WE QUESTION OF FORTUNE: FOUR-FIFTY A WEEK
Once across the river and into the wholesale district, she glanced about
her for some likely door at which to apply. As she contemplated the wide
windows and imposing signs, she became conscious of being gazed upon and
understood for what she was--a wage-seeker. She had never done this
thing before, and lacked courage. To avoid a certain indefinable shame
she felt at being caught spying about for a position, she quickened her
steps and assumed an air of indifference supposedly common to one upon
an errand. In this way she passed many manufacturing and wholesale
houses without once glancing in. At last, after several blocks of
walking, she felt that this would not do, and began to look about again,
though without relaxing her pace. A little way on she saw a great door
which, for some reason, attracted her attention. It was ornamented by a
small brass sign, and seemed to be the entrance to a vast hive of six or
seven floors. "Perhaps," she thought, "they may want some one," and
crossed over to enter. When she came within a score of feet of the
desired goal, she saw through the window a young man in a grey checked
suit. That he had anything to do with the concern, she could not tell,
but because he happened to be looking in her direction her weakening
heart misgave her and she hurried by, too overcome with shame to enter.
Over the way stood a great six-story structure, labelled Storm and King,
which she viewed with rising hope. It was a wholesale dry goods concern
and employed women. She could see them moving about now and then upon
the upper floors. This place she decided to enter, no matter what. She
crossed over and walked directly toward the entrance. As she did so, two
men came out and paused in the door. A telegraph messenger in blue
dashed past her and up the few steps that led to the entrance and
disappeared. Several pedestrians out of the hurrying throng which filled
the sidewalks passed about her as she paused, hesitating. She looked
helplessly around, and then, seeing herself observed, retreated. It was
too difficult a task. She could not go past them.
So severe a defeat told sadly upon her nerves. Her feet carried her
mechanically forward, every foot of her progress being a satisfactory
portion of a flight which she gladly made. Block after block passed by.
Upon street-lamps at the various corners she read names such as Madison,
Monroe, La Salle, Clark, Dearborn, State, and still she went, her feet
beginning to tire upon the broad stone flagging. She was pleased in part
that the streets were bright and clean. The morning sun, shining down
with steadily increasing warmth, made the shady side of the streets
pleasantly cool. She looked at the blue sky overhead with more
realisation of its charm than had ever come to her before.
Her cowardice began to trouble her in a way. She turned back, resolving
to hunt up Storm and King and enter. On the way she encountered a great
wholesale shoe company, through the broad plate windows of which she saw
an enclosed executive department, hidden by frosted glass. Without this
enclosure, but just within the street entrance, sat a grey-haired
gentleman at a small table, with a large open ledger before him. She
walked by this institution several times hesitating, but, finding
herself unobserved, faltered past the screen door and stood humbly
waiting.
"Well, young lady," observed the old gentleman, looking at her somewhat
kindly, "what is it you wish?"
"I am, that is, do you--I mean, do you need any help?" she stammered.
"Not just at present," he answered smiling. "Not just at present. Come
in some time next week. Occasionally we need some one."
She received the answer in silence and backed awkwardly out. The
pleasant nature of her reception rather astonished her. She had expected
that it would be more difficult, that something cold and harsh would be
said--she knew not what. That she had not been put to shame and made to
feel her unfortunate position, seemed remarkable.
Somewhat encouraged, she ventured into another large structure. It was a
clothing company, and more people were in evidence--well-dressed men of
forty and more, surrounded by brass railings.
An office boy approached her.
"Who is it you wish to see?" he asked.
"I want to see the manager," she said.
He ran away and spoke to one of a group of three men who were conferring
together. One of these came towards her.
"Well?" he said coldly. The greeting drove all courage from her at once.
"Do you need any help?" she stammered.
"No," he replied abruptly, and turned upon his heel.
She went foolishly out, the office boy deferentially swinging the door
for her, and gladly sank into the obscuring crowd. It was a severe
setback to her recently pleased mental state.
Now she walked quite aimlessly for a time, turning here and there,
seeing one great company after another, but finding no courage to
prosecute her single inquiry. High noon came, and with it hunger. She
hunted out an unassuming restaurant and entered, but was disturbed to
find that the prices were exorbitant for the size of her purse. A bowl
of soup was all that she could afford, and, with this quickly eaten, she
went out again. It restored her strength somewhat and made her
moderately bold to pursue the search.
In walking a few blocks to fix upon some probable place, she again
encountered the firm of Storm and King, and this time managed to get in.
Some gentlemen were conferring close at hand, but took no notice of her.
She was left standing, gazing nervously upon the floor. When the limit
of her distress had been nearly reached, she was beckoned to by a man at
one of the many desks within the near-by railing.
"Who is it you wish to see?" he inquired.
"Why, any one, if you please," she answered. "I am looking for something
to do."
"Oh, you want to see Mr. McManus," he returned. "Sit down," and he
pointed to a chair against the neighbouring wall. He went on leisurely
writing, until after a time a short, stout gentleman came in from the
street.
"Mr. McManus," called the man at the desk, "this young woman wants to
see you."
The short gentleman turned about towards Carrie, and she arose and came
forward.
"What can I do for you, miss?" he inquired, surveying her curiously.
"I want to know if I can get a position," she inquired.
"As what?" he asked.
"Not as anything in particular," she faltered.
"Have you ever had any experience in the wholesale dry goods business?"
he questioned.
"No, sir," she replied.
"Are you a stenographer or typewriter?"
"No, sir."
"Well, we haven't anything here," he said. "We employ only experienced
help."
She began to step backward toward the door, when something about her
plaintive face attracted him.
"Have you ever worked at anything before?" he inquired.
"No, sir," she said.
"Well, now, it's hardly possible that you would get anything to do in a
wholesale house of this kind. Have you tried the department stores?"
She acknowledged that she had not.
"Well, if I were you," he said, looking at her rather genially, "I would
try the department stores. They often need young women as clerks."
"Thank you," she said, her whole nature relieved by this spark of
friendly interest.
"Yes," he said, as she moved toward the door, "you try the department
stores," and off he went.
At that time the department store was in its earliest form of successful
operation, and there were not many. The first three in the United
States, established about 1884, were in Chicago. Carrie was familiar
with the names of several through the advertisements in the "Daily
News," and now proceeded to seek them. The words of Mr. McManus had
somehow managed to restore her courage, which had fallen low, and she
dared to hope that this new line would offer her something. Some time
she spent in wandering up and down, thinking to encounter the buildings
by chance, so readily is the mind, bent upon prosecuting a hard but
needful errand, eased by that self-deception which the semblance of
search, without the reality, gives. At last she inquired of a police
officer, and was directed to proceed "two blocks up," where she would
find "The Fair."
The nature of these vast retail combinations, should they ever
permanently disappear, will form an interesting chapter in the
commercial history of our nation. Such a flowering out of a modest trade
principle the world had never witnessed up to that time. They were along
the line of the most effective retail organisation, with hundreds of
stores coordinated into one and laid out upon the most imposing and
economic basis. They were handsome, bustling, successful affairs, with a
host of clerks and a swarm of patrons. Carrie passed along the busy
aisles, much affected by the remarkable displays of trinkets, dress
goods, stationery, and jewelry. Each separate counter was a show place
of dazzling interest and attraction. She could not help feeling the
claim of each trinket and valuable upon her personally, and yet she did
not stop. There was nothing there which she could not have used--nothing
which she did not long to own. The dainty slippers and stockings, the
delicately frilled skirts and petticoats, the laces, ribbons,
hair-combs, purses, all touched her with individual desire, and she felt
keenly the fact that not any of these things were in the range of her
purchase. She was a work-seeker, an outcast without employment, one whom
the average employee could tell at a glance was poor and in need of a
situation.
It must not be thought that any one could have mistaken her for a
nervous, sensitive, high-strung nature, cast unduly upon a cold,
calculating, and unpoetic world. Such certainly she was not. But women
are peculiarly sensitive to their adornment.
Not only did Carrie feel the drag of desire for all which was new and
pleasing in apparel for women, but she noticed too, with a touch at the
heart, the fine ladies who elbowed and ignored her, brushing past in
utter disregard of her presence, themselves eagerly enlisted in the
materials which the store contained. Carrie was not familiar with the
appearance of her more fortunate sisters of the city. Neither had she
before known the nature and appearance of the shop girls with whom she
now compared poorly. They were pretty in the main, some even handsome,
with an air of independence and indifference which added, in the case of
the more favoured, a certain piquancy. Their clothes were neat, in many
instances fine, and wherever she encountered the eye of one it was only
to recognise in it a keen analysis of her own position--her individual
shortcomings of dress and that shadow of _manner_ which she thought must
hang about her and make clear to all who and what she was. A flame of
envy lighted in her heart. She realised in a dim way how much the city
held--wealth, fashion, ease--every adornment for women, and she longed
for dress and beauty with a whole heart.
On the second floor were the managerial offices, to which, after some
inquiry, she was now directed. There she found other girls ahead of her,
applicants like herself, but with more of that self-satisfied and
independent air which experience of the city lends; girls who
scrutinised her in a painful manner. After a wait of perhaps
three-quarters of an hour, she was called in turn.
"Now," said a sharp, quick-mannered Jew, who was sitting at a roll-top
desk near the window, "have you ever worked in any other store?"
"No, sir," said Carrie.
"Oh, you haven't," he said, eyeing her keenly.
"No, sir," she replied.
"Well, we prefer young women just now with some experience. I guess we
can't use you."
Carrie stood waiting a moment, hardly certain whether the interview had
terminated.
"Don't wait!" he exclaimed. "Remember we are very busy here."
Carrie began to move quickly to the door.
"Hold on," he said, calling her back. "Give me your name and address. We
want girls occasionally."
When she had gotten safely into the street, she could scarcely restrain
the tears. It was not so much the particular rebuff which she had just
experienced, but the whole abashing trend of the day. She was tired and
nervous. She abandoned the thought of appealing to the other department
stores and now wandered on, feeling a certain safety and relief in
mingling with the crowd.
In her indifferent wandering she turned into Jackson Street, not far
from the river, and was keeping her way along the south side of that
imposing thoroughfare, when a piece of wrapping paper, written on with
marking ink and tacked up on the door, attracted her attention. It read,
"Girls wanted--wrappers & stitchers." She hesitated a moment, then
entered.
The firm of Speigelheim & Co., makers of boys' caps, occupied one floor
of the building, fifty feet in width and some eighty feet in depth. It
was a place rather dingily lighted, the darkest portions having
incandescent lights, filled with machines and work benches. At the
latter laboured quite a company of girls and some men. The former were
drabby-looking creatures, stained in face with oil and dust, clad in
thin, shapeless, cotton dresses and shod with more or less worn shoes.
Many of them had their sleeves rolled up, revealing bare arms, and in
some cases, owing to the heat, their dresses were open at the neck. They
were a fair type of nearly the lowest order of shop-girls--careless,
slouchy, and more or less pale from confinement. They were not timid,
however; were rich in curiosity, and strong in daring and slang.
Carrie looked about her, very much disturbed and quite sure that she
did not want to work here. Aside from making her uncomfortable by
sidelong glances, no one paid her the least attention. She waited until
the whole department was aware of her presence. Then some word was sent
around, and a foreman, in an apron and shirt sleeves, the latter rolled
up to his shoulders, approached.
"Do you want to see me?" he asked.
"Do you need any help?" said Carrie, already learning directness of
address.
"Do you know how to stitch caps?" he returned.
"No, sir," she replied.
"Have you ever had any experience at this kind of work?" he inquired.
She answered that she had not.
"Well," said the foreman, scratching his ear meditatively, "we do need a
stitcher. We like experienced help, though. We've hardly got time to
break people in." He paused and looked away out of the window. "We
might, though, put you at finishing," he concluded reflectively.
"How much do you pay a week?" ventured Carrie, emboldened by a certain
softness in the man's manner and his simplicity of address.
"Three and a half," he answered.
"Oh," she was about to exclaim, but checked herself and allowed her
thoughts to die without expression.
"We're not exactly in need of anybody," he went on vaguely, looking her
over as one would a package. "You can come on Monday morning, though,"
he added, "and I'll put you to work."
"Thank you," said Carrie weakly.
"If you come, bring an apron," he added.
He walked away and left her standing by the elevator, never so much as
inquiring her name.
While the appearance of the shop and the announcement of the price paid
per week operated very much as a blow to Carrie's fancy, the fact that
work of any kind was offered after so rude a round of experience was
gratifying. She could not begin to believe that she would take the
place, modest as her aspirations were. She had been used to better than
that. Her mere experience and the free out-of-door life of the country
caused her nature to revolt at such confinement. Dirt had never been her
share. Her sister's flat was clean. This place was grimy and low, the
girls were careless and hardened. They must be bad-minded and hearted,
she imagined. Still, a place had been offered her. Surely Chicago was
not so bad if she could find one place in one day. She might find
another and better later.
Her subsequent experiences were not of a reassuring nature, however.
From all the more pleasing or imposing places she was turned away
abruptly with the most chilling formality. In others where she applied
only the experienced were required. She met with painful rebuffs, the
most trying of which had been in a manufacturing cloak house, where she
had gone to the fourth floor to inquire.
"No, no," said the foreman, a rough, heavily built individual, who
looked after a miserably lighted workshop, "we don't want any one. Don't
come here."
With the wane of the afternoon went her hopes, her courage, and her
strength. She had been astonishingly persistent. So earnest an effort
was well deserving of a better reward. On every hand, to her fatigued
senses, the great business portion grew larger, harder, more stolid in
its indifference. It seemed as if it was all closed to her, that the
struggle was too fierce for her to hope to do anything at all. Men and
women hurried by in long, shifting lines. She felt the flow of the tide
of effort and interest--felt her own helplessness without quite
realising the wisp on the tide that she was. She cast about vainly for
some possible place to apply, but found no door which she had the
courage to enter. It would be the same thing all over. The old
humiliation of her plea, rewarded by curt denial. Sick at heart and in
body, she turned to the west, the direction of Minnie's flat, which she
had now fixed in mind, and began that wearisome, baffled retreat which
the seeker for employment at nightfall too often makes. In passing
through Fifth Avenue, south towards Van Buren Street, where she intended
to take a car, she passed the door of a large wholesale shoe house,
through the plate-glass window of which she could see a middle-aged
gentleman sitting at a small desk. One of those forlorn impulses which
often grow out of a fixed sense of defeat, the last sprouting of a
baffled and uprooted growth of ideas, seized upon her. She walked
deliberately through the door and up to the gentleman, who looked at her
weary face with partially awakened interest.
"What is it?" he said.
"Can you give me something to do?" said Carrie.
"Now, I really don't know," he said kindly. "What kind of work is it you
want--you're not a typewriter, are you?"
"Oh, no," answered Carrie.
"Well, we only employ book-keepers and typewriters here. You might go
around to the side and inquire upstairs. They did want some help
upstairs a few days ago. Ask for Mr. Brown."
She hastened around to the side entrance and was taken up by the
elevator to the fourth floor.
"Call Mr. Brown, Willie," said the elevator man to a boy near by.
Willie went off and presently returned with the information that Mr.
Brown said she should sit down and that he would be around in a little
while.
It was a portion of the stock room which gave no idea of the general
character of the place, and Carrie could form no opinion of the nature
of the work.
"So you want something to do," said Mr. Brown, after he inquired
concerning the nature of her errand. "Have you ever been employed in a
shoe factory before?"
"No, sir," said Carrie.
"What is your name?" he inquired, and being informed, "Well, I don't
know as I have anything for you. Would you work for four and a half a
week?"
Carrie was too worn by defeat not to feel that it was considerable. She
had not expected that he would offer her less than six. She acquiesced,
however, and he took her name and address.
"Well," he said, finally, "you report here at eight o'clock Monday
morning. I think I can find something for you to do."
He left her revived by the possibilities, sure that she had found
something at last. Instantly the blood crept warmly over her body. Her
nervous tension relaxed. She walked out into the busy street and
discovered a new atmosphere. Behold, the throng was moving with a
lightsome step. She noticed that men and women were smiling. Scraps of
conversation and notes of laughter floated to her. The air was light.
People were already pouring out of the buildings, their labour ended for
the day. She noticed that they were pleased, and thoughts of her
sister's home and the meal that would be awaiting her quickened her
steps. She hurried on, tired perhaps, but no longer weary of foot. What
would not Minnie say! Ah, the long winter in Chicago--the lights, the
crowd, the amusement! This was a great, pleasing metropolis after all.
Her new firm was a goodly institution. Its windows were of huge plate
glass. She could probably do well there. Thoughts of Drouet returned--of
the things he had told her. She now felt that life was better, that it
was livelier, sprightlier. She boarded a car in the best of spirits,
feeling her blood still flowing pleasantly. She would live in Chicago,
her mind kept saying to itself. She would have a better time than she
had ever had before--she would be happy.