XII

Oh, such a splendid room! At least it seemed so to me, who had seen few

fine rooms. It was so clean, even dainty. The walls and ceiling were

pink calcimine, and some one had twisted pink tissue-paper over the

electric lights. I didn't discover that till evening, and then I was

delighted. No beautiful, costly lamps, with fascinating and ravishing

shades, have ever moved me as my first taste of a shaded colored light

in the Y. W. C. A. did.

Our home in Quebec had been bare of all these charming accessories,

and although my father was an artist, poor fellow, I remember he used

to paint in the kitchen, with us children all about him, because

that was the only warm room in the house. In our poor home the rooms

were primitive and bare. Papa used to say that bare rooms were more

tolerable than rooms littered with "trash," and since we could not

afford good things, it was better to have nothing in the place but

things that had an actual utility. I think he was wrong. There are

certain pretty little things that may be "trash," but they add to the

attractiveness of a home.

Though papa was an artist, there were no pictures at all on our walls,

as my older sisters used to take his paintings as fast as he made

them, and go, like canvassers, from house to house and sell them for

a few dollars. Yet my father, as a young man, had taken a gold medal

at an exhibition at the Salon. Grandpapa, however, had insisted that

no son of his should follow the "beggarly profession of an artist,"

and papa was despatched to the Far East, there to extend the trade

of my grandfather, one of England's greatest merchant princes. When

misfortune overtook my father later, and his own people turned against

him, when the children began to arrive with startling rapidity, then my

father turned to art as the means of securing for us a livelihood.

One of my sisters was known in Quebec as the "little lace girl." She

sold from door to door the lace that she herself made. Marion followed

in her steps with papa's paintings. Other sisters had left home, and

some were married. I was the one who had to mind the children,--the

little ones; they were still coming,--and I hated and abhorred the

work. I remember once being punished in school because I wrote this in

my school exercise:

"This is my conception of hell: a place full of howling, roaring,

fighting, shouting children and babies. It is supreme torture to a

sensitive soul to live in such a Bedlam. Give me the bellowings of a

madhouse in preference. At least there I should not have to dress and

soothe and whip and chide and wipe the noses of the crazy ones."

Ah, I wish I could have some charming memories of a lovely home! That's

a great deal to have. It is sad to think of those we love as in poor

surroundings.

I suppose there are people in the world who would smile at the

thought of a girl's ecstatic enthusiasm over a piece of pink paper

on an electric light in a room in the Chicago Y. W. C. A. Perhaps I

myself am now almost snob enough to laugh and mock at my own former

ingenuousness. That room, nevertheless, seemed genuinely charming to

me. There were two snow-white beds, an oak bureau, oak chairs, oak

table, a bright rug on the floor, and simple white curtains at the

window. At home I slept in a room with four of my little brothers and

sisters. I hate to think of that room. As fast as I picked up the

scattering clothes, others seemed to accumulate. _Why_ do children soil

clothes so quickly!

There was even a homey look about my room in the Y. W. C. A., for there

were several good prints on the wall, photographs on the mantel and the

bureau, a bright toilet set on the bureau, and a work-basket on the

table. From these personal things I speculated upon the nature of my

room-mate to be, and I decided she was "nice." One thing was certain,

she was exceedingly neat, for all her articles were arranged with

almost old-maid primness. I determined to be less careless with my own

possessions.

After unpacking my things, and hiding my money,--right back

in my stocking, despite what the secretary had said!--I went

down-stairs again, as I had been told a large reading-room, parlor,

reception-rooms, etc., were on the ground floor.

The night before I had planned a definite campaign for work. I intended

to go the rounds of the newspaper offices. I would present to the

editors first my card, which Mr. Campbell had had specially printed

for me, with the name of our paper in the corner, show Mr. Campbell's

reference, and then leave a number of my own stories and poems. After

that, I felt sure, one or all of the editors of Chicago would be won

over. You perceive I had an excellent opinion of my ability at this

time. I wish I had it now. It was more a conviction then--a conviction

that I was destined to do something worth while as a writer.

In the reading-room, where there were a score of other girls, I found

not only paper, pencils, pens, but all the newspapers and journals.

Nearly all the girls were looking at the papers, scanning the

advertising columns. I got an almanac,--we had one in Jamaica that was

a never-failing reference-book to me,--and from it I obtained a list of

all the Chicago papers, with the names of the proprietors and editors.

I intended to see those editors and proprietors. It took me some time

to make up this list, and by the time I was through it was the luncheon

hour.

I followed a moving throng of girls into a great clean dining-room,

with scores of long tables, covered with white cloths. There were all

sorts of girls there, pretty girls, ugly girls, young girls, old girls,

shabby girls, and richly dressed girls. In they came, all chatting and

laughing and seeming so remarkably care-free and happy that I decided

the Y. W. C. A. must be a great place, and there I would stay forever,

or at any rate until I had won Mr. Hamilton.

You perceive now that I intended to court this man and, what is more,

to win him, just as I intended to conquer Fate, and achieve fame in

this city. How can I write thus lightly, when I felt so deeply then!

Ah, well, the years have passed away, and we can look back with a gleam

of humor on even our most sacred desires.

It was a decent, wholesome meal, that Y. W. C. A. luncheon. All the

girls at my table seemed to know one another, and they joked and

"swapped" stories about their "fellows" and "bosses," and told of

certain adventures and compliments, etc. I attracted very little

notice, though a girl next to me--she squinted--asked me my name. I

suppose they were used to strangers among them. New girls came and went

every day.

All the same, I did feel lonely. All these girls had positions and

friends and beaux. I ardently hoped that I, too, would be working soon.

A great many of them, however, were not working-girls at all, but

students of one thing or another in Chicago who had taken advantage

of the cheapness of the place for boarding purposes. By right they

should not have been there, as the association was supposed to board

only self-supporting girls. However, they got in upon one excuse or

another, and I think the other girls were rather glad than otherwise to

have them there. They were of course well dressed and well mannered,

and they lifted the place a bit above the average working-girl's home.

Curiously enough, there were few shop or factory girls there. Most of

the girls were stenographers and bookkeepers.

When I went up to my room after luncheon, I found a girl washing her

face in the basin. She looked up, with her face puffed out and the

water dripping from it, and she sang out in all her dampness:

"Hello!"

She proved, of course, to be my room-mate. Her name was Estelle Mooney.

She was not good-looking, but was very stylish and had a good figure.

Then, her hair appeared such a wonderful fabric that really one could

scarcely notice anything else about her. It was a mass of rolls and

coils and puffs, and it was the most extraordinary shade of glittering

gold that I have ever seen. I could not imagine how she ever did it up

like that--till I saw her take it off! Well, that hair, false though

it was, entirely dominated her face. It was stupendous, remarkable.

However, it was the fashion at that time to wear one's hair piled

gigantically upon one's head, and every one had switches and rolls

and rats galore--every one except me. I had a lot of hair of my own.

It came far down below my waist, and was pure black in color. It waved

just enough to look well when done up. Canadian girls all have good

heads of hair. I never saw an American girl with more than a handful.

Still, they make it look so fine that it really does not matter--till

they take it down or off.

My room-mate chewed gum constantly, and the back of our bureau was

peppered with little dabs that she, by the way, told me to "please let

alone." As if I'd have touched her old gum! I laughed at the idea then;

I can still laugh at the remembrance.

Estelle was a character, and she talked so uniquely that for once in

my life I listened, tongue-tied and secretly enchanted. Never had

I heard such speech. With Estelle to room with, why had I not been

born a female George Ade! But, then, I soon discovered that nearly

all American girls (the working-girls at least) used slang fluently

in their speech, and it did not take me long to acquire a choice

vocabulary of my own.

Estelle had to return to her office by one, so she could snatch only

a moment's conversation with me, and she talked with hair-pins in her

mouth, and while sticking pins, bone knobs, and large rhinestone pins

and combs into that brilliant mass of hair that dominated her. On

top of this she finally set a great work of art, in the shape of an

enormous hat. Its color scheme was striking, and set rakishly upon

Estelle's head, it certainly did look "fetching" and stylish.

Now, this girl, with all her slang and gaudy attire, was earning

fifteen dollars a week as a stenographer and type-writer. She not only

supported herself in "ease and comfort," as she herself put it, but

she contributed three dollars a week to her family--she hailed from

Iowa, despite her name--and she saved two dollars a week. Also she

was engaged. She showed me her ring. I envied her not so much for the

ring as for the man. I should have loved to be engaged. She said if it

wasn't for the fact that her "fellow" called every evening, she'd take

me out with her that night; and perhaps if Albert didn't object too

much, she would, anyhow. Albert must have objected, for she did not

take me.

Albert worked in the same office as Estelle. He got twelve dollars a

week; but Estelle planned that if they married, Albert, who was the

next in line, would take her place. He was bound to rise steadily in

the firm, according to Estelle. As they did not intend to marry for

two or three years, she expected to have considerable saved by then,

especially as Albert was also saving. I liked Estelle from the first,

and she liked me. I always got on well with her, though she used to

look at me suspiciously whenever she took a piece of gum from the back

of the bureau, as if she wondered whether I had been at work upon it in

her absence.

I don't know how I found my way about the city that afternoon, but

I declare that there was not a single newspaper office in Chicago at

which I did not call. I went in with high hopes, and I sent in my

card to proprietor and editor, and coldly stared out of countenance

the precocious office boys, patronizing, pert, pitying, impudent, or

indifferent, who in every instance barred my way to the holy of holies

within. In not one instance did I see a proprietor of a paper. No

deeply impressed editor came rushing forth to bid me enter. In most of

the offices I was turned away with the cruel and laconic message of the

office boy of "Nothing doing."

In two cases "cub" reporters--I suppose they were that, for they

looked very little older than the office boys--came out to see me, but

although they paid flattering attention to the faltering recitation

of my experiences as a reporter in Jamaica, West Indies, they, too,

informed me there was "nothing doing," though they took my address. As

far as that goes, so did the office boys. One of the reporters asked me

if I'd like to go out to dinner with him some night. I said no; I was

not looking for dinners, but for a position.

I was very tired when I reached "home." I went up to my room to think

the matter over alone, for the reading-room and the halls were crowded

with girls. Estelle, however, had returned from work. She had taken off

all her puffs and rats, and looked so funny with nothing but her own

hair that I wanted to laugh, but turned away, as I would not have hurt

her feelings for worlds.

"Hello!" she cried as I came in. "Dead tired, ain't you?"

How _can_ a firm employ a stenographer who says "ain't"?

She offered me a piece of gum--unchewed. I took it and disconsolately

went to work.

"Got soaked in the eye, didn't you?" she inquired sympathetically.