The Woman Who Toils Part 17

The Irish stew had all disappeared, every vestige.

"But mademoiselle eats nothing--a bird's appet.i.te." And here was displayed the first hint of vulgarity we are taught to look for in the other cla.s.s.

She put her hands about my arms. "_Tiens! un bras tout de meme!_" and she looked at Maurice, the young man on my right.

"_Maurice c'est toi qui devrait t'informer des bras d'mademoiselle."_

("Maurice, it is you who should inform yourself of mademoiselle's arms.")

Maurice laughed with appreciation, as did the others. He was the sole American at table; out of courtesy for him we talked English from time to time, although he a.s.sured us he understood all we said in "the jargon."

To Maurice a master pen could do justice; none other. His _type_ is seen stealing around corners in London's Whitechapel and in the lowest quarters of New York: a lounger, indolent, usually drunk. Maurice was the type, with the qualities absent. Tall, lank, loosely hung together, made for muscular effort, he wore a dark flannel shirt, thick with grease and oil stains, redolent with tobacco, a checked waistcoat, no collar or cravat. From the collarless circle of his shirt rose his strong young neck and bullet head; his forehead was heavy and square below the heavy brows; his black eyes shone deep sunken in their caverns.

His black hair, stiff as a brush, came low on his forehead; his mouth was large and sensual, his teeth brilliant. But his hands! never to be forgotten! Scrubbed till flesh might well have parted from the bones!

clean, even if black and mutilated with toil; fingers forever darkened; stained ingrained ridges rising around the nails, hard and ink-black as leather. Maurice was Labour--its Symbol--its Epitome.

At the landlady's remark he had blushed and addressed me frankly:

"Say, I work to de 'Lights.'"

(Lights! Can such a word be expressive of the factory which has daily blackened and scarred and dulled this human instrument?)

"To the 'Lights,' and it ain't no _cinch_, I can tell you! I got to keep movin'. Every minute I'm late I get docked for wages--it's a day's work to the 'Lights.' When _she_ calls me at six--why, I don't turn over and snooze another! I just turn right out. I walk two miles to my shop--and every man in his place at 6:45! Don't you forgit it!"

He cleaned his plate of food.

"I jest keep movin' all de time."

He wiped his mouth--rose unceremoniously, put on his pot-like derby ajaunt, lit a vile cigar, slipped into a miserable old coat, and was gone, the odour of his weed blending its new smell with kitchen fumes.

He is one of the absolutely real creatures I have ever seen. Of his likeness types of crime are drawn. Maurice--blade keen-edged, hidden in its battered sheath, its ugly case--terrible yet attractive specimen of strength and endurance--Youth and Manhood in you are bound to labour as on the rack, and in the ordeal you keep (as does the ma.s.s of humanity) Silence!

Eat by this man's side, heap his plate with coa.r.s.e victuals, feel the touch of his flannel sleeve against your own flannel blouse, see his look of brotherhood as he says:

"Say, if de job dey give you is too hard, why, I guess I kin get yer in to the 'Lights'!"

These are sensations facts alone can give.

After dinner we sit all together in the parlour, the general living-room: carpet-covered sofa, big table, few chairs--that's all. We talk an hour--and on what? We discuss Bernhardt, the divine Sarah. "Good shows don't come to Lynn much; it don't pay them. You can't get more than fifty cents a seat. Now Bernhardt don't like to act for fifty-cent houses! But the theatres are crowded if ever there's a good show. We get tired of the awful poor shows to the Opera House." Maude Adams was a favourite. Rejane had been seen. Of course, the vital American interest--money--is touched upon, let me say lightly, and pa.s.sed. The packer at Rigger's, intelligent and well-informed and well-read, discoursed in good French about English and French politics and on the pleasure it would be to travel and see the world.

At nine, friendly handshaking. "Good-night. You're tired. You'll like it all right to the shops, see if you don't! You'll make money, too. The forelady must a-seen that you were ambitious. Why, to my shop when a new hand applies for a job the foreman asks: 'What does he look like?

Ambitious lookin'? Well, then--there's room."

Ambitious to make shoes! To grind out all you can above the average five dollars a week, all you may by conscientious, unflagging work during 224 hours out of a month.

Good-night to the working world! Landlady and friendly co-labourers.

"_Il ne faut pas vous gener, mademoiselle; nous sommes toute une famille_."

Upstairs in my room the excitement died quite out of me. I lay wakeful in the hard, sheetless bed. It was cold, my window-pane freezing rapidly. I could not sleep. On either side, through the thin walls of the house, I could hear my neighbours settling to repose. Maurice's room was next to mine. He whistled a short s.n.a.t.c.h of a topical song as he undressed. On the other side slept the landlady's children; opposite, the packer from Rigger's. The girls' room was downstairs. When Maurice's song had reached its close he heaved a profound sigh, and then followed silence, as slumber claimed the sole period of his existence not devoted to work. The tenement soon pa.s.sed to stillness complete.

Before six the next morning--black as night--the call: "Mau--rice!

Mau--_rice_!" rang through the hall. Summons to us all, given through him on whom the exigencies of life fell the heaviest. Maurice worked by day system--the rest of us were freed men and women by comparison.

The night before, timid and reluctant to descend the two flights of pitch dark stairs with a heavy water-pitcher in my hand, I had brought up no water! It is interesting to wonder how scrupulous we would all be if our baths were carried up and down two flights of stairs pitcher by pitcher. A little water nearly frozen was at hand for my toilet. By six I was dressed and my bed made; by 6:15 in the kitchen, dense with smoke from the frying breakfast. Through the haze the figures of my friends declared themselves. Codfish b.a.l.l.s, bread and b.u.t.ter and coffee formed the repast.

Maurice is the first to finish, standing a moment to light his pipe, his hat ac.o.c.k; then he is gone. The sisters wash at the sink, Mika combing her ma.s.s of frowzy dark hair, talking meanwhile. The sisters' toilet, summary and limited, is frankly displayed.

At my right the bride consumes five enormous fish b.a.l.l.s, as well as much bread. Her husband, a young, handsome, gentle creature, eats sparingly.

His hand is strapped up at the wrist.

"What's wrong?"

"Strained tendons. Doctor says they'd be all right if I could just hold up a little. They don't get no chance to rest."

"But why not 'hold up' awhile?" He regards me sympathetically as one who says to an equal, a fellow: "You know why!--for the same reason that you yourself will work sick or well."

"_On fait ce que l'on peut_!"

("One does one's best!")

When the young couple had left the room our landlady said:

"The little woman eats well, doesn't she! She needs no tonic! All day long she sits in my parlour and rocks--and rocks."

"She does nothing?"

Madame shrugged.

"But yes! She reads novels!"

It was half-past six when I got into the streets. The midwinter sky is slowly breaking to dawn. The whole town white with fresh snow, and still half-wedded to night, is nevertheless stirring to life.

I become, after a block or two, one of a hurrying throng of labour-bound fellows--dark forms appear from streets and avenues, going in divers directions toward their homes. Homes? Where one pa.s.ses most of one's life, is it not _Home_?

These figures to-day bend head and shoulders against the wind as it blows neck-coverings about, forces bare hands into coat pockets.

By the time the town has been traversed, railroad track crossed, and Parsons' in sight, day has nearly broken. Pink clouds float over factory roofs in a sky growing bluer, flushing to day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WINDOW SIDE OF MISS K.'s PARLOUR AT LYNN, Ma.s.s]

From now on the day is shut out for those who here and there enter the red-brick factories. An hour at noon? Of course, this magnificent hour is theirs! Time to eat, time to feed the human machine. One hour in which to stretch limbs, to pull to upright posture the bent body.

Meanwhile daylight progresses from glowing beauty to high noon, and there the acme of brilliance seems to pause, as freed humanity stares half-blinded at G.o.d's midday rest.

All the remaining hours of daylight are for the leisure world. Not till night claims Lynn shall the factory girl be free.