WHEN I asked Alice when I should see her again she suggested the
following Tuesday or Thursday, asking me not to say anything to C——. I
had not been calling on her more than a week or two before she confessed
that there was another suitor, a telegraph operator to whom she was
engaged and who was still calling on her regularly. When she came to our
house to spend Christmas, she said, it was with no intention of seeking
a serious flirtation, though in order not to embarrass the sense of
opportunity we boys might feel she had taken off her engagement ring.
Also, she confessed to me, she never wore it at the store, for the
reason that it would create talk and make it seem that she might leave
soon, when she was by no means sure that she would. In short, she had
become engaged thus early without being certain that she was in love.
Never were happier hours than those I spent with her, though at the time
I was in that state of unrest and change which afflicts most youths who
are endeavoring to discover what they want to do in life. On Christmas
day my job was gone and the task of finding another was before me, but
this did not seem so grim now. I felt more confident. True, the manager
of the _Herald_ had told me to call after the first of the year, and I
did so, but only to find that his suggestion of something important to
come later had been merely a ruse to secure eager and industrious
service for his bureau. When I told him I wanted to become a reporter,
he said: “But, you see, I have nothing whatsoever to do with that. You
must see the managing editor on the fourth floor.”
To say this to me was about the same as to say: “You must see God.”
Nevertheless I made my way to that floor, but at that hour of the
morning, I found no one at all. Another day, going at three, so complete
was my ignorance of newspaper hours, I found only a few uncommunicative
individuals at widely scattered desks in a room labeled “City Room.” One
of these, after I had asked him how one secured a place as a reporter,
looked at me quizzically and said: “You want to see the city editor. He
isn’t here now. The best times to see him are at noon and six. That’s
the only time he gives out assignments.”
“Aha!” I thought. “‘Assignments’—so that’s what reportorial work is
called! And I must come at either twelve or six.” So I bustled away, to
return at six, for I felt that I must get work in this great and
fascinating field. When I came at six and was directed to a man who bent
over a desk and was evidently very much concerned about something, he
exclaimed: “No vacancies. Nothing open. Sorry,” and turned away.
So I went out crestfallen and more overawed than ever. Who was I to
attempt to venture into such a wonderland as this—I, a mere collector by
trade? I doubt if any one ever explored the mouth of a cave with more
feeling of uncertainty. It was all so new, so wonderful, so mysterious.
I looked at the polished doors and marble floors of this new and
handsome newspaper building with such a feeling as might have possessed
an Ethiopian slave examining the walls and the doors of the temple of
Solomon. How wonderful it must be to work in such a place as this! How
shrewd and wise must be the men whom I saw working here, able and
successful and comfortable! How great and interesting the work they did!
Today they were here, writing at one of these fine desks; tomorrow they
would be away on some important mission somewhere, taking a train,
riding in a Pullman car, entering some great home or office and
interviewing some important citizen. And when they returned they were
congratulated upon having discovered some interesting fact or story on
which, having reported to their city editor or managing editor, or
having written it out, they were permitted to retire in comfort with
more compliments. Then they resorted to an excellent hotel or
restaurant, to refresh themselves among interested and interesting
friends before retiring to rest. Some such hodge-podge as this filled my
immature brain.
Despite the discouraging reception of my first overture, I visited other
newspaper offices, only to find the same, and even colder, conditions.
The offices in most cases were by no means so grand, but the atmosphere
was equally chill, and the city editor was a difficult man to approach.
Often I was stopped by an office boy who reported, when I said I was
looking for work, no vacancies. When I got in at all, nearly all the
city editors merely gave me a quick glance and said: “No vacancies.” I
began to feel that the newspaper world must be controlled by a secret
cult or order until one lithe bony specimen with a pointed green shade
over his eyes and dusty red hair looked at me much as an eagle might
look at a pouter pigeon, and asked:
“Ever worked on a paper before?”
“No, sir.”
“How do you know you can write?”
“I don’t; but I think I could learn.”
“Learn? Learn? We haven’t time to teach anybody here! You better try one
of the little papers—a trade paper, maybe, until you learn how—then come
back,” and he walked off.
This gave me at least a definite idea as to how I might begin, but just
the same it did not get me a position.
Meanwhile, looking here and there and not finding anything, I decided,
since I had had experience as a collector and must live while I was
making my way into journalism, to return to this work and see if I might
not in the meantime get a place as a reporter.
Having been previously employed by an easy-payment instalment house, I
now sought out another, the Corbin Company, in Lake Street, not very far
from the office of the firm for which I had previously worked. From this
firm, having been hard pressed for a winter overcoat the preceding fall,
I had abstracted or held out twenty-five dollars, intending to restore
it. But before I had been able to manage that a slack up in the work
occurred, due to the fact that wandering street agents sold less in
winter than in summer, and I was laid off and had to confess that I was
short in my account.
The manager and owner, who had seemed to take a fancy to me, said
nothing other than that I was making a mistake, taking the path that led
to social hell. I do not recall that he even requested that the money be
returned. But I was so nervous that I was convinced that some day,
unless I returned the money, I should be arrested, and to avoid this I
had written him a letter after leaving promising that I would pay up. He
never even bothered to answer the letter, and I believe that if I had
returned in the spring, paid the twenty-five dollars and asked for work
he would have taken me on again. But I had no such thought in mind. I
held myself disgraced forever and only wished to get clear of this sort
of work. It was a vulture game at best, selling trash to the ignorant
for twelve and fourteen times its value. Now that I was out of it I
hated to return. I feared that the first thing my proposed employer
would do would be to inquire of my previous employer, and that being
informed of my stealing he would refuse to employ me.
With fear and trembling I inquired of the firm in Lake Street and was
told that there was a place awaiting some one—“the right party.” The
manager wanted to know if I could give a bond for three hundred dollars;
they had just had one collector arrested for stealing sixty dollars. I
told him I thought I could and decided to explain the proposition to my
father and obtain his advice since I knew little about how a bond was
secured. When I learned that the bonding company investigated one’s
past, however, I was terrorized. My father, an honest, worthy and
defiant German, on being told that a bond was required, scouted the idea
with much vehemence. Why should any one want a bond from me? he demanded
to know. Hadn’t I worked for Mr. M—— in the same line? Couldn’t they go
there and find out? At thought of M—— I shook, and, rather than have an
investigation, dropped the whole matter, deciding not to go near the
place again.
But the manager, taken by my guileless look, I presume, called one
evening at our house. He had taken a fancy to me, he said; I looked to
be honest and industrious; he liked the neighborhood I lived in. He
proposed that I should go to one of the local bonding companies and get
a three hundred dollar bond for ten dollars a year, his company paying
for the bond out of my first week’s salary, which was to be only twelve
dollars to start with. This promised to involve explaining about M——,
but I decided to go to the bonding company and refer only to two other
men for whom I had worked and see what would happen. For the rest, I
proposed to say that school and college life had filled my years before
this. If trouble came over M—— I planned to run away.
But, to my astonishment and delight, my ruse worked admirably. The
following Sunday afternoon my new manager called and asked me to report
the following morning for work.
Oh, those singing days in the streets and parks and show-places of
Chicago, those hours when in bright or thick lowery weather I tramped
the highways and byways dreaming chaotic dreams. I had all my afternoons
to myself after one or two o’clock. The speed with which I worked and
could walk would soon get me over the list of my customers, and then I
was free to go where I chose. Spring was coming. I was only nineteen.
Life was all before me, and the feel of plenty of money in my pocket,
even if it did not belong to me, was comforting. And then youth,
youth—that lilt and song in one’s very blood! I felt as if I were
walking on tinted clouds, among the highlands of the dawn.
How shall I do justice to this period, which for perfection of spirit,
ease of soul, was the very best I had so far known? In the first place,
because of months of exercise in the open air, my physical condition was
good. I was certain to get somewhere in the newspaper world, or so I
thought. The condition of our family was better than it had ever been in
my time, for we four younger children were working steadily. Our home
life, in spite of bickerings among several of my brothers and sisters,
was still pleasing enough. Altogether we were prospering, and my father
was looking forward to a day when all family debts would be paid and the
soul of my mother, as well as his own when it passed over, could be
freed from too prolonged torments in purgatory! For, as a Catholic, he
believed that until all one’s full debts here on earth were paid one’s
soul was held in durance on the other side.
For myself, life was at the topmost toss. I was like some bird poised on
a high twig, teetering and fluttering and ready for flight. Again, I was
like those flying hawks and buzzards that ride so gracefully on still
wings above a summer landscape, seeing all the wonders of the world
below. Again, I was like a song that sings itself, the spirit of happy
music that by some freak of creation is able to rejoice in its own
harmonies and rhythms. Joy was ever before me, the sense of some great
adventure lurking just around the corner.
How I loved the tonic note of even the grinding wheels of the trucks and
cars, the clang and clatter of cable and electric lines, the surge of
vehicles in every street! The palls of heavy manufacturing smoke that
hung low over the city like impending hurricanes; the storms of wintry
snow or sleety rain; the glow of yellow lights in little shops at
evening, mile after mile, where people were stirring and bustling over
potatoes, flour, cabbages—all these things were the substance of songs,
paintings, poems. I liked the sections where the women of the town were
still, at noon, sleeping off the debauches of the preceding night, or at
night were preparing for the gaudy make-believes of their midnight day.
I liked those sections crowded with great black factories, stock-yards,
steel works, Pullman yards, where in the midst of Plutonian stress and
clang men mixed or forged or joined or prepared those delicacies,
pleasures and perfections for which the world buys and sells itself.
Life was at its best here, its promise the most glittering. I liked
those raw neighborhoods where in small, unpainted, tumbledown shanties
set in grassless, can-strewn yards drunken and lecherous slatterns and
brawlers were to be found mooning about in a hell of their own. And, for
contrast, I liked those areas of great mansions set upon the great
streets of the city in spacious lawns, where liveried servants stood by
doors and carriages turned in at spacious gates and under heavy
porte-cochères.
I think I grasped Chicago in its larger material if not in its more
complicated mental aspects. Its bad was so deliciously bad, its good so
very good, keen and succulent, reckless, inconsequential, pretentious,
hopeful, eager, new. People cursed or raved or snarled—the more
fortunate among them, but they were never heavy or dull or asleep. In
some neighborhoods the rancidity of dirt, or the stark icy bleakness of
poverty, fairly shouted, but they were never still, decaying pools of
misery. On wide bleak stretches of prairie swept by whipping winds one
could find men who were tanning dog or cat hides but their wives were
buying yellow plush albums or red silk-shaded lamps or blue and green
rugs on time, as I could personally testify. Churches with gaudy altars
and services rose out of mucky masses of shanties and gas-tanks; saloons
with glistening bars of colored glass and mirrors stood as the centers
and clubs of drear, bleak masses of huts. There were vice districts and
wealth districts hung with every enticing luxury that the wit of a
commonplace or conventional mind could suggest. Such was Chicago.
In the vice districts I had been paid for shabby rugs and lamps, all
shamelessly overpriced, by plump naked girls striding from bed to
dresser to get a purse, and then offered certain favors for a dollar, or
its equivalent—a credit on the contract slip. In the more exclusive
neighborhoods I was sent around to a side entrance by comfortably
dressed women who were too proud or too sly to have their neighbors know
that they were buying on time. Black negresses leered at me from behind
shuttered windows at noon; plump wives drew me into risqué situations on
sight; death-bereaved weepers mourned over their late lost in my
presence—and postponed paying me. But I liked the life. I was crazy
about it. Chicago was like a great orchestra in a tumult of noble
harmonies. I was like a guest at a feast, eating and drinking in a
delirium of ecstasy.
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