HUMAN COOTIES
When planning my adventure as Polly Preston, the heroine of my proposed
novel, the idea of including domestic service did not occur to me. It
was Alice who first caused me to consider such an experience. Telling
why she had given up her position in the institution for defective
children, she had exclaimed:
“I was engaged as a teacher—the people at college all understood I was
to have a teacher’s position. After they got me there they treated me
like a servant.”
Thinking over this incident, I wondered how it felt to be treated as a
servant. Were well-bred people really so disagreeable to those who
served them? How had the servants at home looked upon our household? Was
it possible that they found fault with my mother’s treatment of them? If
so, in what particular had she failed?
These thoughts called to mind words of the late Franklin B. Sanborn when
recounting to me his recollections of Louisa M. Alcott. It was near the
end of a perfect October day spent rambling about Concord with Mr.
Sanborn as my escort. After spending some time in the School of
Philosophy we crossed to the Alcott house and, going up-stairs, took our
seats near the window at which Miss Alcott sat when writing “Little
Women.” Mr. Sanborn had been talking continuously for several minutes
when suddenly he stopped and sat looking thoughtfully out of the window.
“Louisa was wonderful!” he exclaimed, beginning to talk as suddenly as
he had stopped. “Yes, she was wonderful. Even to the last she was as
ready to experiment as she had been when a young girl.” He paused for an
instant, then added in a different tone: “It was that that caused her to
try going out as a domestic servant.” He shook his head. “It was a
mistake. It was a mistake. Even Louisa couldn’t stand that.”
Now recalling these words, I wondered what it was that even Louisa could
not stand. Louisa, the woman whom Mr. Sanborn had described as
wonderful, with a heart overflowing with love and human kindliness. What
was it that even such a woman could not stand?
Thinking of the women and girls with whom I had worked, I wondered why
some of them who appeared so sensible should persist in a struggle to
eke out a half-starved existence on such low wages when in domestic
service they would get all the comforts of a good home along with wages.
All my life I had heard persons, experienced men and women, protesting
against this condition. Some of them had gone so far as to assert that
there should be laws prohibiting women and girls from working in shops
and factories—so forcing them into domestic service.
Once while working in the premium station I attempted to discuss the
subject with Nora.
“Not that!” the girl cried, the lines in her forehead contracting into
little knots. “I’ll go to the river first.”
Nora was a sensible girl. Why should she feel like that? She helped her
mother with the work of their little flat. She washed her own clothes
and on Sunday enjoyed cooking dinner. She made many of her own clothes
and helped sew for her younger brothers and sisters. She looked forward
to the time when the young man to whom she was engaged would earn enough
for them to marry. She expected to do her own housework. Then why should
she object, and so passionately, to doing housework for which she was
paid, to becoming a domestic servant?
The problem haunted me for weeks. During that period every time I looked
over the help-wanted columns of certain papers I saw that Sea Foam Hotel
was in need of chambermaids and waitresses. Not until I had mailed my
letter applying for a position as chambermaid did I mention it to Alice
and Mrs. Wilkins.
The expression of horror that sprang into Alice’s eyes was somewhat
moderated when the hat-trimmer expressed her satisfaction. She declared
it would be the very best thing Alice and I could do—both go to the
seashore as hotel help. What could we save on seven and eight dollars a
week? She by sitting up evenings to make the little bows used on the
inside of men’s stiff hats, in addition to regular nine hours a day six
days a week, was only able to get twelve dollars a week.
Then gouging down in her stocking she drew out a roll of bills.
“There!” she said, throwing the money into my lap. “You can count it
yourself. I’ve been workin’ since the middle of September—nearly four
months—and that’s all I’ve saved. You know how plain I eat and I ain’t
spent as much as ten dollars for clothes. Count it.”
Eleven one-dollar bills.
“The only time I can save money,” she went on, “is durin’ the summer I
works in the linen-room of a hotel down on Coney Island. The eatin’ is
somethin’ grand. Because there ain’t room enough in the hotel for us
linen-room girls they allows us three dollars a week extra. Last summer
I and another girl got a room for fifteen dollars a month. Besides
savin’ our wages we both had somethin’ left of our room money.”
The elaborate prospectus—“Information for Waitresses,” it was
headed—described in such glowing terms the many advantages provided for
the help of the Sea Foam that Mrs. Wilkins all but threw up her
hat-trimming job to go with me.
“It must be grand!” she exclaimed. “To get such good things to eat all
the year round as they give us at Coney in the summer. Sure, you’ll get
it at that hotel! That place is sweller than Coney. An’ your tips will
be bigger, too.”
When I called her attention to the statement that waitresses serving in
the side halls received sixteen dollars a month while those serving in
the main dining-room only got thirteen she urged me to “sign up” for a
side hall job. Side hall she assured me meant a piazza glassed in or a
sun parlor.
“Them’s the places real swells like to eat in so they can see things
whilst they’re eatin’,” she insisted. “They’ll be further from the
kitchen and serving-room, but you’ll get bigger tips. Better ‘sign up’
for the job in the side hall.”
And she talked so much about the grand food supplied by the Coney Island
hotel and the grander food that I was sure to get at the Sea Foam that I
used to dream about it. For, though Alice and I were not actually
starving, we had suppressed our craving for food to such an extent that
passing a bake-shop or a restaurant caused an unpleasant sensation. I
had gone off seventeen pounds in weight, and Alice was so thin that she
didn’t dare get on the scales.
When buying my ticket I learned that the rates quoted by the prospectus
had been out of date more than five years. On arriving at Belgrave
House, the waitresses’ dormitory, I mentioned to the housekeeper as she
registered me that I wished to buy one of the black and one of the white
uniforms, also mentioned in the prospectus as being supplied at
wholesale prices. She showed considerable embarrassment. Waitresses, she
explained, had not liked the cut of the skirts, so there was not a full
line on hand.
Those skirts! They were of that period when the hour-glass was the model
of feminine grace and elegance. The largest waist measure in stock was
nineteen inches. That skirt was forty-four inches long and measured more
than six yards around the bottom. Having to go on duty within three
hours, I was forced to get something in the way of a uniform.
Fortunately, on a pinch, I can cut and sew. Buying a black and a white
skirt—dimensions, nineteen by forty-four inches by six yards—I set to
work.
After shortening the white skirt and making it wider at the top and
narrower at the bottom I rushed to the boardwalk, where I bought a white
and a black shirtwaist.
Of course, they cost me three times as much as they were selling for in
New York.
The waitresses’ dinner was in progress when I presented myself in my
uniform. The assistant housekeeper of Belgrave being at the desk, she
conducted me into the large, poorly lighted dining-room and found me a
vacant chair at a table for eight. During the meal, when the waitress
next me cordially offered her help, I asked if she was stationed in the
main dining-room or the side-hall. After saying she was in the main
dining-room she shut up like a clam. Every effort to learn where and
what the side-hall was met an unmistakable rebuff. Puzzled, and a little
bit miffed, I at length said to the waitress who had offered me her
assistance:
“You’ll be helping me a lot if you will tell me what to do to get a good
station.” Then, including all at table, for I knew they were all
listening, I added: “You see, this is my first time in a hotel. I’ve
always worked in a private family. Please tell me what to do.”
“Follow along with us when we report for dinner, take your seat in the
back of the dining-room, and wait till the head waiter comes,” she told
me.
“When the head waiter sees you sitting there he’ll know you’re new and
give you a station,” another waitress added. “You just follow along with
us.”
Following these directions took me through a covered passageway
connecting Belgrave with the Sea Foam. From this we entered a large
kitchen which, on my first entrance, seemed thronged with men—black and
white. From the kitchen we went down a long flight of unusually steep
stairs to a basement passageway in which I got my first glimpse of a
time-clock. After punching her time the waitress who had spoken to me at
dinner signalled for me to follow her.
“That is the side-hall dining-room,” she told me, indicating a large
basement room, rudely equipped with tables and chairs. “It’s where the
office help, housekeepers, and linen-room girls eat.” We turned and were
going back up the steep stairs when she asked: “Did you notice that the
assistant housekeeper of Belgrave is lame?”
“She’s so lame that she can hardly walk,” I exclaimed. “I had to notice
it.”
“She served in the side-hall,” the girl told me, still speaking half
under her breath. “She fell down these steps with a loaded tray and was
in the hospital for more than a year. She’s got her position for life.
The Sea Foam has to take care of her.”
From the kitchen we passed through a long serving-room and from that we
entered the Sea Foam dining-room. It was a spacious one with rows of
very broad windows on four sides, those on three sides giving a splendid
view of the ocean. The walls, woodwork, and the slender pillars
supporting the ceiling were white enamel. There was a long strip of
blue-gray velvet carpet extending from the door the entire length of the
room. The steam-radiators, which almost encircled the room, were so
brilliantly gilded that I almost imagined them covered with gold-leaf.
At dinner I was stationed at a table of six covers. My guests, I soon
learned, were the family of a multimillionaire—wife, three small
children, their French governess, and a trained nurse. For the first
three meals I worked under the supervision of Anna, a waitress who had
been in the Sea Foam for more than six months. One of her first
instructions was:
“Don’t pay no attention to her,” indicating the millionaire’s wife.
“She’ll work your head off and won’t give you so much as a thank-you.”
This family took their meals in two sections—the children with the
governess and nurse, the mother alone. At the first dinner I served
without the assistance of Anna the mistress of millions wrote her order
as follows:
“Two portions of oysters on the half shell, two portions of olives, two
portions of asparagus, two portions of the heart of lettuce without
dressing, two portions of fried oysters, eight portions of the heart of
celery, six portions of radishes, two portions of apples, two portions
crystallized ginger, two cups of hot chocolate, two portions of
crackers, two portions of cheese, two portions of squabs, two portions
of green peas, two portions of queen fritters, two portions of chocolate
ice-cream, and two portions of cake.”
She ordered me to bring it all in on the same tray, as she did not wish
to be kept waiting. When one recalls the weight of hotel china and the
custom of covering each dish with one a size smaller, the physical
impossibility of obeying this order will be understood. Following Anna’s
instructions, I “paid no attention” to the millionaire’s wife. It
required three trays as heavy as I could lift to get her dinner in to
her.
Each time I returned from the kitchen I found her in the act of trying
to complain to the assistant head waiter. She grumbled at me because I
did not stand behind her chair and put the dishes before her as fast as
she wanted them. Of course, she did not eat all she ordered. She only
cut a bit from the breast of both squabs, selected the oysters that
suited her fancy, nibbled at the innermost hearts of the lettuce and the
celery. What her dinner really amounted to was rendering unfit for use
food which would have fed six hungry women. The ginger and the fruit she
carried away in her work-bag.
Had this woman been coarse or ordinary in appearance I might have felt
sorry for her lack of breeding. She was quite the reverse. She was
small, with a piquantly pretty face and a pretty plump figure. She knew
how to dress—wore beautiful clothes at the right times and painted her
cheeks and lips only in the evening. Her hands, though not beautiful in
shape, were exquisitely kept; all of her numerous rings were handsome.
She seldom wore more than two besides her wedding-ring, and they were
always appropriate.
The cause of her ill-breeding was her selfishness. She was determined to
get all that was coming to her and could not tolerate any person from
whom she could gain nothing. She was a typical daughter of a
horse-leech—however much she had she must still cry “Give.”
At the end of my first week practically all the waitresses urged me to
ask the head waiter to give me another station. A waitress, they assured
me, was never expected to serve longer than one week at a table where
tips were not given. As kindly as this advice was intended it did not
happen to suit my case—not exactly. Never again, in human probability, I
reasoned, would so good an opportunity to study this type of American
come my way.
The millionaire paid two visits to his family while I was serving them.
During each visit he took five meals. A Sunday dinner when he and his
wife ate alone is memorable. After ordering practically everything on
the menu, and just as I imagined them ready to leave the table, he
turned on me and demanded white potatoes. He said that he had ordered
mashed potatoes and that I had failed to bring them. His attack was so
unexpected that I was dumb. Not so Anna.
Crossing to the table she pulled a platter from among the pile of soiled
dishes surrounding his plate and held it out to him.
“There’s your white potatoes,” she told him. “You done eat ’em.”
Several days before Easter this family departed. I had served them three
hundred and seventy-nine elaborate meals, been found fault with, rudely
ordered about, grumbled at, and might have been reprimanded by the head
waiter had he not, having learned that no tips were to be expected,
studiously kept away from their table. My tip was a soiled one-dollar
bill ungraciously given. It was one hundred cents more than any of their
former waitresses had received, and they had been stopping in the hotel
for more than four months.
The family occupied five of the most expensive rooms in the hotel and
monopolized the services of two chambermaids and a scrubwoman. There was
not a week while I was serving them that the wife did not make at least
one trip to one of the neighboring cities. On her return she invariably
boasted to any waitress who would listen of the amount of money she had
spent and the expensive clothes she had bought. At one dinner she wore a
wonderful evening gown, for which she stated she had paid twenty-five
hundred dollars.
Knowing the wages paid to working women in New York at that time, I
wondered what per cent of that sum had reached the women who had made
the gown. What was their weekly wage?
It was not, however, the conduct of this family of millionaires that
convinced me before I had been a week at the Sea Foam that domestic
service is very different from what I had imagined. In the first place I
had always assumed that hotel waiters had the same food as the guests,
certainly what was left over. Such, I was assured by the head waiter and
the steward, is the custom only in “cheap joints.” At the Sea Foam, if a
waitress ate so much as a mouthful of food left by a guest she was
discharged in disgrace.
Our food—that is, the food prepared in the kitchen of Belgrave House—was
the worst I have ever tried to swallow. During my second week, the
breakfast being more uneatable than usual, I complained to Mary, my
roommate. Mary was scrubwoman and maid of all work in the Belgrave
kitchen. I asked her why, if they were going to send us scraps of meat
over from the Sea Foam, it was not properly cooked?
She assured me that the only food sent from the hotel were the meals for
the Belgrave housekeeper. In proof of this she took me down to the
kitchen of the dormitory and showed me the box of sliced bacon from
which what I had called “meat scraps” had been taken. It was the best
grade.
Mary explained that the cook had emptied half of the contents of a box
into a huge pan and put it over the fire. To keep it from burning he
stirred it around from time to time, then ladled the mass into dishes
and sent it into the dining-room. That bacon is a fair sample of the
food served in the waitresses’ dining-room while I worked at the Sea
Foam.
What the consequences might have been had the waitresses been supplied
with sufficient amount of palatable food may be questioned. As to what
actually happened there can be no doubt. “Dog tired” from overwork and a
lack of food, a large majority of the waitresses hurried to the seashore
immediately on leaving the dining-room after dinner. Often this was
after nine o’clock at night.
Their first trip was taken in search of food. Accompanied by two of my
fellow waitresses, I made such a trip the night after my arrival. Twenty
men, in groups of two or more, invited us to eat with them. It is a
question easily settled when a girl has money, but when she has no money
and is hungry, what then? This is no abnormal appetite created by sea
air. It is hard work and lack of food at our regular meals.
Another of my misapprehensions. I had fancied that the duty of a waiter
or a waitress was to serve food, three meals a day. Time between meals I
assumed they were free to use as they pleased.
When on regular duty a waitress at the Sea Foam reports for breakfast
not later than a quarter before seven. To do this I had to rise at five
forty-five. In that hour I had to take my bath, dress, make my bed,
straighten up my room, eat my breakfast, punch the time-clock in the
basement of the hotel, and get in the dining-room before the time
mentioned. If so much as a fraction of a second late the door was bolted
against me.
Though breakfast was supposed to end at nine, a waitress seldom, almost
never, got rid of her guests until a half-hour later. Then came the
collection of used napkins and table-cloths and exchanging them for
fresh ones. Next the washing and polishing of silver and glass, the
cleaning and filling of sugar-bowls, water-bottles, salt-shakers,
pepper-shakers, vinegar-cruets, oil-bottle, and, last though by no means
least, the arranging of cut flowers. After this was all accomplished to
the satisfaction of the head waiter or his assistant the chairs,
side-tables, radiators, and all the woodwork in the dining-room had to
be gone over with a damp cloth. Then came the setting of the tables,
leaving them ready for the next meal. It was seldom we got through this
morning work before eleven.
Between that time and twelve-fifty there was always more than enough
personal work to be done—washing and ironing one’s clothes, polishing
one’s shoes, mending, and the thousand and one little odds and ends that
must be promptly attended to if a waitress is to appear well groomed.
The prospectus sent me before I left New York distinctly stated that the
laundry of waitresses was done by the hotel free of charge. When I
inquired about sending my clothes to the hotel laundry all the
waitresses shook their heads. I might take the risk if I had a mind,
they told me, but so far as their experience went garments were seldom
returned, never in as good condition as when sent out. On learning that
the two waitresses who had been in the employ of the Sea Foam for more
than one year both did their own laundry, I decided to follow their
example.
Lunch and dinner at the Sea Foam were like breakfast—long-drawn-out
meals. A waitress seldom got rid of her guests under a half-hour after
the dining-room closed, and often it was a full hour.
When on “early watch” a waitress had to be in the hotel dining-room not
later than six in the morning. This is for the convenience of guests
leaving by early train. “Late watch” means remaining until midnight to
serve guests arriving on late trains or those who, after a promenade
along the shore, felt the need of an extra meal. Being on watch does not
curtail in any particular the regular duties of a waitress.
On one such occasion my diary reads: “April 2, 1917. Went on watch at
5.58 A. M., served four early breakfasts and reset tables. Return
Belgrave at 6.46 and ate my breakfast. Back in dining-room at 6.57. Put
water, ice, and menus on my table. The family of the multimillionaire
having left the night before, the assistant head waiter gave me three
two-seaters nearer the dining-room door. I set up these tables and
served six breakfasts. Returned to Belgrave at 11.32. Ironed two aprons,
a white skirt, a petticoat, and two collar-and-cuff sets. Ate my lunch
and was back in the dining-room at 12.57. Served seven lunches and then
held open the dining-room door for fifty-two minutes that late guests
might pass out. Rolled the carpet, set up my tables and returned to
Belgrave at 4.15. Rested nearly a half-hour, then pressed my black
waist, took a bath, went to a store on the corner for some peanut butter
and crackers. Ate dinner and returned to the hotel dining-room at 6.07.
Served eight dinners and went off duty at 8.56.”
Do not forget that at the Sea Foam it is not considered good form to
employ bus boys. A waitress not only brings in all food but she must
carry out all dishes and wash, polish, dry, and bring back to the
dining-room all china, glass, and silver used on her tables.
My diary for the following day, April 3, reads: “Yesterday was a
memorable day in the history of our country—perhaps of the
world—President Wilson asked Congress to declare that a state of war
exists between the United States and Germany. Excepting myself I believe
every waitress in the Sea Foam has written either to the secretary of
war or direct to the President offering her services. So far as the six
persons at my tables are concerned only the little boy from Wilmington,
Delaware, has shown any interest in the matter. He came in a half-hour
ahead of his mother this morning and spent the time talking to me about
our preparedness, etc. He’s a dear little chap.”
Only lack of money kept me at Sea Foam. Before the end of my second week
I had learned more than enough to understand why women and girls prefer
to eke out an existence on the meagre wage received in shops and
factories rather than enjoy the “home comforts” offered by domestic
service. Only the experience of Beulah, a dear little girl from Canada,
prevented me from giving up my job and returning to New York.
Beulah, whose season in Bermuda had been cut short by the war, came to
Sea Foam on a three weeks’ contract. Through a waitress friend she
received an offer of a permanent position in a hotel near New York City.
Though it was ten days before Easter and gave the head waiter ample time
to fill her place, he not only refused to pay the wage due her but
threatened to have her black-listed in hotel employment bureaus. In
order to reach her new position Beulah was forced to borrow money to pay
her railroad fare.
Not wishing to write and borrow money of Alice to pay my way back to New
York, I determined to get myself discharged. How to accomplish this
without doing anything rude or disorderly became my problem. When, a few
days before Easter, the assistant housekeeper of the Belgrave confided
to me that the head waiter had confided to her his intention of giving
me a year’s contract, perhaps making me a “captain,” I gritted my teeth.
Determined not to borrow of Alice, I was equally as determined not to
remain to the end of my contract.
The day before Easter I was put on early watch for the second time. As
waitresses are supposed to take turns at watch duty, believing that my
opportunity for getting myself discharged had come, I hurried to the
head waiter. He listened to my complaint against his assistant and then
explained that he had suggested my being put on watch because there were
so many new waitresses who could not be trusted to “swing the job.”
“You’ve got a head on your shoulders,” he informed me. “The management
has decided to keep you on after Easter. That’s the reason I’m pushing
you forward—to get you promoted.”
Easter morning found the head waiter and his assistant so nervous that
they reminded me of ill-conditioned sheepdogs snapping and snarling at
each and every member of their flock. A few minutes after the
dining-room door opened for breakfast, just when the earliest guests
began to trickle in, the first of a veritable avalanche of potted plants
and cut flowers were brought in. Certain guests, wishing their tables to
be especially attractive, had ordered these flowers and plants added to
the abundant supply already provided by the hotel.
So, after getting rid of our breakfast guests, in addition to our
routine work we waitresses had to put those plants and flowers on the
tables indicated, and make them look as presentable as possible. This
was far from an easy task, for in most cases the plants and flowers had
been chosen because of their beauty and utterly regardless of the size
or the shape of the table to be decorated. It was twenty-six minutes
after twelve when I left that dining-room, and several waitresses were
still struggling with their over-abundance of cut flowers and potted
plants.
Having changed my uniform and swallowed a few morsels in the way of
lunch, I was back in the dining-room at twelve thirty-seven. When the
doors opened, the occupants of my three tables, instead of being among
the early diners as they had all promised, were all late. Anna, whose
station was next mine, was unfortunate in the opposite direction—her
guests, four at one table and two at the other, all arrived at the same
time.
For the sake of helping Anna I took the order of the guests at her
two-seater—a German-American and his American wife, the most perfect
example of a rooster-pecked woman I have ever seen. On returning from
the kitchen with the second course for this couple, I found all my
guests in their seats. After serving the course on my tray I went to the
assistant head waiter, explained to him that Anna needed assistance, and
turned over to him the order of the German-American. Then, returning to
my station, I took the orders of my own people.
At that time, on a bench at the back of the dining-room, there were
seated, waiting to be called on, nine extra waitresses who had been
brought on from a near-by city that morning. When instructing the
regular waitresses that morning the head waiter had ordered us to report
to himself or his assistant when any of us needed the help of these
girls. Naturally I expected the assistant head waiter to send one of
them to finish serving the guests at Anna’s two-seater.
On returning with my tray laden with the first course for my six guests
I found Anna’s station in an uproar. The German-American, having seen me
take the orders of my regular guests, had complained so loudly that the
head waiter had to be called from the front of the dining-room to
straighten matters out. Catching sight of me on my return from the
kitchen, the hyphenated citizen again persisted in his demand to have
“that one with hair” finish serving his table. The head waiter, who was
really a very good sort, firmly insisted that he must either accept the
services of the extra waitress or wait and take his turn with Anna.
On my way back to the kitchen the assistant head waiter met me. He was
on the carpet and I in the aisle next the wall.
“This is the last meal you’ll serve for me,” he called across the double
line of tables to me, throwing up his arms in a nervous way he had.
“I accept my discharge,” I replied, realizing in a flash the opportunity
for which I had been looking.
In the serving-room and kitchen I scattered the news broadcast, telling
every one with whom I came in speaking distance that the assistant head
waiter had discharged me. The steward assured me that it was all a
mistake. The assistant head waiter was under a great strain, he
explained, and very nervous. He tried to get me to promise not to notice
the incident and to report as usual in the dining-room for supper.
Two of my guests who overheard me tell Anna offered to take the matter
up with the manager of the hotel if the head waiter refused to keep me
on. This frightened me stiff. Ten days more at the Sea Foam was more
than I could look forward to with equanimity. There was genuine pathos
in my voice when I begged them not to interfere.
My description of my discharge so affected Mary, my roommate, that she
insisted on taking me for an outing. In fact, nothing but my positive
refusal to get into a wheel-chair prevented her from indulging in that
extravagant attention. Truthfully assuring her that it would be much
more enjoyable to sit and watch the crowd, we found comfortable seats
under a pavilion and there spent the afternoon.
Perhaps it was the weather, or maybe the reaction following the
emotional elation caused by the incident of my discharge. Whatever the
reason, I have never before or since experienced such a virulent attack
of discouragement as I did while watching that moving throng. Not for
myself alone, but for the human race. While watching the people passing
in front of us—two steady streams of walkers with two packed lines of
wheel-chairs between—I suddenly realized them as an endless succession
of pygmies.
Not one of them nor all of them could stop the incoming nor the outgoing
of the sea that over the beach had the look of dirty bilge-water as
creeping in higher and higher it slapped the sand. Nor could one of them
nor all of them sweep aside the mist that like a dingy white curtain cut
off our view of the ocean and rendered indistinct the end of the
boardwalk.
What were they trying to do, these pygmies? For what were they
struggling? Here they were tramping futilely up and down the shore,
working hard to digest the food with which they had just stuffed
themselves—while in the rear of the hotels I knew there were ten times
as many working even harder to get food to support life.
What did it all mean—this endless, unceasing struggle between human
cooties and human drudges? What did it all amount to—the lives of these
pygmies? Where had they come from? Where were they going? What were they
trying to do?
Then, my thoughts turning inward, I demanded of myself:
“What are you trying to do? Granting that these pygmies crawling along
the beaches are human cooties and those working in the hotels are human
drudges, what then? The cooties are no more to blame for our economic
system than the drudges. You’ve been a human cooty and you know that you
did not give any more thought to the human drudges who slaved for your
comfort than these people do to you. Remember the time you stopped at
the Ardale-Stratton? Spent money like water.”
Thus reminded of my first visit to this resort, my mind slipped back
more than ten years. I had come down from New York City under the
chaperonage of one of the most distinguished women in the country. We
planned to remain two weeks. Before the end of that time she had been
taken seriously ill, and, though her own relatives and friends left her
and returned to their homes, I remained. Bored by the monotony of hotel
life, with the knowledge of spending too much money perpetually nagging
at my consciousness, I dreaded to leave the old lady among strangers and
attended only by her maid. Our visit stretched from two weeks to five
months. Day after day I had loafed along the beach, watching the
water—the threatening, the greedy, the sullen, the laughing, the
beautiful, the peaceful, the soothing sea.
With a throb of pride I recalled that every Sunday morning during that
tedious visit I had tipped my waiter and chambermaid one dollar each.
Though I recalled that the service they gave me was always the best, I
could not remember the name of either. Were they to meet me face to face
I would not be conscious of ever having seen them before. I had never
realized them as fellow human beings. I had never considered their
convenience. I had never considered their feelings. In extenuation I
told myself that it was because I had not understood.
“Neither do the persons with whom you are now finding fault understand,”
my conscience flashed back at me. “Yet you call them human
cooties—criticise their lack of purpose. What do you think you will
accomplish, sitting out here with a kitchen-maid? You had better take
your own advice to heart—get back where you belong and take care of
yourself. You never planned to have Polly Preston become a domestic
servant. Go back where you belong.”
Yawning, I rose to my feet. It seemed the sensible thing to do—to tell
Mary that I was going for a walk and she must not wait for me. During
Easter there was certain to be a number of my acquaintances at the
Ardale-Stratton. I had only to register or send my visiting-card to the
proprietor to get the best that the hotel had to offer. Telegraphing for
my trunks and writing Alice that I had gotten all the first-hand
material needed for my novel were simple details.
Before speaking to Mary, and while still yawning, my eyes wandered out
to sea. The wind had blown a hole in the mist. Across this opening in
the foreground there was steaming a black-gray dreadnought, its three
funnels belching black-gray smoke. My country was at war and I had
forgotten it!
As the battleship disappeared behind the bank of mist that formed the
westerly frame of the picture in the far corner, in the background three
slender spars of a schooner-rigged sailing-vessel crept into view. Her
hull seemed a black cord above the silvery sea, and her stretch of
canvas, low down, appeared hardly larger than my thumbnail.
“The new and the old!” I exclaimed, comparing the majestic power of the
dreadnought with the struggling sailing-ship.
Every drop of blood in your veins crossed the Atlantic in a vessel no
larger and in all human probabilities no more seaworthy than that
schooner, my thoughts ran on. What voyages those must have been! Storms!
Shipwrecks! What men and what women!—French Huguenot, English, Welsh,
and Scot.
Standing there under the pavilion with my eyes fastened on the
struggling ship, I fell to musing about those ancestors of mine—how they
had struggled against all the forces of nature to conquer a wilderness
inhabited by savages; how, after conquering that wilderness, they had
wrenched their new homes free from the mother country. And with a start
of amazement I considered their reason, why they had dared all, suffered
all—to found a government under which every child might be born free and
equal.
Free and equal! What did that mean? What had those wonderful old men and
women planned?
I looked down at Mary. And across my mind there swept stories of the man
from whom my Welsh strain sprung. After serving as governor of the
colony he had enlisted in the Continental army as a private. Though his
son-in-law, one generation nearer me, had become one of Washington’s
major-generals—a private the old Welshman persisted in remaining to the
end of the Revolution.
Hot blood crept up into my face until my cheeks burned and my ears
tingled. Who was I, what had I accomplished, that gave me the right to
turn up my nose at associating with a kitchen-maid? I slipped back into
the seat beside Mary.
What had I done? What was I doing to carry on the high resolves of this
old Welshman and the rest of my hard-fighting, high-thinking ancestors?
If I could not go to the front and fight to carry on the ideals of the
country they had founded I could at least try to bring about an
understanding of conditions at home—conditions caused by the
ever-increasing struggle between human cooties and human drudges—a
struggle which appears to me now as I write to threaten a greater
disaster than that of the World War!
Turning to the woman at my side, I asked:
“Mary, didn’t you say that your cousin planned to give up her position
as head chambermaid with a wealthy family in Pennsylvania?”
“She give notice more’n three months ago,” my roommate assured me, eager
to get me to talk. “If the housekeeper wasn’t so mortal hard to please
Jennie’d be married and livin’ in her own home. The man she’s goin’ to
marry owns his own farm and lives real well.” And Mary rambled off,
giving a minute description of her cousin’s future husband and home.
On our way back to the Belgrave after helping Mary compose a
night-letter to her cousin I sent a telegram to Alice announcing that I
would return the next day to New York. That evening on their return from
work in the Sea Foam my fellow waitresses gave me a farewell
entertainment.
And it was a real entertainment, for several of the girls had good
natural voices and an ear for music. It will be a long time before
memories of “I’d Give My Crown for an Irish Stew,” as sung by
laughter-loving Mollie, fades from my mind. One young waitress seemed to
me as good a clog-dancer as I had seen on the stage. She had picked up
the steps at a minstrel show—one attendance. What was still more
surprising to me was that every one of them could do something in the
way of playing the piano. Only one of them had ever taken lessons.
Though I thoroughly enjoyed that evening I do not believe that in my
whole life I ever felt so diffidently self-conscious. The realization of
yourself as the only hypocrite among honest folk is not pleasant. These
girls were all genuinely sorry for me, for my being discharged. Each one
had contributed her mite to pay for the bunch of flowers presented to me
at the end of the evening. I felt like a thief.
The next morning when I applied at the hotel office for the wage due me,
the paymaster gave me a receipt to sign. He had computed the amount at
the rate of thirteen dollars a month.
“According to my contract I was to be paid at the rate of sixteen
dollars a month,” I reminded him, returning the paper unsigned.
“You are not working in the side-hall,” he snapped back at me.
“I went where I was sent,” I told him. “The head waiter stationed me in
the dining-room. Since the hotel required me to sign a contract I shall
require the hotel to live up to that contract.”
Being accustomed to handling uneducated women this man fancied that all
he had to do to intimidate me was to talk loud. When he paused in his
shouting I repeated my first statement—the hotel must live up to its
contract with me. After a second bout at loud talking the stenographer
came to his assistance. She assured me “as a friend” that I had best
take the amount offered me, as it was all that I would get. Besides I
had no copy of the contract I claimed to have signed.
She gasped on being assured that I did have a second copy of the
contract—the copy Mrs. Wilkins had sent for. Taking another tack, this
girl reminded me that the difference between sixteen and thirteen was
too small to dispute about. Whereupon I inquired why the hotel was
unwilling to pay it.
Declaring that nothing could be done until my contract was found, both
the stenographer and the paymaster went back to their work. After
waiting thirty minutes by the clock I again asked for my wages. The
paymaster informed me that my contract had not been found and that I
would have to wait till they had time to look for it. At the end of the
second thirty minutes, and seeing that no effort was being made to get
the contract, I remarked that perhaps it might be just as well for me to
call on the clerk of the district court while waiting.
Simple as that statement may seem, it had a surprising effect on the
paymaster. Hurrying to the door of his enclosure he urged me to enter,
sit down, and wait for the manager. The manager, he assured me, kept all
contracts locked in a safe of which he alone knew the combination. On my
persisting he followed me along the passageway, begging me “as a friend”
to have a little patience. Another odd feature of the performance was
that the housekeeper of the Belgrave, though she had held the position
for more than ten years, could not direct me to the city hall.
Once on the streets every passer-by was able to point out the city hall
and tell me in just which corner I would find the clerk of court. This
man was or pretended to be as ignorant of Sea Foam as the housekeeper
had been of his whereabouts. When I first stated my case he had some
difficulty in recalling that there was such a hotel in the place—it is
one of the best known thereabouts and less than five blocks from his
office. His negro man of all work was so well informed that he was able
not only to locate it exactly but to give the names of the stockholders.
The clerk of court, when warning me against “invoking the law” for such
a small sum, informed me:
“The judge is all right, of course, but when it comes to a case against
one of our large hotels there’s never any telling which way the cat will
jump. I strongly advise you to go back to the hotel and see the manager.
Maybe they will have found your contract and will be willing to pay you
at the rate of sixteen a month.” Then he added, as he handed me his
card: “I wouldn’t be surprised you’d find them with the money all
counted out ready for you.”
“Neither would I,” I answered, keeping tight hold on the muscles of my
face to prevent myself from returning his smile.
And it proved even as he said. Not only was the money ready for me but
the paymaster’s manner had undergone a complete change. Telling me that
the manager wished to speak to me, he held open the office-door and
politely ushered me in.
The manager of the Sea Foam is, or was at that time, a square-built man
with red hair. As we stared at each other across the broad top of his
mahogany office-table our eyes were on a level. It was quite evident
that he expected to stare me out of countenance. He made a mistake. His
eyes were the first to give way.
“Won’t you sit down?” he said, motioning to a chair.
“Thank you. I have neither the time nor the inclination,” I told him.
“What is it you wish to say to me?”
“To ask you why you went to the clerk of court.”
“To prove to the Sea Foam waitresses that they can force the hotel to
live up to its contracts.”
Then I told him of the way little Beulah had been treated. He listened
as though hearing of such an incident for the first time. Judging by
what I had heard, it had been the policy of the hotel toward waitresses
for years.
At lunch, my last meal at the Belgrave, when describing my experience I
distributed copies of the clerk of court’s business cards.
“It won’t do any good until we are organized,” one of the older girls
said. “If a few of us kick or insist on being paid sixteen instead of
thirteen we’ll be discharged and blacklisted. If we organize we can
force up wages——”
“And cut out tips,” a younger girl interrupted. “It’s a darn shame for
the hotels to put up their rates and expect guests to pay extra for
service. It’s a darn shame.”
While this was going on the girls at the other end of the table had been
whispering together. Now the girl at the head of the table held up her
hand, signalling for silence. Then, after a glance at the adjoining
table to make sure the assistant housekeeper was not listening, she
informed me that she had been delegated to ask me to remain and organize
the waitresses, beginning with those working in the larger hotels.
The request was so unexpected that for a moment I was dumb. On
recovering myself I reminded them that our country was at war. So long
as the war lasted we at home must keep our shoulder to the wheel. If the
wheel cut into our flesh we must endure it for the sake of pushing the
load to safety.
“And after the war?” the spokesman asked.
“After the war organize. Then, if you prove your consistency by refusing
to take tips, the public will help you get a decent wage,” I replied.
And I still believe that I spoke the truth.