SLIMY THINGS THAT WALK ON LEGS
Monday morning I jammed myself into a subway train bound for the
responsible, high-salaried position which my vanity assured me waited
for me in the department store. Arriving a few minutes after eight I
found at least fifty women and girls already waiting and fully as many
more came later. On the opening of the employees’ entrance we were
directed to one corner of the damp, unheated basement and there kept
standing for nearly two hours. Finally a man and a woman made their
appearance and divided us into squads of five or six.
The squad to which I was assigned was told to follow a little girl with
a pale face and very bowed legs. After about a half-hour spent in
climbing up and down stairs and waiting outside closed doors we at last
came to a halt in the loft in which we had left our hats and coats.
Here, after a wait of another half-hour, a youngish man took charge of
us and conducting us to one corner of a large lunch-room informed us
that he would teach us the cardinal principles of salesmanship. This, so
far as I was able to understand, comprised making out sale-slips and
wearing a perpetual smile and a black shirtwaist.
“The company won’t stand for a grouchy saleslady. I’m tellin’ you,” this
teacher warned us at the end of the lesson. “And if you don’t want to
get fired you’ll come to-morrow in a black shirtwaist. Skirts don’t
matter so much, but you must wear a black waist. You can get ’em at the
regular counter—dollar and a quarter, all sizes.”
Being paired with a woman whose name, she confided to me, was Mrs.
McDavit, I was ordered to follow yet another little girl with a pale
face and very bowed legs. Coming to a halt in the underwear department,
the little girl turned us over to the aisle manager. He stationed us at
a long aisle-counter piled with garments ranging in price from nineteen
to ninety-seven cents. A Mrs. Johnson, who was in charge of an adjoining
counter, was to see to it that we made no mistakes.
When ordered, by the assistant aisle manager, to go with Mrs. Johnson to
lunch, my salesbook showed that I had sold three times as much as Mrs.
McDavit and considerably more than Mrs. Johnson.
“You’ll make a good saleslady,” Mrs. Johnson encouraged. “Maybe they’ll
make a permanent of you.”
“What am I now?”
“You’re an extra. You’ll get paid every night.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Dollar a day.”
Stopping in the middle of the floor I stared at the two women. “A dollar
a day! Did you know you were to be paid only a dollar a day?” I demanded
of Mrs. McDavit.
“’Tain’t much,” she apologized, “but my daughter thinks it better than
takin’ in wash.”
“My son has charge of a stationary engine and Mondays and Saturdays are
his long shifts,” Mrs. Johnson explained. “I can work without his
knowing it. He’s studying for the ministry and me earning two dollars a
week makes it easier for him.”
In the lunch-room maintained by the firm for its employees, from a long
list of what appeared to be low-priced dishes I ordered vegetable soup,
a baked apple, and bread and butter. The enticingly misnamed soup proved
to be hot water thickened with flour and colored with tomato catsup.
After investigating the lumps of uncooked flour at the bottom of the
bowl I put it aside and devoted myself to the lumpy little apple and the
bread and butter. This last consisted of two thin slices of white bread
between which was the thinnest coating of butter I had, at that time,
ever seen. Later I learned that it was put on with a brush dipped in
melted margarine.
Shortly after three o’clock the aisle manager ordered me to report to
the superintendent. That dignitary pompously ordered me to report the
following morning and take charge of the counter at which Mrs. McDavit
and I were stationed.
“We’ve decided to keep you on regular,” he informed me.
“How much am I to be paid?” I asked.
“Six a week,” was his complacent reply.
“No wonder your advertisement is always in the papers.”
He came down in his chair with a bang.
“We have girls who have worked here months, years,” he retorted angrily.
“They are content on six dollars a week, glad to get it. You are only a
greenhorn.”
“But not green enough to work for six dollars a week,” and turning I
left his office.
So ended my dream of a highly paid responsible position.
Employees not being allowed to use the elevator during busy hours, I was
forced to tramp up three flights of stairs. On reaching the counter I
swung out the silly little seat attached to one of the table-legs and
sat down.
“Get up. Get up,” Mrs. Johnson urged in a whisper as she hurried toward
me.
“Won’t they even let you sit down?” I demanded, struggling to my aching
feet.
“They won’t say nothing to you but if the aisle manager sees you he’ll
put you on their black list.”
I looked the two women over. Mrs. Johnson’s white face was haggard until
it looked pinched. Mrs. McDavit had lost much of her ruddy color and
dark circles had formed under her eyes.
“You are both dead tired. Both ready to drop,” I told them. “Your feet
ache so badly that you feel like cutting them off.”
“If my back didn’t ache I don’t believe I’d mind my feet so much,” Mrs.
Johnson admitted. “When I was young girls didn’t go to business as they
do now, so I didn’t get no training. Maybe if I had it wouldn’t come so
hard to me now.”
“It’s harder than washin’. I’ve found that out,” Mrs. McDavit said.
After a moment she added diffidently: “If you was a married woman you’d
know how hard it is to work at a thing that made your children ashamed
of you.”
It was not long after this little exchange of confidences that an
elderly man, whom I had noticed earlier in the afternoon loitering near
our counter, approached and spoke to me.
“These are not of very good quality?” he questioned, fingering the
underwear.
“They are unusually good value,” I truthfully replied. “Good for the
price.”
“Not such as a lady like yourself would prefer?”
“We cannot always choose,” I answered, recalling my one change of
undergarments.
“You would like those better,” he said, indicating the display of silk
underwear at the regular counter.
“Any woman would,” I admitted indifferently, as I turned to wait on a
customer.
A few minutes later Mrs. Johnson asked my bust measure. She explained
that a customer at the regular counter was buying silk underwear for a
lady about my size. Glancing across I saw the elderly man talking with
the regular saleswoman. He looked to be a man of refinement with ample
means.
The next time my end of the counter was free of customers he approached
me and thrust a parcel into my hands.
“What is this for?” I asked, recognizing that it was the parcel he had
received at the regular underwear counter.
“For you,” he leered. Then before I could so much as wink my staring
eyes he whispered: “I want you to meet me to-night—in Times Square
drug-store at eight—sharp.”
Every drop of blood in my body seemed to rush to my head. In that
instant I realized the significance of the expression “seeing red.” I
was all but blind and choking with rage. Another instant and I would
have done my best to wring his flabby neck.
A woman at my elbow asked the price of a corset-cover. At the elevator
the old reprobate turned and blew me a kiss from his gloved fingers.
Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. McDavit received my indignant explanation more
calmly than I had expected.
“They usually come round this time,” Mrs. Johnson stated. “They wait
until a girl is all tired out, willing for ’most anything. Then they
flash their money before her eyes. It’s a cruel shame.”
“I’m going to tell the aisle manager!” I declared, disgusted by what
appeared to me the callous acceptance by the two women of a heinous
condition.
Mrs. McDavit grabbed me by the arm.
“Hush,” she told me. “Hush! Don’t talk so loud. My daughter had a friend
who was fired for doing that. They wouldn’t give her a reference—she’d
worked for ’em more’n two years.”
Mrs. Johnson took the parcel of silk underwear and slipped it under the
garments on our table. Later, when it was uncovered by a customer, Mrs.
McDavit handed it to the aisle manager, who in turn sent it to the lost
and found desk.
At six o’clock the extra saleswomen were called on to sign for and
receive their pay for that day. Opening my envelope I stared at its
contents. I had risen before six, dressed without time for a proper
bath, cooked my breakfast, stood packed like a sardine in a subway train
for more than ten miles, worked standing on my feet all day, been forced
to accept the vile allurements of an old reprobate all for—one dollar.
Surely no ruby, no pearl, ever cost more! A bit of green paper!
It was nearly half past six when the closing-bell rang—the store having
first to be cleared of inconsiderate customers. Another ten minutes was
consumed in tidying up the counters and drawing on their covers. And yet
another ten minutes was required to cross to the loft building and get
our hats and coats.
As we poured out the wide door a steady stream of women and girls, by
the hundreds, it gave me a thrill of pleased surprise to realize that we
were not unexpected. It had not occurred to me that the fathers,
brothers, and sweethearts of my fellow workers would be on hand to
escort them home. Yet there they were, a double line of them stretching
along both sides of the street for more than one long block.
As we passed between this double line the men, one by one, would step
out and take the arm of the girl or woman for whom he waited. Turning to
cross the street I noted unheedingly that a man detached himself from
the outer line and was coming in the same direction.
“Wait there, Maisie,” he called. He was so near me that, fancying he had
made a mistake, I glanced back to see if he really was calling me.
“Wanter make five dollars easy money?” he asked, grinning in my face.
I stepped up on the sidewalk and faced him. It was on a corner and under
the full glare of an electric light.
“You go to hell,” I told him.
Had he come one step nearer I would have done my best to have sent him
to hell. The ferule of a steel-framed umbrella is a dangerous weapon in
the hands of an infuriated woman.
The next morning on being awakened by the alarm-clock I bounded out of
bed only to sink back with a half-smothered wail of pain. The muscles of
my feet, my ankles, and my legs up to the small of my back felt like
red-hot cords suddenly drawn taut through my raw flesh. Every inch of me
below my waist ached horribly. Involuntary tears sprang to my eyes. It
took more than ten minutes for me to get a grip on myself. Then
carefully and painfully I raised myself to a sitting position and
finally stood on my aching feet.
The Metropolitan clock chimed for the first time that day as I halted at
a subway entrance and bought a newspaper. Having determined to get work
that would enable me to sit down until my feet and limbs stopped aching,
my heart throbbed with pleasure on finding an advertisement for
addressers. Knowing the importance of being among the early arrivals, I
hurried to the place indicated.
“We pay one dollar a thousand,” the assistant manager, a young girl,
informed me. “And please be careful with the file.”
It needed only a glance at the return address on the envelopes to assure
me that we were working for one of the most widely known woman’s
magazines in the world. Sure of having found a good job even at one
dollar a thousand I glanced around me. The loft was in a large corner
building and might have been well lighted as well as comfortably heated
had the windows been washed. At first I mistook them for ground glass.
There were only fourteen women besides myself, though judging by the
chairs and tables accommodations had been provided for fully two
hundred. Having seen the number of women turned away by the mail-order
house, this scarcity of workers caused me considerable surprise.
Drawing a card from the file I stared at it in astonishment. Instead of
a distinctly written name and address in black ink on a white card this
thing was in two shades of purple, the name and address stamped in
purple on a thin glazed purple paper which was stretched on a purple
cardboard frame. A woman across the table noticing my surprise explained
that it was stencil-work.
Becoming thoroughly engrossed by my effort to make out the cards, I was
startled when some one announced that it was past eleven o’clock. Two
hours and a half had passed and I had addressed twenty-seven envelopes.
With a pang of horror I realized that I could not distinguish the
features of women less than ten feet away.
“Is this _Blank’s Magazine_?” I demanded of the assistant manager. When
she replied in the affirmative my indignation, goaded by fear of having
permanently injured my eyes, frothed over. “All of my life—before I was
born _Blank’s Magazine_ has been proclaiming its interest in women—its
efforts to help working women. Here you not only underpay them but give
work to destroy their eyes. Take your file.”
Snatching my hat and coat I hurried from the building without waiting to
put them on. Fortunately the cold air of the street brought me to my
senses. Stepping again from the building—this time clothed in my right
mind as well as my hat and coat—I took the newspaper from my pocket for
the purpose of consulting the help-wanted column.
The sheet was a blurred mass of indistinct figures and lines. I could
not make out a word. Thoroughly alarmed I hurried back to my room. There
deciding to wait until after the lunch-hour before consulting an
oculist, I dropped down on the bed and buried my head in the pillow,
determined not to give way to tears. The arrival of the expressman with
Alice’s trunk aroused me. It was nearly five o’clock and my sight had
become normal.
That evening when Alice came from work she found our little table set
for our first meal and our dinner ready to take up.
“You’ll have to get out the knife you brought from home,” I explained
after her first gust of enthusiasm had subsided. “Sixty cents seemed
about all we could spare this week for kitchen and dining-room
furnishings.”
“Sixty cents!” she cried. “I was just thinking these forks and spoons
the real thing—things you brought from home.”
“Two and a half cents each,” was my reply as I set the pan of rice in
the centre of the table. “For the present we’ll have to serve ourselves
directly from the cooking utensils.”
“It will save dish-washing,” she approved, as she took a chop from the
pie-plate on which it had been broiled. “But where is the soup?”
“Soup! You don’t mean that you expect both soup and meat for the same
dinner?”
“Then why soup plates?”
Squaring my shoulders I sat up very proud.
“You can eat cereals out of a soup-plate, you can drink soup, when we
have it, out of a soup-plate. Indeed you can do a lot of things with a
soup-plate that would be utterly impossible with either a breakfast or a
dinner plate.”
“So you can,” agreed Alice. “And it saves dish-washing.”
While she washed up our dinner things I made an account-book of the
paper in which our purchases had been wrapped. From it, under date of
November 14, 1916, I now copy:
Gas stove .10 2 chops .10
gas pipe .10 ½lb butter .20
2 s. plates .10 1pt milk .07
2 cups .10 1 cereal .05
2 table spoons .05 1 bread .06
2 tea spoons .05 5lbs sugar .40
2 forks .05 5lbs rice .39
2 tins .05 salt .05
——— 4 bananas .05
.60 6 apples .05
1.42 ———
——— 1.42
$2.02
The fruit was bought at a push-cart market, but all the other eatables
at standard shops. In one particular we were fortunate. Being
Southerners we preferred rice to white potatoes.
The following morning we were both out before the Metropolitan clock
announced eight—Alice to walk to Jones Bros. while I hurried to look for
a new job. Answering advertisements I called at six places before ten
o’clock. At each place the applicants far outnumbered the positions to
be filled. For one clerical position there were twenty-one applicants,
an office wishing two addressers turned away thirty-seven. At a candy
factory I found the entrance so jammed by women, all answering the
advertisement, that a glance assured me it would be useless to wait my
turn.
Journeying farther up-town I made my seventh call. It proved to be one
of the largest publishing houses in the country and they advertised for
both addressers and folders. My face must have expressed disappointment
on learning from the manager that he had already taken on all he needed.
As I started toward the door he called me back.
“That woman over there,” he said, indicating a vacant chair, “was
telephoned for. One of her children had come home from school sick. If
she doesn’t come back in the morning and you are on time I’ll give you
her seat. Be sure to be here before eight o’clock.”
Seven-thirty the next morning found me at the publishing house and true
to his word the manager gave me the vacant chair. Although monotonous,
folding, like addressing is not unpleasant work. Busy fingers did not
prevent those women from talking and I soon heard a lot of gossip about
several of my neighbors. The young woman across the table from me was
the wife of a chauffeur. As she worked, she used her handkerchief from
time to time to absorb tears that rolled over her baby-doll cheeks.
Her husband, so the whisper ran around, was in love with his employer.
This woman, according to his wife, not only gave the chauffeur handsome
presents, but held long conversations with him over the telephone the
first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. Besides, she
took him to the theatre with her and had him lunch and dine with her at
obscure road-houses when they went alone for long drives into the
country.
“How many children have you?” I asked the weeping woman.
She tossed her head scornfully and assured me and all in ear-shot that
she hadn’t any and never had intended to have any, thank God! Not she,
to lose her shape for a child! Later on I remarked to an older woman who
sat next to me that I didn’t see why the chauffeur’s wife should be so
broken up—she called her husband a scoundrel and they had no children.
“A married woman hadn’t ought to have to work,” my neighbor reproved me.
“Unless her husband is sick or misfortunate.”
Evidently her opinion was shared by all my neighbors. This woman in
perfect health, under thirty and whining, actually shedding tears
because she had to work, had their sympathy. Not that she was poorer or
her condition in any way harder than their own, but for the single
reason that she as a married woman had a right to be supported. While
turning this idea over in my mind my attention was attracted by a ripple
of pleased exclamations.
A slender old gentleman had entered the loft from the elevator and was
passing along the aisle between the workers. The carnation in his
buttonhole was not more spotlessly white than his hair and whiskers.
From time to time when he would recognize a worker he would pause, shake
hands, and exchange a few remarks. At the end of our table he greeted
the woman in charge of the folders cordially, told her that he was glad
to see her back and hoped that she would remain until the work was
finished. When in reply to his question she assured him that everything,
including the delivery of the bottled milk, was being done for the
workers’ comfort, he bowed to us all and passed on.
The last glimpse I had of him was among the men workers at the far end
of the loft. He had stooped to pick up the crutch of a lame man, an old
addresser who, I was told, did more than two thousand envelopes a day.
During the three days and a half that I worked for that firm I never
heard so much as a whispered complaint against conditions. The loft in
which we worked was well lighted and ventilated. Though the weather was
bitterly cold it was always comfortably heated. The chairs were
comfortable and the tables of a comfortable height. Though pens and ink
and other supplies were never wasted, the workers were generously
supplied.
On Saturday at one o’clock I was paid eight dollars. It seemed a huge
amount compared to the six dollars I might have received had I continued
at the department store.
Not having planned to have Polly spend her life addressing envelopes or
folding circulars, Monday morning found me again on the tramp, looking
for a job. At three places I turned away without making my application
known—having learned from experience that no business occupying a few
small rooms has need of twoscore or more workers. The fourth place
advertised for girls to count coupons. The woman manager expressed
regret at having filled her last vacancy. Then she added:
“If you apply on the street floor, maybe Mr. Spencer will take you on.
Tell him that Mrs. Linwood sent you.”
The street floor, to my eyes, had the appearance of a sort of general
store—practically every article one could wish for was to be seen and
attractively arranged. On finding Mr. Spencer I delivered Mrs. Linwood’s
message.
“If you are willing to begin at seven dollars a week I can place you at
once,” he told me.
Recalling that it was a dollar more than offered by the department store
and, being in walking distance, would require no car-fare, I promptly
accepted.
“Been to lunch?” Mr. Spencer inquired. “Better go now. Take your full
hour. When you get back report to me.”
Halting on the other side of the street I looked up at the sign across
the front of the building. What had appeared to me to be a general store
was the chief premium station of a widely known company that claimed to
do business on a profit-sharing basis. Reading the advertisements of
this firm I had always set them down as a set of crooks catering to the
American craving to get something for nothing.
So I had engaged to work for crooks!