My new "boss" at the yards was a sharp-nosed, sharp-eyed old-young man
who seemed to think that his chief mission in life was to crack a sort
of mental whip, like an overseer, over the heads of those under him,
and keep us all hustling and rushing like frightened geese.
I had been accustomed to answer the correspondence of the soap
department myself, Fred merely noting a few words in pencil on each
letter, giving the gist of what he wanted said; but Mr. Hopkins
dictated everything, and as soon as I was through one batch of
correspondence, he would find something else for me to do. It seemed to
give him a pain for my typewriter to be idle a moment. I think I was on
his mind all the time except when he was thinking up work for Red Top.
My position, therefore, had become a very hard one. I worked
incessantly from nine till six. Fred had let me off at five-thirty and
often at five; but Mr. Hopkins kept me till six. I think he'd have made
it seven, but the bell rang at six, and the office was supposed to
close after that.
Many a time I've seen him glance regretfully at the clock or make an
impatient movement with his shoulders at the clanging of the bell, at
which moment I always banged my type-writer desk, and swiftly departed.
How I missed Fred! He had made life at the yards tolerable and even
amusing for me with his jokes and confidences. And, then, there's a
pleasure in working for some one you know approves of you and likes
you. Fred _did_ like me. In a way, I don't think any one ever liked me
better than poor Fred did.
It makes me sad to think that the best girl friend I ever had, Lolly,
and the best man friend, Fred, are now both gone out of this world,
where I may have still such a long road to travel.
I hated my position now. I was nothing but an overworked machine.
Moreover, the routine of the work was deadening. When I answered the
letters myself, it gave a slight diversion; but now I simply took
dictation and transcribed it, and when I was through with that, I
copied pages of itemized stuff. My mind became just like a ticker that
tapped off this or that curt and dry formula of business letter in
which soap, soap, soap stood out big and slimy.
I now neither wrote at night nor went out. I was too tired from the
incessant labor at the type-writer, and when I got to sleep,--after
two or three hours, in which I lay awake thinking of Mr. Hamilton and
wondering whether I would ever see him again; I always wondered about
that when he was away,--I declare, I would hear the _tap-tapping_ of
that typewriter all night long! Other type-writists have had the same
experience. One ought to escape from one's treadmill at least in sleep.
But this is a world of miracles; doubt it who can.
There came a glorious day late in the month of November--to be exact,
it was November 24. No, Mr. Hamilton did not come again. He was still
waiting for my capitulation anent the rooms at Mrs. Kingston's.
This is what happened: I was type-writing, when Red Top came in with
the mail. He threw down on my desk some personal letters that had
come for me. Although Mr. Hopkins was at his desk, and I knew it was
a criminal offense to stop any office work to attend to a personal
matter, I reached over and picked up my letters. I heard my "boss"
cough significantly as I glanced through them. Two were from home, and
I put them down, intending to read them at noon. One was from Fred. I
put that down, too. And the other! Oh, that other! It was from--listen!
It was from the editor of that great magazine in New York! I opened
it with trembling fingers. The words jumped up at me and embraced me!
My story was accepted, and a check for fifty dollars accompanied that
brief, but blessed, note.
Mr. Hopkins was clearing his throat so pronouncedly now that I turned
deliberately about in my chair and grinned hard at him. He glared at me
indignantly. Little idiot! He thought I was trying to flirt with him!
"Are you through, Miss Ascough?" he asked.
"No, Mr. Hopkins," I responded blandly, "and I never will be now. I've
just come into some money, and I'm not going to work for you any more."
"What! What!" he said in his sharp little voice, just like a duck
quacking.
I repeated what I had said, and I stood up now, and began gathering my
things together--my pocketbook, handkerchief, odds and ends in my desk,
and the rose that Mr. Smith had given me that day.
Mr. Hopkins had a nasal, excitable, squeaking sort of voice, like the
querulous bark of a dog--a little dog.
"But, Miss Ascough, you don't mean to say you are leaving now?"
"Yes, I do mean to say it," I replied, smiling gloriously.
"But surely you'll finish the letter on the machine."
"I surely will not," said I. "I don't _have_ to work any more.
Good-by." And out I marched, or, rather, flew, without waiting to
collect three days' pay due me, and resigning a perfectly good
fifteen-dollar-a-week job on the first money I ever received for a
story!
I did not walk on solid ground, I assure you. I flew on wings that
carried me soaring above that Land of Odors, where I had worked for
four and a half hard months, right up into the clouds, and every one
knows the clouds are near to heaven.
Mr. Hamilton? Oh, yes, I did remember some such person. Let me see.
He was the man who thought I was incapable of taking care of myself,
and who grandiloquently wanted to "make me over"; who once said I was
"ignorant, uncivilized, undisciplined," and would never get anywhere
unless I followed his lordly advice. How I laughed inwardly at the
thought of the effect upon him of those astounding conquests that I was
to make in the charming golden world that was smiling and beckoning to
me now.
As soon as I got to my room, I sat down and wrote a letter to him. I
wanted _him_ to know right away. In fact, I had a feeling that if _he_
didn't know, then all the pleasure of my triumph might go. This is what
I said to him:
Dear Roger:
[Yes, I called him Roger now.]
Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the inclosed thrilling,
extraordinary, and absorbing indorsement of
Your abused and forsaken
NORA.
How had he the heart not to answer that letter of mine, I wondered.
Girls love candies, pretty clothes, jewelry, geegaws, and, as the old
song has it, "apples and spices and everything nicest," they like
boys and men and all such trifling things. Those are the things that
make them giggle and thrill and weep and sometimes kill themselves;
but I tell you there isn't a thrill comparable with that electric and
ecstatic shock that comes to a young girl writer when, after many
rebuffs, her first story is accepted. Of course, alas! that thrill is
brief, and soon one finds, with wonder, that the world is actually
going on just the same, and, more wonder of wonders! there are still
trouble and pain and tragedy and other ugly things crawling about upon
the face of the earth. Ah me! They say the weird, seeking sound of a
new soul is the most beautiful music on earth to the ears of a mother.
I think a poet feels that way toward his first poem or story that comes
to life. The ecstasy, the pain, and thrill of creating and bearing--are
they not all here, too? I know that often one's "child" is unworthy,
uncouth, sometimes deformed, or, worse, a misshapen and appalling
monster, a criminal product, as it were; but none the less he is one's
own, and one's love will accompany him, even as a mother's, to the
gallows.
"It never rains but it pours," says a homely old adage. I thought this
was the case with me now. Within a few days after I got that letter
and check, lo and behold! I had three stories accepted by a certain
Western magazine. I was sure now that I was not only going to be famous
immediately, but fabulously wealthy.
Three stories, say, at fifty dollars each, made a hundred and fifty;
add the fifty I had from the New York magazine, and you perceive I
would possess two hundred dollars. Then do not forget that I had as
well a little black suitcase full of other stories and poems, and an
abortive effort at a novel, to say nothing of a score of articles about
Jamaica. Besides, my head was teeming with extraordinary and unusual
plots and ideas,--at least they seemed extraordinary and original to
me,--and I felt that all I had to do was to shut myself up somewhere
alone, and out they would pour.
I now sat down on the floor, with my suitcase before me, and I made a
list of all my stories, put prices opposite them, added up the list,
and, bedad! as O'Brien would say, I was a rich girl!
In fact I felt so confident and recklessly happy that nothing would do
but I must treat Lolly and Hermann to a fine dinner and the theater.
My fifty dollars dropped to forty. But of course I was to get one
hundred and fifty for those other three stories. It's true, the letter
accepting them did not mention the price, but I supposed that all
magazines paid about the same, and even though in the case of the
Western magazine I was to be "paid upon publication," I was sure my
stories would be published soon. In fact, I thought it a good thing
that I was not paid all at once, because then I might be tempted to
spend the money. As it was, it would come in just about the time I was
through with the fifty.
If my ignorance in this matter seems infantile, I think I may
confidently refer my readers to certain other authors who in the
beginning of their careers have been almost as credulous and visionary
as I. It's a matter of wonder how any person who is capable of writing
a story can in other matters be so utterly impractical and positively
devoid of common sense.
I never saw fifty dollars fly away as quickly as that fifty dollars
of mine. I really don't know _what_ it went for, though I did swagger
about a bit among my friends. I took Mrs. Kingston and Mrs. Owens,
the woman who lived with her, to the theater, and I went over to the
Y. W. C. A. several times and treated Estelle and a lot of my old
acquaintances to ice-cream sodas and things like that.
I avidly watched the news-stands for the December number of that
Western magazine to appear, and when it did come out, I was so sure at
least one of my stories was in it, that I was confounded and stunned
when I found that it was not. I thought some mistake must have been
made, and bought two other copies to make sure.
I was now down to my last six dollars. I awoke to the seriousness of
my position. I would have to go to work again and immediately. The
thought of this hurt me acutely, not so much because I hated the work,
but because I realized that my dream of instant fame and fortune was in
fact only a dream.
The December number of the New York magazine also was out, but my
story was not in it. I wrote to the editors of both the Eastern and
Western magazines, and asked when my stories would appear. I got
answers within a few days. The New York magazine said that they were
made up for several months ahead, but hoped to use my story by next
summer,--it was the first week in December now,--and the Western
magazine wrote vaguely that they planned to use my stories in "the near
future."
I wrote such a desperate letter to the editor of that Western magazine,
imploring him to use my stories very soon, that I must have aroused his
curiosity, for he wrote me that he expected to be in Chicago "some time
next month," and would be much pleased to call upon me and discuss the
matter of the early publication of my stories and others he would like
to have me write for them.
I said my fifty dollars flew away from me. I except the last six
dollars. I performed miracles with that. I paid my share of our
room-rent for a week--three dollars--and lived eleven days on the other
three. At the end of those eleven days I had exactly ten cents.
For two reasons I did not tell Lolly. In the first place, while I had
not lied to her, I had in my egotistical and fanciful excitement led
her to believe that not only had I sold the four stories, but that they
had been paid for. And in the second place, Lolly at this time was
having bitter troubles of her own. They concerned Marshall Chambers.
She was suffering untold tortures over that man--the tortures that only
a suspicious and passionately jealous woman who loves can feel. She had
no tangible proof of his infidelities, but a thousand little things had
occurred that made her suspect him. They quarreled constantly, and then
passionately "made up." So I could not turn to Lolly.
I had not heard a word from Mr. Hamilton, and after that glowing,
boastful letter I had written, how _could_ I now appeal to him? The
mere thought tormented and terrified me.
Toward the end, when my money had faded down to that last six dollars,
I had been desperately seeking work. I think I answered five hundred
advertisements at least, but although now I was well dressed, an asset
to a stenographer, and had city references (Fred's), I could get
nothing. My strait, it will be perceived, was really bad, and another
week's rent had fallen due.
I didn't have any dinner that evening when I went over to Mrs.
Kingston's, but I had on my beautiful blue velvet suit. My luncheon
had been a single ham sandwich. Mrs. Kingston had called me up on the
telephone early in the day, and invited me over for the evening, saying
she had some friends who wished to meet me.
Her friends proved to be two young men from Cincinnati who were living
and working in Chicago. One, George Butler, already well known as a
Socialist, was head of a Charities Association Bureau (I hysterically
thought it an apropos occasion for me to meet a man in such work),
and the other, Robert Bennet, was exchange editor of the _News_.
Butler was exceedingly good-looking, but he had a thick, baggy-looking
mouth, and he dressed like a poet,--at least I supposed a poet would
dress something like that,--wearing his hair carelessly tossed back,
a turn-over soft collar, flowing tie, and loose-fitting clothes that
looked as if they needed to be pressed.
Bennet had an interesting face, the prominent attribute of which was
an almost shining quality of _honesty_. It illuminated his otherwise
rugged and homely countenance, and gave it a curious attraction and
strength. I can find no other word to describe that expression. He wore
glasses, and looked like a student, and he stooped a little, which
added to this impression. Both boys were in their early twenties, I
should say, and they roomed together somewhere near Jane Addams's Hull
House, where both worked at night, giving their services gratuitously
as instructors in English. They were graduates of Cornell.
Butler talked a great deal about Socialism, and he would run his hand
through his hair, as Belasco does on first nights. Bennet, on the other
hand, was a good listener, but talked very little. He seemed diffident
and even shy, and he stammered slightly.
On this night I was in such a depressed mood that, despite Mr.
Butler's eloquence, I was unable to rouse myself from the morbid
fancies that were now flooding my mind. For the imagination that
had carried me up on dizzying dreams of fame now showed me pictures
of myself starving and homeless; and just as the first pictures had
exhilarated, now the latter terrified and distracted me.
Mrs. Kingston noticed my silence, and asked me if I were not feeling
well. She said I did not seem quite myself. I said I was all right.
When I was going, she asked me in a whisper whether I had heard from
Mr. Hamilton, and I shook my head; and then she wanted to know whether
he knew of my "success." Something screamed and cried within me at that
question. My success! Was she mocking me then?
Bennet had asked to see me home, and as it was still early,--only about
nine,--he suggested that we take a little walk along the lake.
It was a beautiful night, and though only a few weeks from Christmas,
not at all cold. Mrs. Kingston had apparently told Mr. Bennet of my
writing, for he tried to make me talk about it. I was not, however, in
a very communicative mood. I talked disjointedly. I started to tell
him about my stories, and then all of a sudden I remembered how I was
fixed, and then I couldn't talk at all. In fact, I pitied myself so
that I began to cry. It was dark in the street, and I cried silently;
so I didn't suppose he noticed me until he stopped short and said:
"You're in trouble. Can't you tell me what is the matter?"
"I've got only ten cents in the world," I blurted out.
"What!"
"Just ten cents," I said, "and I _can't_ get work."
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "You poor girl!"
He was so sorry for me and excited that he stammered worse than ever,
and I stopped crying, because, having told some one my secret, I felt
better and knew I'd get help somehow.
So then I told him all about how I had come down to such straits; how
I had worked all those months, and my implicit belief that that fifty
dollars would last till I was paid for the other three stories.
When I was through, Bennet said:
"N-now, l-look here. I get thirty dollars a week. I don't need but half
of that, and I'm going to give you fifteen a week of it till you get
another place."
I protested that I wouldn't think of taking his money, but I was
joyfully hailing him in my heart as a veritable savior. Before we had
reached my lodging-place, I had not only allowed him to give me ten
dollars, but I agreed to accept ten dollars a week from him till I got
work.
It is curious how, without the slightest compunction or any feeling
even of hurt pride or shame, I was willing to accept money like this
from a person whom I had never seen before; yet the thought of asking
Hamilton filled me with a real terror. I believe I would have starved
first. It is hard to explain this. I had liked to think of myself as
doing something very unusual and fine in refusing help from Hamilton,
and yet where was my logic, since without a qualm I took money from
Bennet? Our natures are full of contradictions, it seems to me.
Perhaps I can explain it in this way, however. There was something so
tremendously _good_ about Bennet, so overpoweringly human and great,
that I felt the same as I would have felt if a woman had offered to
help me. On the other hand, I was desperately in love with Hamilton.
I wanted to impress him. I wanted his good opinion. I unconsciously
assumed a pose--perhaps that is it--and I had to live up to it. Then
I have often thought that almost any woman would have confidently
accepted help from Bennet, but might have hesitated to take anything
from Mr. Hamilton.
Some men inspire us with instant confidence; we are "on guard" with
others. I can write this analysis now; I could not explain it to myself
then.