“The trouble with the Haynes-Cooper infants' wear department is that it
doesn't understand women. There are millions of babies born every year.
An incredible number of them are mail order babies. I mean by that they
are born to tired, clumsy-fingered immigrant women, to women in mills
and factories, to women on farms, to women in remote villages. They're
the type who use the mail order method. I've learned this one thing
about that sort of woman: she may not want that baby, but either before
or after it's born she'll starve, and save, and go without proper
clothing, and even beg, and steal to give it clothes--clothes with
lace on them, with ribbon on them, sheer white things. I don't know why
that's true, but it is. Well, we're not reaching them. Our goods are
unattractive. They're packed and shipped unattractively. Why, all this
department needs is a little psychology--and some lace that doesn't
look as if it had been chopped out with an ax. It's the little, silly,
intimate things that will reach these women. No, not silly, either.
Quite understandable. She wants fine things for her baby, just as the
silver-spoon mother does. The thing we'll have to do is to give her
silver-spoon models at pewter prices.”
“It can't be done,” said Slosson.
“Now, wait a minute, Slosson,” Fenger put in, smoothly. “Miss Brandeis
has given us a very fair general statement. We'll have some facts. Are
you prepared to give us an actual working plan?”
“Yes. At least, it sounds practical to me. And if it does to you--and to
Mr. Slosson--”
“Humph!” snorted that gentleman, in expression of defiance, unbelief,
and a determination not to be impressed.
It acted as a goad to Fanny. She leaned forward in her chair and talked
straight at the big, potent force that sat regarding her in silent
attention.
“I still say that we can copy the high-priced models in low-priced
materials because, in almost every case, it isn't the material that
makes the expensive model; it's the line, the cut, the little trick that
gives it style. We can get that. We've been giving them stuff that might
have been made by prison labor, for all the distinction it had. Then
I think we ought to make a feature of the sanitary methods used in our
infants' department. Every article intended for a baby's use should be
wrapped or boxed as it lies in the bin or on the shelf. And those bins
ought to be glassed. We would advertise that, and it would advertise
itself. Our visitors would talk about it. This department hasn't been
getting a square deal in the catalogue. Not enough space. It ought to
have not only more catalogue space, but a catalogue all its own--the
Baby Book. Full of pictures. Good ones. Illustrations that will make
every mother think her baby will look like that baby, once it is wearing
our No. 29E798--chubby babies, curly-headed, and dimply. And the feature
of that catalogue ought to be, not separate garments, but complete
outfits. Outfits boxed, ready for shipping, and ranging in price all the
way from twenty-five dollars to three-ninety-eight--”
“It can't be done!” yelled Slosson. “Three-ninety-eight! Outfits!”
“It can be done. I've figured it out, down to a packet of assorted size
safety pins. We'll call it our emergency outfit. Thirty pieces. And
while we're about it, every outfit over five dollars ought to be packed
in a pink or a pale blue pasteboard box. The outfits trimmed in pink,
pink boxes; the outfits trimmed in blue, blue boxes. In eight cases out
of ten their letters will tell us whether it's a pink or blue baby. And
when they get our package, and take out that pink or blue box, they'll
be as pleased as if we'd made them a present. It's the personal note--”
“Personal slop!” growled Slosson. “It isn't business. It's sentimental
slush!”
“Sentimental, yes,” agreed Fanny pleasantly, “but then, we're running
the only sentimental department in this business. And we ought to be
doing it at the rate of a million and a quarter a year. If you think
these last suggestions sentimental, I'm afraid the next one--”
“Let's have it, Miss Brandeis,” Fenger encouraged her quietly.
“It's”--she flashed a mischievous smile at Slosson--“it's a mother's
guide and helper, and adviser. A woman who'll answer questions, give
advice. Some one they'll write to, with a picture in their minds of a
large, comfortable, motherly-looking person in gray. You know we get
hundreds of letters asking whether they ought to order flannel bands,
or the double-knitted kind. That sort of thing. And who's been answering
them? Some sixteen-year-old girl in the mailing department who doesn't
know a flannel band from a bootee when she sees it. We could call our
woman something pleasant and everydayish, like Emily Brand. Easy to
remember. And until we can find her, I'll answer those letters myself.
They're important to us as well as to the woman who writes them. And
now, there's the matter of obstetrical outfits. Three grades, packed
ready for shipment, practical, simple, and complete. Our drug section
has the separate articles, but we ought to--”
“Oh, lord!” groaned Slosson, and slumped disgustedly in his seat.
But Fenger got up, came over to Fanny, and put a hand on her shoulder
for a moment. He looked down at her. “I knew you'd do it.” He smiled
queerly. “Tell me, where did you learn all this?”
“I don't know,” faltered Fanny happily. “Brandeis' Bazaar, perhaps. It's
just another case of plush photograph album.”
“Plush--?”
Fanny told him that story. Even the discomfited Slosson grinned at it.
But after ten minutes more of general discussion Slosson left. Fenger,
without putting it in words, had conveyed that to him. Fanny stayed.
They did things that way at Haynes-Cooper. No waste. No delay. That she
had accomplished in two months that which ordinarily takes years was not
surprising. They did things that way, too, at Haynes-Cooper. Take the
case of Nathan Haynes himself. And Michael Fenger too who, not so many
years before, had been a machine-boy in a Racine woolen mill.
For my part, I confess that Fanny Brandeis begins to lose interest
for me. Big Business seems to dwarf the finer things in her. That
red-cheeked, shabby little schoolgirl, absorbed in Zola and peanut
brittle in the Winnebago library, was infinitely more appealing than
this glib and capable young woman. The spitting wildcat of the street
fight so long ago was gentler by far than this cool person who was so
deliberately taking his job away from Slosson. You, too, feel that way
about her? That is as it should be. It is the penalty they pay who,
given genius, sympathy, and understanding as their birthright, trade
them for the tawdry trinkets money brings.
Perhaps the last five minutes of that conference between Fanny and
Michael Fenger reveals a new side, and presents something of interest.
It was a harrowing and unexpected five minutes.
You may remember how Michael Fenger had a way of looking at one,
silently. It was an intent and concentrated gaze that had the effect of
an actual physical hold. Most people squirmed under it. Fanny, feeling
it on her now, frowned and rose to leave.
“Shall you want to talk these things over again? Of course I've only
outlined them, roughly. You gave me so little time.”
Fenger, at his desk, did not answer, or turn away his gaze. A little
blaze of wrath flamed into Fanny's face.
“General manager or not,” she said, very low-voiced, “I wish
you wouldn't sit and glower at me like that. It's rude, and it's
disconcerting,” which was putting it forthrightly.
“I beg your pardon!” Fenger came swiftly around the desk, and over to
her. “I was thinking very hard. Miss Brandeis, will you dine with me
somewhere tonight? Then to-morrow night? But I want to talk to you.”
“Here I am. Talk.”
“But I want to talk to--you.”
It was then that Fanny Brandeis saved an ugly situation. For she
laughed, a big, wholesome, outdoors sort of laugh. She was honestly
amused.
“My dear Mr. Fenger, you've been reading the murky magazines. Very bad
for you.”
Fenger was unsmiling: “Why won't you dine with me?”
“Because it would be unconventional and foolish. I respect the
conventions. They're so sensible. And because it would be unfair to you,
and to Mrs. Fenger, and to me.”
“Rot! It's you who have the murky magazine viewpoint, as you call it,
when you imply--”
“Now, look here, Mr. Fenger,” Fanny interrupted, quietly. “Let's be
square with each other, even if we're not being square with ourselves.
You're the real power in this plant, because you've the brains. You
can make any person in this organization, or break them. That sounds
melodramatic, but it's true. I've got a definite life plan, and it's as
complete and detailed as an engineering blue print. I don't intend to
let you spoil it. I've made a real start here. If you want to, I've no
doubt you can end it. But before you do, I want to warn you that I'll
make a pretty stiff fight for it. I'm no silent sufferer. I'll say
things. And people usually believe me when I talk.”
Still the silent, concentrated gaze. With a little impatient exclamation
Fanny walked toward the door. Fenger, startlingly light and agile for
his great height, followed.
“I'm sorry, Miss Brandeis, terribly sorry. You see, you interest me very
much. Very much.”
“Thanks,” dryly.
“Don't go just yet. Please. I'm not a villain. Really. That is, not a
deliberate villain. But when I find something very fine, very intricate,
very fascinating and complex--like those etchings, for example--I am
intrigued. I want it near me. I want to study it.”
Fanny said nothing. But she thought, “This is a dangerously clever man.
Too clever for you. You know so little about them.” Fenger waited. Most
women would have found refuge in words. The wrong words. It is only the
strong who can be silent when in doubt.
“Perhaps you will dine with Mrs. Fenger and me at our home some evening?
Mrs. Fenger will speak to you about it.”
“I'm afraid I'm usually too tired for further effort at the end of the
day. I'm sorry----”
“Some Sunday night perhaps, then. Tea.”
“Thank you.” And so out, past the spare secretary, the anxious-browed
stenographer, the academic office boy, to the hallway, the elevator, and
finally the refuge of her own orderly desk. Slosson was at lunch in one
of the huge restaurants provided for employees in the building across
the street. She sat there, very still, for some minutes; for more
minutes than she knew. Her hands were clasped tightly on the desk, and
her eyes stared ahead in a puzzled, resentful, bewildered way. Something
inside her was saying over and over again:
“You lied to him on that very first day. That placed you. That stamped
you. Now he thinks you're rotten all the way through. You lied on the
very first day.”
Ella Monahan poked her head in at the door. The Gloves were on that
floor, at the far end. The two women rarely saw each other, except at
lunch time.
“Missed you at lunch,” said Ella Monahan. She was a pink-cheeked,
bright-eyed woman of forty-one or two, prematurely gray and therefore
excessively young in her manner, as women often are who have grown gray
before their time.
Fanny stood up, hurriedly. “I was just about to go.”
“Try the grape pie, dear. It's delicious.” And strolled off down the
aisle that seemed to stretch endlessly ahead.
Fanny stood for a moment looking after her, as though meaning to call
her back. But she must have changed her mind, because she said, “Oh,
nonsense!” aloud. And went across to lunch. And ordered grape pie. And
enjoyed it.