Indeed I was very cheerful and made no secret of it. I had sung every
song I knew and then whistled them all as I worked. But Schmitz, who
surely had never smiled in all his life, could stand it no longer.
"You better not make so much noise," he said. "You see, it's dis
vay--" Poor Schmitz, he had a miserable time of it that afternoon. For
my expressions of contentment with the world had spread. Unconsciously
a chef would whistle a bit here as he mixed his gravy ingredients,
another there as he minced chicken, yet another in still another
direction as he arranged a bowl of vegetables. Schmitz's head swirled
first in one direction, then in another. Aching he was to reduce the
universe to his perpetual state of gloom. But chefs he stood in awe
of. He dared silence only me, and every so often I forgot.
So the Spaniard asked me why I was so happy. I had no reason. Only a
great multitude of reasons why there was no excuse to be anything
else, but I did not go into that. He would know, though.
"What did you do last night?"
"Ho!" I laughed at him, "rode home on the top of a bus!"
A bit later a piece of folded paper landed almost in my French
dressing. It was a note from the Spaniard: "Will you go riding with me
to-night?" I wrote on the bottom of the paper: "Not to-night. Perhaps
next week, yes?" A few moments later a folded menu landed on the
floor. On the back was written: "I will be very pleased whenever you
can or wish. Could it be Sunday? I hope you wouldn't take it amiss my
asking you this. Frank."
I really wanted to take that bus ride with Frank. It still worries me
that I did not. He was such a lonesome person.
Then there was the tall, lean, dark Irish waiter I called Mr.
O'Sullivan. He was a continual joy to my heart and gave me cause for
many a chuckle. A rebel, was Mr. O'Sullivan. I heard Kelly call him
down twice for growling at what he considered inexcusable desires in
the matter of food or service on the part of patrons by telling Mr.
O'Sullivan it was none of his ---- business. But I loved to listen to
Mr. O'Sullivan's growlings, and once he realized that, he used to stop
at my counter, take extra long to collect three slices of lemon, and
tell me his latest grievance. To-night, this Thursday, he was
sputtering.
"Shure and de y'know what now? I've two parties out there want finger
bowls. _Finger bowls!_" sputtered Mr. O'Sullivan.
"Shure an' it's a long ways from the sight of finger bowls them two
was born. It had better be a pail apiece they'd be askin' for. Finger
bowls indeed!" Mr. O'Sullivan had gotten down to a mumble. "Shure an'
they make me _sick_!"
Mr. O'Sullivan knew that I gave ear to his sentiments upon such
matters as old parties, male or female, who must needs order special
kinds of extra digestible bread, and usually that bread must in
addition be toasted. While it was toasting, Mr. O'Sullivan voiced his
views on Old Maids with Indigestion. Much of it does not bear
repeating. When the toast was done, Mr. O'Sullivan would hold out his
plate with the napkin folded ready for the toast. "Shure an yo'r the
sweetest child my eyes ever looked upon" (Mr. O'Sullivan would say
just the same thing in the same way to a toothless old hag of ninety).
"Mind you spare yo'rself now from both bein' an old maid and sufferin'
to the point where y' can't eat plain white bread!"
This particular Thursday I had even found some one to talk to in the
recreation room when I sneaked up at three o'clock. There came a time
when Schmitz's patience was strained over my regular disappearance
from about 3 to 3.30. There was absolutely nothing for me to do just
then in my own line, so I embraced that opportunity daily to take my
way to the recreation room and see what pickings I could gather up.
But one afternoon Schmitz's face bore an extra-heavy frown. "Say, what
you do every day that keeps you from your work all this time? Don't
you know that ain't no way to do? Don't you understand hotel work is
just like a factory? Everybody must be in his place all day and not go
wandering off!"
"Ever work in a factory?" I asked Schmitz.
He deigned no answer.
"Well, then, I'm telling _you_ I have, and hotel work ain't like a
factory at _all_."
"Vell, you see it's dis vay--naturally--"
This Thursday up in the recreation room I found an ancient scrubwoman,
patched and darned to pieces, with stringy thin hair, and the fat,
jovial Irishwoman from the help's pantry. The three of us had as giddy
a half hour as anyone in all New York. We laughed at one another's
jokes till we almost wept, and forgot all about the thermometer. The
fat Irishwoman had worked at the hotel two years, the scrubwoman
almost that long. Both "lived out." They, too, informed me I had one
of the best jobs in the hotel--nobody messin' in with what you're
doin'--they leave y'alone. The fat one had worked some time in the
linen room, but preferred pantry work. The linen room was too much
responsibility--had to count out aprons and towels and things in piles
of ten and tie them, and things like that--made a body's head swim.
Realizing Schmitz's growing discomfort, I finally had to tear myself
away. The fat Irishwoman called after me, "Good-by, dear, and God
bless y'."
Upstairs at supper that night I had the luck to land again at a
talkative table. We discussed many things--Ireland, for one. One girl
was she who had come two years ago from Ireland and did salads in the
main kitchen. Such a brogue! An Irish parlor maid had been long years
in this country. The two asked many questions of each other about
their life in the Old Country. "Shure," sighed one, "I love every
stick and every stone and tree and blade of grass in Ireland!"
"Shure," sighed the other, "an' that's just the way I feel about it,
too!"
Everyone at the table liked working at our hotel. According to them,
the hotel was nice, the girls nice, hours nice.
The subject of matrimony, as ever, came up. Not a soul at the table
but what was ag'in' it. Why should a woman get married when she can
support herself? All she'd get out of it would be a pack of kids to
clean up after, and work that never ended. Of course, the concession
was eventually made, if you were sure you were gettin' a good man--
But how many good men were there in the world? And look at the
divorces nowadays! Why try it at all? One girl reported as
statistically accurate that there was one divorce in the United States
to every four marriages. "You don't say!" was the chorus.
The subject changed to summer hotels. One woman had worked last summer
as a waitress at one of the beaches. That was the swellest job
ever--just like a vacation! All summer she had two tables only to wait
on, two persons at a table. Each table had tipped her five dollars a
week. Next summer we all must try it.
The minutes flew by too fast that supper. Before I knew it, 5.30 had
come around, and by the time I was downstairs again it was five
minutes past my appointed half hour. Poor, poor Schmitz! And yet lucky
Schmitz. It must have caused his soul much inner satisfaction to have
a real honest-to-goodness grievance to complain about. (You see, he
could not go up for his supper until I came down from mine.) Schmitz
upbraided me, patiently, with explanations. Every single night from
then on, when at five he would tell me I could go upstairs, he always
added, "And be sure you're back at half past five!" In natural
depravity of spirit, it was my delight one night to be able to sneak
down at about 5.25 without being seen by Schmitz. Then I shrank into a
corner of my compartment, out of his line of vision, and worked busily
on my evening chores. At 5.30, Schmitz began his anxious scanning of
our large clock. By 5.40 he was a wreck and the clock had nearly been
glared off its hinges. Then it was a waiter called out to me the first
evening order. With the crucified steps of a martyr, a ten-minute-hungry
martyr at that, Schmitz made his way over to fill that order. And
there I was, busily filling it myself! Of course, I hope I have made
it clear that Schmitz was the kind who would say, "I knew she was
there all along."
The rush of this particular Thursday night! More lettuce had to be
sent for in the middle of the evening, more tomatoes, more
blackberries, more cantaloupes, more bread for toast. There was no
stopping for breath. In the midst of the final scrubbings and
cleanings came an order of "One combination salad, Sweetheart!" That
done and removed and there sounded down the way, "One cantaloupe,
Honey!" Back the waiter came in a moment. "The old party says it's too
ripe." There were only two left to choose from. "Knock his slats in
if he don't like that, the old fossil." In another moment the waiter
was back again with the second half. "He says he don't want no
cantaloupe, anyhow. Says he meant an order of Philadelphia cream
cheese."
But nine o'clock came round and somehow the chores were all done and
Schmitz nodded his regal head ever so little--his sign for, "Madam,
you may take your departure," and up I flew through the almost
deserted main kitchen, up the three flights to the service floor, down
four flights to the time-clock floor (elevators weren't always handy),
to be greeted by my friend the time-clock man with his broad grin and
his, "Well, if here ain't my little bunch o' love!"
If he and Schmitz could only have gotten mixed a bit in the original
kneading....
By Saturday of that week I began my diary: "Goodness! I couldn't stand
this pace long--waiters are too affectionate." I mention such a matter
and go into some detail over their affection here and there, because
it was in no sense personal. I mean that any girl working at my job,
provided she was not too ancient and too toothless and too ignorant of
the English language, would have been treated with equal enthusiasm.
True, a good-looking Irishman did say to me one evening, "I keep
thinkin' to myself durin' the day, what is there about you that's
different. I shure like it a lot what it is, but I just can't put my
finger on it." I used as bad grammar as the next; I appeared, I
hoped, as ignorant as the next. Yet another Irishman remarked, "I
don't know who you are or where you came from or where you got your
education, but you shure have got us all on the run!" But any girl
with the least wits about her would have had them on the run. She was
the only girl these men got a chance to talk to the greater part of
the day.
But what if a girl had a couple of years of that sort of thing? Or
does she get this attention only the first couple of weeks of the
couple of years, anyhow? Does a waiter grow tired of expressing his
affection before or after the girl grows tired of hearing it? I could
not help but feel that most of it was due to the fact that perhaps
among those waiters and such girls as they knew a purely friendly
relationship was practically unknown. Sex seemed to enter in the first
ten minutes. Girls are not for friends--they're to flirt with. It was
for the girl to set the limits; the man had none.
But eight and one-half hours a day of parrying the advances of
affectionate waiters--a law should be passed limiting the cause for
such exertion to two hours a day, no overtime. Nor have I taken the
gentle reader into my confidence regarding the Spanish chef in the
main kitchen. He did the roasting. I had to pass his stove on my way
to the elevators. At which he dropped everything, wiped his hands on
his apron, and beamed from ear to ear until I got by. One day he
dashed along beside me and directed an outburst of Spanish into my
ear. When I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders and got it into
his head that I was not a countrywoman, his dismay was purely
temporary. He spoke rather flowery English. Would I walk up the stairs
with him? No, I preferred the elevator. He, did too. I made the most
of it by asking him questions too fast for him to ask me any. He was a
tailor by trade, but business had been dull for months. In despair he
had taken to roasting. Some six months he had been at our hotel. He
much preferred tailoring, and in two months he would be back at his
trade in a little shop of his own, making about fifty to seventy-five
dollars a week. And then he got in his first question.
"Are you married?"
"No."
"Could I then ask you to go out with me some evening?"--all this with
many beams and wipings of hands on his apron.
Well, I was very busy.
But one evening. Oh, just one evening--surely one evening.