FIFTY-FIFTY
It was late fall or early winter in the city of Cleveland. An icy
wind, steel-tipped, came in from the frozen shores of Lake Erie,
piercing the streets, dark with soot and fog commingled. It was
evening, and the walks were covered with crowded and hurrying human
beings seeking their own homes--men done with their office labors,
young women from factories and shops. These bent against the bitter
wind, some apathetically, some stoutly, some with the vigor of youth,
yet others with the slow gait of approaching age.
Mary Warren and her room-mate, Annie Squires, met at a certain street
corner, as was their daily wont; the former coming from her place in
one of the great department stores, the other from her work in a
factory six blocks up the street.
"'Lo, Mollie," said Annie; and her friend smiled, as she always did at
their chill corner rendezvous. They found some sort of standing room
together in a crowded car, swinging on the straps as it screeched its
way around the curves, through the crowded portions of the city. It
was long before they got seats, three-quarters of an hour, for they
lived far out. Ten dollars a week does not give much in the way of
quarters. It might have been guessed that these two were partners,
room-mates.
"Gee! These cars is fierce," said Annie Squires, with a smile and a
wide glance into the eyes of a young man against whom she had been
flung, although she spoke to her companion.
Mary Warren made no complaint. Her face, calm and gentle, carried
neither repining nor resignation, but a high and resolute courage. She
shrank far as she might, like a gentlewoman, from personal contact with
other human beings; the little droop beginning at the corners of her
mouth gave proof of her weariness, but there was a thoroughbred vigor,
a silken-strong fairness about her, which, with the self-respecting
erectness in her carriage, rather belied the common garb she wore. Her
frock was that of the sales-woman, her gloves were badly worn, her
boots began to show signs of breaking, her hat was of nondescript sort,
of small pretensions--yet Mary Warren's attitude, less of weariness
than of resistance, had something of the ivory-fine gentlewoman about
it, even here at the end of a rasping winter day.
Annie Squires was dressed with a trifle more of the pretension which
ten dollars a week allows. She carried a sort of rude and frank
vitality about her, a healthful color in her face, not wholly uncomely.
She was a trifle younger than Mary Warren--the latter might have been
perhaps five and twenty; perhaps a little older, perhaps not quite so
old--but none the less seemed if not the more strong, at least the more
self-confident of the two. A great-heart, Annie Squires; out of
nothing, bound for nowhere. Two great-hearts, indeed, these two tired
girls, going home.
"Well, the Dutch seems to be having their own troubles now," said Annie
after a time, when at length the two were able to find seats, a trifle
to themselves in a corner of the car. "Looks like they might learn how
the war thing goes the other way 'round. Gee! I wish't I was a man!
I'd show 'em peace!"
She went on, passing from one headline to the next of the evening paper
which they took daily turns in buying. Mary Warren began to grow more
grave of face as she heard the news from the lands where not long ago
had swung and raged in their red grapple the great armies of the world.
Then a sudden remorse came to Annie. She put out a hand to Mary
Warren's arm. "Don't mind, Sis," said she. "Plenty more besides your
brother is gone. Lookit here."
"He was all I had," said Mary simply, her lips trembling.
"Yes, I know. But what's up to-night, Mollie? You're still. Anything
gone wrong at the store?" She was looking at her room-mate keenly.
This was their regular time for mutual review and for the restoring
gossip of the day.
"Well, you see, Annie, they told me that times were hard now after the
war, and more girls ready to work." Mary Warren only answered after a
long time. A passenger, sitting near, was just rising to leave the car.
Annie also said nothing for a time. "It looks bad, Mollie," said she,
sagely.
Mary Warren made no answer beyond nodding bravely, high-headed. Ten
dollars a week may be an enormous sum, even when countries but now have
been juggling billions carelessly.
They were now near the end of their daily journey. Presently they
descended from the car and, bent against the icy wind, made their way
certain blocks toward the door which meant home for them. They clumped
up the stairs of the wooden building to the third floor, and opened the
door to their room.
It was cold. There was no fire burning in the stove--they never left
one burning, for they furnished their own fuel; and in the morning,
even in the winter time, they rose and dressed in the cold.
"Never mind, dear," said Annie again, and pushed Mary down into the
rocking chair as she would have busied herself with the kindling. "Let
me, now. I wish't coal wasn't so high. There's times I almost lose my
nerve."
A blue and yellow flame at last began back of the mica-doored stove
which furnished heat for the room. The girls, too tired and cold to
take off their wraps, sat for a time, their hands against the slowly
heating door. Now and again they peered in to see how the fire was
doing.
Mary Warren rose and laid aside her street garb. When she turned back
again she still had in her hands the long knitting needles, the ball of
yellowish yarn, the partially knitted garment, which of late had been
so common in America.
"Aw, Sis, cut it out!" grumbled Annie, and reached to take the knitting
away from her friend. "The war's over, thank God! Give yourself a
chanct. Get warm first, anyways. You'll ruin your eyes--didn't the
doctor tell you so? You got one bum lamp right now."
"Worse things than having trouble with your eyes, Annie."
"Huh! It'll help you a lot to have your eyes go worse, won't it?"
"But I can't forget. I--I can't seem to forget Dan, my brother."
Mary's voice trailed off vaguely. "He's the last kin I had. Well, I
was all he had, his next of kin, so they sent me his decoration. And
I'm the last of our family--and a woman--and--and not seeing very well.
Annie, he was my reliance--and I was his, poor boy, because of his
trouble, that made him a half-cripple, though he got into the flying
corps at last. I'm alone. And, Annie--that was what was the trouble
at the store. I'm--it's my _eyes_."
They both sat for a long time in silence. Her room-mate fidgeted
about, walked away, fiddled with her hair before the dull little mirror
at the dresser. At length she turned.
"Sis," said she, "it ain't no news. I know, and I've knew it. I got
to talk some sense to you."
The dark glasses turned her way, unwaveringly, bravely.
"You're going to lose your job, Sis, as soon as the Christmas rush is
over," Annie finished. She saw the sudden shudder which passed through
the straight figure beside the stove.
"Oh, I know it's hard, but it's the truth. Now, listen. Your folks
are all dead. Your last one, Dan, your brother, is dead, and you got
no one else. It's just as well to face things. What I've got is
yours, of course, but how much have we got, together? What chanct has
a girl got? And a blind woman's a beggar, Sis. It's tough. But what
are you going to _do_? Girls is flocking back out of Washington. The
war factories is closing. There's thousands on the streets."
"Annie, what do you _mean_?"
"Oh, now, hush, Sis! Don't look at me that way, even through your
glasses. It hurts. We've just got to face things. You've got to
live. How?"
"Well, then," said Mary Warren, suddenly rising, her hands to her hot
cheeks, "well, then--and what then? I can't be a burden on you--you've
done more than your half ever since I first had to go to the doctor
about my eyes."
"Cut all that out, now," said Annie, her eyes ominous. "I done what
you'd a-done. But one girl can't earn enough for two, at ten per, and
be decent. Go out on the streets and see the boys still in their
uniforms. Every one's got a girl on his arm, and the best lookers,
too. What then? As for the love and marriage stuff--well----"
"As though you didn't know better yourself than to talk the way you
do!" said Mary Warren.
"I'm different from you, Mollie. I--I ain't so fine. You know why I
liked you? Because you was different; and I didn't come from much or
have much schooling. I've been to school to you--and you never knew
it. I owe you plenty, and you won't understand even that."
Mary only kissed her, but Annie broke free and went on.
"When they come to talk about the world going on, and folks marrying,
and raising children, after this war is over--you've got to hand it to
them that this duty stuff has got a strong punch behind it. Besides,
the kid idea makes a hit with me. But even if I did marry, I don't
know what a man would say, these times, about my bringing some one else
into his house. Men is funny."
"Annie--Annie!" exclaimed Mary Warren once more. "Don't--oh, don't!
I'd die before I'd go into your own real home! Of course, I'll not be
a burden on you. I'm too proud for that, I hope."
"Well, dope it out your own way, Sis," said her room-mate, sighing.
"It ain't true that I want to shake you. I don't. But I'm not talking
about Mary Warren when she had money her aunt left her--before she lost
it in Oil. I'm not talking about Mary Warren when she was eighteen,
and pretty as a picture. I ain't even talking about Mary a year ago,
wearing dark glasses, but still having a good chanct in the store.
What I'm talking about now is Mary Warren down and out, with not even
eyes to see with, and no money back of her, and no place to _go_. What
are you going to _do_, Sis? that's all. In my case--believe me, if I
lose my chanct at this man, Charlie Dorenwald, I'm going to find
another some time.
"It's fifty-fifty if either of us, or any girl, would get along all
right with a husband if we _could_ get one--it's no cinch. And now,
women getting plentier and plentier, and men still scarcer and scarcer,
it's sure tough times for a girl that hasn't eyes nor anything to get
work with, or get married with."
"Annie!" said her companion. "I wish you wouldn't!"
"Well, I wasn't thinking how I talked, Sis," said Annie, reaching out a
hand to pat the white one on the chair arm. "But fifty-fifty, my
dear--that's all the bet ever was or will be for a woman, and now her
odds is a lot worse, they say, even for the well and strong ones.
Maybe part of the trouble with us women was we never looked on this
business of getting married with any kind of halfway business sense.
Along comes a man, and we get foolish. Lord! Oughtn't both of us to
know about bargain counters and basement sales?"
"Well, let's eat, Mary," she concluded, seeing she had no answer. And
Mary Warren, broken-hearted, high-headed, silent, turned to the
remaining routine of the day.
Annie busied herself at the little box behind the stove--a box with a
flap of white cloth, which served as cupboard. Here she found a coffee
pot, a half loaf of bread, some tinned goods, a pair of apples. She
put the coffee pot to boil upon the little stove, pushing back the
ornamental acorn which covered the lid at its top. Meantime Mary drew
out the little table which served them, spread upon it its white cloth,
and laid the knives and forks, scanty enough in their number.
They ate as was their custom every evening. Not two girls in all
Cleveland led more frugal lives than these, nor cleaner, in every way.
"Let me wash the dishes, Sis," said Annie Squires. "You needn't wipe
them--no, that's all right to-night. Let me, now."
"You're fine, Annie, you're fine, that's what you are!" said Mary
Warren. "You're the best girl in the world. But we'll make it
fifty-fifty while we can. I'm going to do my share."
"I suppose we'd better do the laundry, too, don't you think?" she
added. "We don't want the fire to get too low."
They had used their single wash basin for their dish pan as well, and
now it was impressed to yet another use. Each girl found in her pocket
a cheap handkerchief or so. Annie now plunged these in the wash
basin's scanty suds, washed them, and, going to the mirror, pasted them
against the glass, flattening them out so that in the morning they
might be "ironed," as she called it. This done, each girl deliberately
sat down and removed her shoes and stockings. The stockings themselves
now came in for washing--an alternate daily practice with them both
since Mary had come hither. They hung the stockings over the back of
the solitary spare chair, just close enough to the stove to get some
warmth, and not close enough to burn--long experience had taught them
the exact distance.
They huddled bare-footed closer to the stove, until Annie rose and
tiptoed across to get a pair each of cheap straw slippers which rested
below the bed.
"Here's yours, Sis," said she. "You just sit still and get warm as you
can before we turn in--it's an awful night, and the fire's beginning to
peter out already. I wish't Mr. McAdoo, or whoever it is, 'd see about
this coal business. Gee, I hope these things'll get dry before
morning--there ain't anything in the world any colder than a pair of
wet stockings in the morning! Let's turn in--it'll be warmer, I
believe."
The wind, steel-pointed, bored at the window casings all that night.
Degree after degree of frost would have registered in that room had
means of registration been present. The two young women huddled closer
under the scanty covering that they might find warmth. Ten dollars a
week. Two great-hearts, neither of them more than a helpless girl.