IV

I unlocked my attic room in the fourth storey of the old Chelsea house

and lighted the lamp. In contrast to what both ear and eye had been

witness during the evening: Delia Beaseley's account of my mother's

rescue and death, and that scene of life's brutality on Columbia

Heights, the sight of the small plain interior gave me, for the first

time in all the seven years, a home-sense, a feeling of welcome and

refuge.

I looked at the cretonne-covered cot, the packing boxes curtained with

the same, the white painted hanging box-shelves, the one chair--a flour

barrel, cut to the required form, well padded and upholstered; all

these were the work of my hands in free hours. And I was about to

exchange the known for the unknown! This thought added to my

depression.

I put out the lamp and sat down by the one window. The night air was

refreshingly cool. The many lights on the river gleamed clear; the

roar in the streets was subdued. Gradually, my antagonism to the

physical features of the metropolis, to its heedless crowds, its

overpowering mechanism, its thoroughfares teeming with human beings who

passed me daily, knowing little of their own existence and nothing of

mine, its racial divergencies, grew less intense; in fact, the whole

life of this city, in its aspect of mere Juggernaut, was being

unconsciously modified for me as I realized I was about to go forth

into a strange country.

I was recalling those ten weeks of mortal weakness and suffering at St.

Luke's, the kindness of nurses and physicians. No matter if I had paid

my way; theirs was a ready helpfulness, a steady administration of the

tonic of human kindness that never could be bought and paid for in the

Republic's money. I thought of Delia Beaseley and her noble work among

those "who had missed their footing". I relived in imagination that

rescue of my own mother, with all of the horror and all of the merciful

pity it entailed. I found myself wondering if Doctor Rugvie would be

able to lay his hand on those papers immediately after his arrival. I

dwelt upon the many kindly advances from my co-workers in the Library;

few of these women I had met, for I felt strangely old, apart from

them, and the struggle to live and at the same time accomplish my

purpose had been so hard. My landlady, too, came in for a share of my

softening mood; exacting, but scrupulously honest, she had lodged under

this same roof a generation of theological students, yet her best dress

remained a rusty alpaca. I thought of the various types of students

for the ministry--

I smiled at that thought, a smile that proved the latent youth in me

was sufficiently appreciative, at least of that phase of life.

I left the window and, after closing the lower half of the inside

shutters, partly undressed and relighted the lamp. Then I took two

paper-covered blank books from my trunk. I sat down in my one easy

chair of home manufacture and, resting my feet on the cot, began to

read.

These two books were my journal, my confidante, my most intimate

companion for seven years. I had written in them intermittently only,

and, as I turned a page here and there, my eye dwelt longest, not on

the few high lights, as it were, in my uneventful life of work and

struggle, but on the many shadows they deepened and emphasized.

Nov. 4, 1902. My first day in New York. I took a hack from the

station to this house in the old "Chelsea district" they call it. My

first hack-ride; it was pretty grand for me, but I was afraid to try

the street cars after a horrid woman had tried her best to get me to go

with her after I left the station--oh, it was awful! I never knew

there could be such women before--not that kind. I shall look for work

to-morrow.

Nov. 5. I have to pay a dollar and a half for this room in the attic.

There isn't any heat, and there is no gas in it. I have to furnish it

myself. My landlady is a queer little old woman, Mrs. Turtelot, who

has kept lodgers here for thirty years. She has her house filled with

the students from the Theological Seminary near by. It's lucky I have

this place to come to. I wondered to-day how girls ever get on in this

city, without having someone to go to they know is all right. She

seems like a Frenchwoman, perhaps a French Canadian. I think she must

be, for her mother used to work at Seth White's tavern up home; it was

through his neighbors I got her address. She says the students have to

furnish their own bed clothes and towels. I 'm glad I brought mine

with me. It's awfully cold here to-night, but Mrs. Turtelot has given

me a lamp, till I can get one, and that warms up some. Anyway, I feel

safe here from that other kind. I 'll soon earn enough to fix up a

little.

Nov. 6. I 've been tramping about all day answering advertisements.

Mrs. Turtelot told me not to go into any strange place, like up stairs,

and not to go over a door sill. I have n't found that so easy.

I 've been afraid all day of getting lost, but she told me to-night to

ask every time for West Twenty-third Street and follow it to the river;

then I could always find my way here.

I slept in her room on the sofa the first night; she says I can sleep

with her for a few nights till I can get a cot. A student is leaving

here in a few days and he will sell his second hand. But I don't want

to sleep with her, and I asked her as a favor to let me have two

pillows. She didn't have any extra ones, but let me have hers; so I

have a good bed on the floor. Could n't find work.

Nov. 8. Mrs. T. told me to-day that it is a bad time of year to find

work. It is late in the season and help is being turned off, and,

besides, it is going to be a hard winter, so everybody says. What do

the turned-off ones do, then, for a living?-- No job yet! But I won't

go out to service in a private family unless I have to. I 've had

enough of that in the past.

Nov. 9. Since I came here I have answered fifty-two advertisements. I

get the same answer every time: "You have n't been trained and you have

n't had any experience." How am I to get training and experience if I

don't have the chance? That's what I want to know.

Nov. 10. I 've bought the cot and the mattress. I paid four dollars

for them. There is a small stove hole in the chimney on one side of my

room; when I get to earning, I 'm going to have a little stove here and

do my own cooking. Thank fortune, I can cook as well as chop wood if I

have to! So far I 've heated my things on Mrs. T.'s stove. She lives,

that is, cooks, eats, sleeps, and washes in her back basement; the

front one she rents to a barber. He makes his living from the students

round here and the professors at the Seminary. She says the students

cook most of their meals in their rooms on their gas stoves. I wish I

had one.

Nov. 13. A bad lot of a date! No work yet, and I 've tramped all day

in the slush and snow. I dried my things down in Mrs. T.'s room. I

did n't dare to spend any more in car fares, for I must have a stove.

I know to a cent just what I 've spent since I came, but I 'm going to

put it down so I can see the figures; it will make me more cautious

about spending. The car fare is more than I meant it should be, but,

to save it, I walked the first three days from Eighty-sixth Street and

Fourth Avenue--a bakery that advertised for a woman to sell the early

morning bread in the shop; three hours of work only, at twenty cents an

hour--down as far as the Washington Market where they wanted a girl to

sell flowers in a sidewalk booth, for two weeks before Christmas. I

found then that the soles of my boots were beginning to wear and that

it saves something to ride.

Car fare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ .75

Bread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Cheese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

1 tin pail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

6 eggs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

1 can baked beans . . . . . . . . . . . .17

2 pints soup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Tin lamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

Cot and mattress . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.00

Room rent, two weeks in advance . . . . 3.00

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $9.51

And I have ten dollars and ninety-three cents left. I can hold the

fort another two weeks on this.

Nov. 15. No work yet. I 'm going to keep a stiff upper lip and find

work, or starve in doing it. This city _sha'n't_ beat _me_, not if I

can use my two arms and hands and legs, two eyes, one tongue and a

brain! No!

Nov. 17. I scrubbed down the three flights of stairs for Mrs. T.

to-day. She has the rheumatism in her wrists, and I was glad to do it

for her to help pay for her loan of the pillows and for letting me heat

my things on her stove. I must buy my own to-morrow. I feel ashamed

to ask favors of her any longer, for I have put off the buying of it

till I could get work.

Friday. Now I have just four dollars left; for I bought it to-day and

set it up myself. A little second hand one with one hole on top--and

no coals to put in it! I don't dare use the last four dollars, for the

rent is due soon and I have to pay in advance. I suppose it's all

right to secure herself, but it's hard on me.

Nov. 30. I believe I 'm hungry, and I don't remember to have been

hungry before in all my life, without having enough ready to fill my

stomach. But I don't dare to spend another cent till I get work. It

must come, _it must_--

I 've lived three days on a half a pound of walnuts, half a pound of

cheese and a loaf of bread--and walked my feet sore looking for a

place. I know I could have had two places, but I dared not engage to

the women. That woman in the Grand Central Station haunts me; these

two women had a look of her! One wanted me in private manicure rooms

to learn the trade; she said I had the right kind of fingers after the

rough had worn off. The other wanted me to show rooms to rent in a

queer looking house. Mrs. T. told me to keep away from it and all like

it.

Dec. 1. I 'm not only hungry, I 'm cold too. I bought two pails of

coals, and paid high for them so Mrs. T. says. They say there is going

to be a coal famine from the great strike. It makes me mad that it

should all pile up on me in this way! Why can't I have work? Why,

when I am willing, can't I find a place?

An awful feeling comes over me sometimes, when I am turned down at a

place I 've applied for: I want to throttle the first well-dressed man

or woman I meet and say, "Give me work or I 'll make it the worse for

you!" Then I turn all dizzy and sick after that feeling, and hate

myself for the thought; it's so unjust.

Dec. 10. I asked Mrs. T. if I might n't pay by the week and at the end

of each week. I think she knew what the trouble was. She hesitated

for a minute, and that was enough for me.

"Oh, I _can_ pay you," I said, "only it's a little more convenient."

"Then I 'd like you to," she said in her queer dry voice.

I hated her at that moment. I went up stairs to my bare room and took

off the knit woollen petticoat I made for myself at home, just before

coming down; I took that and a set of gold beads, that were my

grandmother's, and went out with them to a pawnbroker's just around the

corner on the avenue. I got eight dollars for the two of them, and

made the time in which to redeem them one month. Then I went back to

the house and paid her. She looked surprised, but her skinny hand

closed upon the money as if she, too, had no more for the morrow. I

don't know that she has. The students come and go.

Dec. 14. I stood on Twentieth Street near Broadway to-day, watching

the teamsters unload the heavy drays at the back of a department store.

I found myself envying them--they had work.

Dec. 15. I am not up to date with my clothes, and I have no money to

make myself so. I find it is for this reason I am "turned down" at so

many places where I apply. I read it in men's eyes, in the women's

hard stare.

Dec. 17. A man offered to clothe me for a position in a shop, if I

would--

I know I looked at him; I think I saw him, or perhaps the beast that

was in him. Then I saw queer lights before me, red and yellow--if I

had been a man I would have taken him by the throat. When, at last, I

could see again, the man was gone. Good riddance! There is such a

thing as day nightmare.

Dec. 19. I am beginning to understand how it is done; how the fifteen

dollar waists, the diamond rings, the theatre, and the suppers after,

can be had without work.

Dec. 20. The strike is on. I should have to do without coals, strike

or no strike, for I have nothing to buy them with. Mrs. Turtelot

offered to let me heat my food on her stove--my food! I 've lived on

one loaf of bread and a can of baked beans for seven days--and to-day I

've been down to the Washington Market just to smell the evergreens

that, for all I have no home, give me a homesick longing for the

country. But I will not go back; I 'll starve here first.

Afterwards I walked up to Twenty-third Street, and lost myself there in

the holiday crowds. What throngs!--jostled, pushed, beset by vendors,

loaded with bundles, yet so good natured! No one looked hungry. I

stood on the kerb to watch the men selling toys and birds; to listen to

the strange cries, the shrilling of the wooden canaries and the trill

of the real ones; to peep into the rabbit hutch, and the basket of

kittens; to stroke an armful of sleeping puppies; to smell the

fragrance of roses and violets and carnations; to smile a little at the

slow-moving turtles, the leaping frogs, the Jack-in-the-box, the

mechanical toys of all kinds that performed on the sidewalk, each the

centre of a small crowd. Then, at twilight, the flare from the

chestnut vendor's stand, the little electric lights of the Punch and

Judy sidewalk show, the electric torches that the children were

carrying, the brilliant whirligigs for advertisements, gave to the

whole scene a strange unreal appearance. Men, women, children,

Christmas trees, dogs, birds, electric cars, rabbits, kittens, a goat,

cabs, automobiles, express carts, surged into the flare and glare,

first of one light then of another, till what was shadow and what was

substance I failed to make out.

Dec. 21. At last, oh, at last, there is work for me,--for me, too,

among all these millions! But it makes me sick to know there must be

some who are trying and never find.

I have taken a place in a small writing-paper factory. It's down near

Barclay Street, in the loft of a crazy old building, three wooden

flights from the street. The loft is lighted at both ends by windows

and in the top by skylights. It is heated by a large cylinder stove in

the centre, and a small glue box-pot at one end. The air is close, but

I don't care much, for it is so warm. I get four dollars a week.

I can manage to live, at least, on this. I can think about nothing

else to-night.

Jan. 15, 1903. The coal strike is on. It is cold in the loft, for we

have to be saving of fuel. It takes all I can save to buy three

pailfuls of coal a week for my little stove. I kindle my fire at

night, heat water, cook my cereal, or bean soup, and am comfortable

till morning; the room is decently warm to dress in. I am off to work

at seven. Fuel and rent and some necessary underclothes leave little

for food. I cannot redeem my petticoat, and gold beads which my

grandmother had from her mother, Marcia Farrell.

July 6. Hot, hotter, hottest in the old fire-trap of a loft. The sun

beats down through the skylights till we get sick. Two of the girls

fainted this afternoon.

Aug. 4. I discovered the Public Library to-day! It means so much to

me that I simply can't write a word about it.

Nov. 4. Just a year ago to-day since I came here. I am able to draw a

free breath for the first time, to look about me and plan a little for

my future. I 've made up my mind to study for the examinations for a

place in the Public Library. My district school was no bad training,

after all, for this work. It taught me one lesson: to put my mind on

what was given me to do--and I have not forgotten it.

The extra time for study at night will take more fuel and oil, but I

can make that up by living a few more days every week on bean soup. I

've made living on four dollars a week an art this last year. An art?

Yes, rather than a science; and, like an art, it accomplishes

surprisingly satisfactory results--results that science, with all its

proven facts, from which it deduces laws of hygiene, fails to produce.

I honestly believe that I 'm better fed than half the theological

students. They scrimp and save--for a theatre ticket! They're a queer

lot! I 've asked half a dozen to tell me what they 're aiming at, and

not one of the six could give me a sensible answer. If they had said

right out--"It's an easy way to get a small living," I would have

respect for them. We all have to earn our living in one way or another.

March, 1904. Desk assistant in a branch of the Library--at last!

October, 1906. When I came down here I made a vow to put everything

behind me; forget what I had left in New England, the memories of those

hard-worked years, and start afresh; cut loose from all the old

associations. I have succeeded fairly well. This new life of books is

a wonderful one. I like my work as desk assistant in the Library, and

I get nine dollars a week. This is wealth for me; I am saving. I have

so much besides: the river and the ferries for a change; one trip up

the Hudson--a thing to live on for years until I get another. Sometime

I mean to travel--sometime! Meanwhile, I go on saving in every

possible way.

Jan. 8, 1907. What luck for me! I don't have to buy a book. The

whole Library is mine for the asking. How I have read these last three

years! As if I could never read enough; read while I 've been standing

and eating; read before getting up and long after I have been in bed.

It has been a hunger and thirst for this kind of food--and there has

been enough of _this_! Enough!

Feb. 1908. I am studying French now daily, and beginning Latin by

myself, for I want to take the higher examinations for the cataloguing

department. That will mean more pay and the prospect of a vacation

sometime.

March 16, 1908. How I gloat like a miser over my savings-bank book!

Just one hundred and seventy-five dollars to my credit. I have visions

of--oh, so much in ten years!

May, 1908. I was at the Metropolitan this morning. I feel rich when I

realize that all this treasure-house is open to me--is mine for the

entering. I am taking the whole museum, room by room. A year's work

on Sundays.

August, 1908. I have not seen fit to change my method of expenditure

since I entered the Library; I have continued to spend as I spent when

I had four dollars a week, with the exception that I allow,

necessarily, a little more for clothing.