34 Trials of a job hunter
Came now the long, dreary days I would rather forget. Days measured in aimless, endless tramping, through sleet and snow, frigid winds, and sub-zero weather. Each morning forcing myself to believe that to-day the miracle would happen. To-day, all prayers would be answered. To-day, I should find a job. An old, old experience, to which every one is thoroughly indifferent, except the wretched novice in the economic scramble.
Not a pleasant, or particularly elevating experience, yet to be highly recommended as initial training for the righteous snobs who play at redeeming mankind. It instils lasting pity for the slattern and the beer-bibber. It so quickly reduces all high-flown necessities to the common denominator of shoes and soup. It bares the bleak bones of mutual dependence as nothing else can. For the painful side of this begging is not its direct effect upon yourself. It is the coming back to those who wait upon your success or failure. I came to loath the last block home. It was torture to sit down to supper, where I felt a burden, and thought all eyes condemned me.
Down to the last quarter, I pocketed pride, and bolted to the Employment Bureau. Yes, there was a job I might try. Mrs. H. on Third Street East wanted a second girl. The wage was small, but the work easy. The house was one of those three-story, brownstone buildings popular in those days. It seemed a prison. I thought I should never muster up the courage to approach the dark door.
A small, sharp-featured woman in black answered the bell, eyed me coldly, and told me to go up a flight of stairs, turn right at the second chamber. Mrs H. was not very well, and was still in bed.
Mrs. H. was not the least terrifying. From her mount of pillows and eiderdown she smiled genially, and her voice had the soft, unmistakable slur of the south. She had no objection to my inexperience, which I freely admitted. The work was not the least difficult. I was to notify Hattie—the prim woman in black—that I was hired. Hattie would make a place for me in her room, and explain my duties thoroughly.
No doubt a sensible, pious soul should have rejoiced, grateful in every hair that board and bed was forthcoming. On the contrary, I could have howled with misery. To my jaundiced thinking, this was the end of everything. Laura J. was right—high-flown thinking got you just exactly nothing.
For girls like us the dice were loaded from the start. The ensign of the mop and the dustbin hung over our cradles. No wonder thousands of us married any old fool! Bed and board! Was that the answer? Was that all of life? Was there no room in this iron world for the quickened sensibilities? For the white fire that raced along the edges of the mind at the beautiful, swift soaring of a bird? No meaning to the strange, insistent yearning for a deeper fulfilment of purposes? Just to eat and sleep, propagate your misery, and die!
By the time I scaled the hill to my uncle’s house I was in a pretty dither. Mamma, seemingly, understood what ailed me, and applied the pertinent remedy. She did not, as papa might have done, launch into a moving lamentation about the mischief of poverty; the necessity to support with the courage the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Somewhat grimly, she watched me dourly packing my few belongings, then she said:
‘There is one thing left. One precious thing. Keep yourself to yourself. To those people, you are nothing but the means to get things done. Do it well—but keep yourself to yourself.’
At any rate, now I should see how the folk on the right side of town moved and had their being. That was something by way of interest and compensation. As a matter of fact, there were many compensations. Mrs. H. was an easy-going individual, seldom fault-finding, and never unjustly. Following mamma’s advice, I effaced myself so much as possible, and followed Hattie’ s instructions to the best of my ability. Fortunately, I never found it hard to employ my hands, no matter where my thought wandered. There was plenty to do, with three floors to keep clean. Seven bedrooms, carpeted to the baseboard in the good, Victorian style, all to be swept with a broom, the vacuum-cleaner being yet unborn. Two master bedrooms, with lounges attached, filled with a clutter of heavy furniture, heavy drapes, stuffed cushions, and dust-collecting knick-knacks.
Only two floors had bathrooms, which meant that water must be lugged to the top floor. I had charge of the linen, and must remember that some of the family abhorred soft towels, and others swooned at the sight of anything harsh. One of the rooms was occupied by a friend of the family, a member of a law firm and son of a senator then at Washington; a very dainty gentleman, whose bed must be made with extreme care.
His stomach was as pernickety as his hide, and Hattie had always to concoct especially mild dishes for his sustenance. It used to amuse me that this six-foot American masterpiece suffered insomnia from a wrinkle in the sheets, and indigestion from a whisp of steak. I hasten to add that, on high occasions, when the social obligations so demanded, the gentleman laid down his comfort for the sake of his country, and ate anything from oysters to nuts.
Hattie was not given to conversation. For several days she scarcely spoke, except to direct the work, and heaven help me if I failed to understand, for nothing short of the Archangel Gabriel could have induced her to repeat herself. Even that first awful night, when I crept upstairs, too miserable to sleep, she calmly said her prayers to the whisper of her rosary, climbed into bed, and, without a word, turned out the light, leaving me to my moping by the window.
Oh well, there were the stars. Bright and clear, and far removed from human flurries. If I cried myself to sleep, there was no one to see; no one to hear; which was just as well. Neither Hattie nor any one else could have comforted that young creature by the window. Nor did she herself understand the exact source of her exaggerated misery, or why she was suddenly more afraid of losing touch with the stars than of anything tangible and real.
