asked the woman, without
seeming to notice the man's rudeness.
"For common trowsers with pockets, twelve cents; and for finer ones,
fifteen and twenty cents. Vests about the same rates."
"Have you any shirts ready?"
"Yes, a plenty. Will you have 'em coarse or fine?"
"Fine, if you please."
"How many will you take?"
"Let me have three to begin with."
"Here, Michael," cried the man to the attendant who had been first
addressed by the stranger, "give this girl three fine shirts to make."
Then turning to her, he said, "They are cotton shirts, with linen
collars, bosoms, and wristbands. There must be two rows of stitching
down the bosoms, and one row upon the wristband. Collars plain. And
remember, they must be made very nice."
"Yes, sir," was the reply, made in a sad voice, as the young creature
turned from her employer and went up to the shop-attendant to receive
the three shirts.
"You've never worked for the clothing stores, I should think?" remarked
this individual, looking her in the face with a steady gaze.
"Never," replied the applicant, in a low tone, half shrinking away,
with an instinctive aversion for the man.
"Well, it's pretty good when one can't do any better. An industrious
sewer can get along pretty well upon a pinch."
No reply was made to this. The shirts were now ready; but, before they
were handed to her, the man bent over the counter, and, putting his
face close to hers, said--
"What might your name be, Miss?"
A quick flush suffused the neck and face of the girl, as she stepped
back a pace or two, and answered--
"That is of no consequence, sir."
"Yes, Miss, but it is of consequence. We never give out work to people
who don't tell their names. We would be a set of unconscionable fools
to do that, I should think."
The young woman stood thoughtful for a little while, and then said,
while her cheek still burned--
"Lizzy Glenn."
"Very well. And now, Miss Lizzy, be kind enough to inform me where you
live."
"That is altogether unnecessary. I will bring the work home as soon as
I have finished it."
"But suppose you should happen to forget our street and number? What
then?"
"Oh no, I shall not do that. I know the place very well," was the
innocent reply.
"No, but that won't do, Lizzy. We must have the name and place of
residence of every man, woman, and child who work for us. It is our
rule, and we never depart from it."
There was another brief period of irresolution, and then the place of
abode was given. This was first entered, with her name, in a book, and
then the three shirts were handed over. The seamstress turned away on
receiving them, and walked quickly from the shop.
The appearance of this young applicant for work would have appealed
instantly to the sympathies of any one but a regular slop-shop man, who
looked only to his own profits, and cared not a fig whose heart-drops
cemented the stones of his building. She was tall and slender, with
light brown hair, clear soft complexion, and eyes of a mild hazel.
But her cheeks were sunken, though slightly flushed, and her eyes lay
far back in their sockets. Her forehead was high and very white. The
tones of her voice, which was low, were soft and musical, and her words
were spoken, few though they were, with a taste and appropriateness
that showed her to be one who had moved in a circle of refinement and
intelligence. As to her garments, they were old, and far too thin for
the season. A light, faded shawl, of costly material, was drawn closely
around her shoulders, but had not the power to keep from her attenuated
frame the chill air, or to turn off the fine penetrating rain that came
with the wind, searchingly, from the bleak north-east. Her dress, of
summer calico, much worn, clung closely to her body. Above all was a
close bonnet, and a thick veil, which she drew around her face as she
stepped into the street and glided hurriedly away.
"She's a touch above the vulgar, Michael," broke in Berlaps, the owner
of the shop, coming forward as he spoke.
"Yes, indeed! That craft has been taut rigged in her time."
"Who can she be, Michael? None of your common ones, of course."
"Oh no, of course not; she's 'seen better days,' as the slang phrase
is."
"No doubt of that. What name did she give?"
"Lizzy Glenn. But that may or may not be correct. People like her are
sometimes apt to forget even their own names."
"Where does she live?"
"In the lower part of the town somewhere. I have it in the book here."
"You think she'll bring them shirts back?"
"Oh yes. Folks that have come down in the world as she has rarely play
grab game after that fashion."
"She seemed all struck aback at the price."
"I suppose so. Ha! ha!"
"But she's the right kind," resumed Berlaps. "I only wish we had a
dozen like her."
"I wish we had. Her work will never rip."
Further conversation was prevented by the entrance of a customer.
Before he had been fully served, a middle-aged woman came in with a
large bundle, and went back to Berlaps's desk, where he stood engaged
over his account-books.
"Good-day, Mrs. Gaston," said he, looking up, while not a feature
relaxed on his cold, rigid countenance.
"I've brought you in six pairs of pants," said the woman, untying the
bundle she had laid upon the counter.
"You had seven pair, ma'am."
"I know that, Mr. Berlaps. But only six are finished; and, as I want
some money, I have brought them in."
"It is more than a week since we gave them out. You ought to have had
the whole seven pair done. We want them all now. They should have been
in day before yesterday."
"They would have been finished, Mr. Berlaps," said the woman, in a
deprecating tone; "but one of my children has been sick, and I have had
to be up with her so often every night, and have had to attend to her
so much through the day, that I have not been able to do more than half
work."
"Confound the children!" muttered the tailor to himself, as he began
inspecting the woman's work. "They're always getting sick, or something
else."
After carefully examining three or four pairs of the coarse trowsers
which had been brought in, he pushed the whole from him with a quick
impatient gesture and an angry scowl, saying, as he did so--
"Botched to death! I can't give you work unless it's done better, Mrs.
Gaston. You grow worse and worse!"
"I know, sir," replied the woman, in a troubled voice, "that they are
not made quite so well as they might be. But consider how much I have
had against me. A sick child--and worn out by attendance on her night
and day."
"It's always a sick child, or some other excuse with the whole of you.
But that don't answer me. I want my work done well, and I mean to have
it so. If you don't choose to turn out good work, I can find a plenty
who will."
"You sha'n't complain of me hereafter, Mr. Berlaps," replied the woman,
submissively.
"So you have said before. But we shall see."
Berlaps then turned moodily to his desk, and resumed the employment
he had broken off when the seamstress came in, while she stood with
her hands folded across each other, awaiting his pleasure in regard to
the payment of the meagre sum she had earned by a full week of hard
labor, prolonged often to a late hour in the night. She had stood thus,
meekly, for nearly five minutes, when Berlaps raised his head, and
looking at her sternly over the top of his desk, said--
"What are you waiting for, Mrs. Gaston?"
"I should like to have the money for the pants I have brought in. I am
out of every"--
"I never pay until the whole job is done. Bring in the other pair, and
you can have your money."
"Yes; but Mr. Berlaps"----
"You needn't talk anything about it, madam. You have my say," was the
tailor's angry response.
Slowly turning away, the woman moved, with hesitating steps, to the
door, paused there a moment, and then went out. She lingered along,
evidently undecided how to act, for several minutes, and then moved on
at a quicker pace, as if doubt and irresolution had given way to some
encouraging thought. Threading her way along the narrow winding streets
in the lower part of the city, she soon emerged into the open space
used as a hay-market, and, crossing over this, took her way in the
direction of one of the bridges. Before reaching this, she turned down
towards the right and entered a small grocery. A woman was the only
attendant upon this.
"Won't you trust me for a little more, Mrs. Grubb?" she asked, in a
supplicating voice, while she looked anxiously into her face.
"No, ma'am! not one cent till that dollar's paid up!" was the sharp
retort. "And, to tell you the truth, I think you've got a heap of
impudence to come in here, bold-faced, and ask for more trust, after
having promised me over and over again for a month to pay that dollar.
No! pay the dollar first!"
"I did intend to pay you a part of it this very day," replied Mrs.
Gaston. "But"----
"Oh yes. It's but this, and but that. But, buts ain't my dollar. I'm
an honest woman, and want to make an honest living; and must have my
money."
"But I only want a little, Mrs. Grubb. A few potatoes and some salt
fish; and just a gill of milk and a cup of flour. The children have
had nothing to eat since yesterday. I took home six pairs of trowsers
to-day, which came to ninety cents, at fifteen cents a pair. But I
had seven pairs, and Mr. Berlaps won't pay me until I bring the whole
number. It will take me till twelve o'clock to-night to finish them,
and so I can't get any money before to-morrow. Just let me have two
pounds of salt fish, which will be only seven cents, and three cents'
worth of potatoes; and a little milk and flour to make something for
Ella. It won't be much, Mrs. Grubb, and it will keep the little ones
from being hungry all day and till late to-morrow."
Her voice failed her as she uttered the last sentence. But she
restrained herself after the first sob that heaved her overladen bosom,
and stood calmly awaiting the answer to her urgent petition.
Mrs. Grubb was a woman, and a mother into the bargain. She had,
too, the remains of a woman's heart, where lingered a few maternal
sympathies. These were quick to prompt her to duty. Turning away
without a reply, she weighed out two pounds of fish, measured a peck of
potatoes, poured out some milk in a cup, and filled a small paper with
flour. These she handed to Mrs. Gaston without uttering a word.
"To-morrow you shall be paid for these, and something on the old
account," said the recipient, as she took them and hurried from the
shop.
"Why not give up at once, instead of trying to keep soul and body
together by working for the slop-shops?" muttered Mrs. Grubb, as her
customer withdrew. "She'd a great sight better go with her children
to the poor-house than keep them half starving under people's noses
at this rate, and compelling us, who have a little feeling left, to
keep them from dying outright with hunger! It's too bad! There's
that Berlaps, who grinds the poor seamstresses, who work for him to
death, and makes them one-half of their time beggars at our stores for
something for their children to eat. He is building two houses in
Roxbury at this very moment; and out of what? Out of the money of which
he has robbed these poor women. Fifteen cents for a pair of trowsers
with pockets in them! Ten cents for shirts and drawers; and everything
at that rate! Is it any wonder they are starving, and he growing rich?
Curse him, and all like him! I could see them hung!"
And the woman set her teeth and clenched her hand in momentary, but
impotent rage.
In the mean time, Mrs. Gaston hurried home with the food she had
obtained. She occupied the upper room of a narrow frame house near
the river, for which she paid a rent of three dollars a month. It was
small and comfortless; but the best her slender means could provide.
Two children were playing on the floor when she entered, the one about
four, and the other a boy who looked as if he might be nearly ten years
of age. On the bed lay Ella, the sick child to whom the mother had
alluded both to the tailor and the shop-keeper. She turned wishfully
upon her mother her young bright eyes as she entered, but did not move
or utter a word. The children, who had been amusing themselves upon
the floor, sprang to their feet, and, catching hold of the basket she
brought in with her, ascertained in a moment its contents.
"Fish and taters! fish and taters!" cried the youngest, a little girl,
clapping her hands and dancing about the floor.
"Won't we have some dinner now?" said Henry, the oldest boy, looking up
into his mother's face with eager delight, as he laid his hands upon
her arm.
"Yes, my children, you shall have a good dinner, and that right
quickly," returned the mother, in a voice half choked with emotion, as
she threw off her bonnet and proceeded to cook the coarse provisions
she had obtained at the sacrifice of so much feeling. It did not take
long to boil the fish and potatoes, which were eaten with a keen relish
by two of the children, Emma and Harry. The gruel prepared for Ella,
from the flour obtained at Mrs. Grubb's, did not much tempt the sickly
appetite of the child. She sipped a few spoonfuls, and then turned from
the bowl which her mother held for her at the bedside.
"Eat more of it, dear," said Mrs. Gaston. "It will make you feel
better."
"I'm not very hungry now, mother," answered Ella.
"Don't it taste good to you?"
"Not very good."
The child sighed as she turned her wan face towards the wall, and the
unhappy mother sighed responsive.
"I wish you would try to take a little more. It's so long since
you have eaten anything; and you'll grow worse if you don't take
nourishment. Just two or three spoonfuls. Come, dear."
Ella, thus urged, raised herself in bed, and made an effort to eat
more of the gruel. At the third spoonful, her stomach heaved as the
tasteless fluid touched her lips.
"Indeed, mother, I can't swallow another mouthful," she said, again
sinking back on her pillow.
Slowly did Mrs. Gaston turn from the bed. She had not yet eaten of the
food which her two well children were devouring with the eagerness of
hungry animals. Only a small portion did she now take for herself, and
that was eaten hurriedly, as if the time occupied in attending to her
own wants were so much wasted.
The meal over, Mrs. Gaston took the unfinished pair of trowsers, and,
though feeling weary and disheartened, bent earnestly to the task
before her. At this she toiled, unremittingly, until the falling
twilight admonished her to stop. The children's supper was then
prepared. She would have applied to Mrs. Grubb for a loaf of bread, but
was so certain of meeting a refusal that she refrained from doing so.
For supper, therefore, they had only the salt fish and potatoes.
It was one o'clock that night before exhausted nature refused another
draft upon its energies. The garment was not quite finished. But the
nerveless hand and the weary head of the poor seamstress obeyed the
requirements of her will no longer. The needle had to be laid aside,
for the finger had no more strength to grasp, nor skill to direct its
motions.
CHAPTER II.
It was about ten o'clock on the next morning, when Mrs. Gaston appeared
at the shop of Berlaps, the tailor.
"Here is the other pair," she said, as she came up to the counter,
behind which stood Michael, the salesman.
That person took the pair of trowsers, glanced at them a moment, and
then, tossing them aside, asked Mrs. Gaston if she could make some
cloth roundabouts.
"At what price?" was inquired.
"The usual price--thirty cents."
"Thirty cents for cloth jackets! Indeed, Michael, that is too little.
You used to give thirty-seven and a half."
"Can't afford to do it now, then. Thirty cents is enough. There are
plenty of women glad to get them even at that price."
"But it will take me a full day and a half to make a cloth jacket,
Michael."
"You work slow, that's the reason; a good sewer can easily make one in
a day; and that's doing pretty well, these times."
"I don't know what you mean by pretty well, Michael," answered the
seamstress. "How do you think you could manage to support yourself and
three children on less than thirty cents a day?"
"Haven't you put that oldest boy of yours out yet?" asked Michael,
instead of replying to the question of Mrs. Gaston.
"No, I have not."
"Well, you do very wrong, let me tell you, to slave yourself and pinch
your other children for him, when he might be earning his living just
as well as not. He's plenty old enough to be put out."
"You may think so, but I don't. He is still but a child."
"A pretty big child, I should say. But, if you would like to get him a
good master, I know a man over in Cambridge who would take him off of
your hands."
"Who is he?"
"He keeps a store, and wants just such a boy to do odd trifles about,
and run of errands. It would be the very dandy for your little fellow.
He'll be in here to-day, and, if you say so, I will speak to him about
your son."
"I would rather try and keep him with me this winter. He is too young
to go so far away. I could not know whether he were well or ill used."