Part 17

"Well, dey had some trouble gettin' pail fur her. Everybody vas afraid fur to do it vith O'Malley after her. Still, dey vorked it somevays und nobody thought but she'd jump it und run avay; but she didn't. She tried, but O'Malley had central office men keepin' eyes on her, und she can't leaf town."

Katie and Carrie were busying themselves in the preparation of the supper, and the German seated himself beside the invalid.

"Mr. Hoffmann," she said, "I've been tryin' to think of lots of things while I've been sick, an' I'd like to know how it is that women like Miss Rose are allowed?"

He looked at her, hesitating, but her eyes were frankly curious.

"Dot's von long story," he answered in his slow tones, "un' dem as can tell it best is most all in deir houses or in deir graves, or else, in de streets."

"Then I guess I was lucky to get away."

"If you don't mind me sayin' it--yes, miss."

"But don't the girls get free when the houses are pinched?"

"No," said Hermann, as gently as he could; "dey don't get free. Ofer to de Night Court a voman has taken five s'ousand to a blace she has, und how many sink you didn't go back to de vork again? Less'n von hundret und fifty."

"I don't see how they could," said Violet.

Hermann could not see how they could do anything else, but he only shrugged his broad shoulders.

"They don't last long anyvays," he remarked.

"You mean they die soon?"

"Effery five year all de girls is new: it's as sure as life insurance."

The girl shuddered, but mastered herself.

"Don't mind that," she reassured him. "I want to know--honest. Katie and Carrie won't be bothered----"

"We can't hear a word you're sayin', darlin'," laughed Katie.

"An', honest," Violet concluded. "There's some things I think I've got to learn so's I can see it--see it _all_."

She appealed, it happened, to an authority. Hermann supplemented his Marx with facts and statistics of a later date, especially upon the point at issue, and he was only too glad to find in Violet the listener that he could never discover in Katie.

"You're righd," he said; "und the only pity is dot more people don't try to more about it learn. If dey did, maybe ve'd all open our eyes some."

And he proceeded to open Violet's eyes not a little. He told her of the hundreds of thousands of girls that are annually caught in the great net; of how five thousand new ones are every year needed to maintain Chicago's standing supply of twenty-five thousand; of how Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco--all the cities and the towns--are served proportionately, and of how, above all, from the crowded East Side of New York, there are dragged each week hundreds of children and young women no one of whom, if sold outright, brings as much as a capable horse.

"Some ve bring in," he said, "und some ve send out. Ve take from Italy, und ve send to Sous America. From all ofer the vorld ve take, und to all ofer the vorld ve send."

"You don't always blame the girls?"

"Plame dem? A girl as lived by us, she did tucking in a undervear factory. She has coffee und a roll fur preakfast, tea und a roll fur lunch, von biece of bacon und von egg fur supper effery nighd. Ten hours a day in a bad smelling room, crowded vis ozzer girls, she runs dot machine. Part de year she has no vork, because always de factory does not run, but vhen de years ends, dot machine, makin' four dousand stitches a minute, she has tucked dree miles of undervear und got paid dree hundred dollars. Do I plame such a girl if she easy comes to belief a paid veasel as makes lofe to her und says he marries her und gets her avay from a factory?"

"All of the girls don't come from such hard jobs though."

"So? Look now!"

He took from an inside pocket a fistful of soiled envelopes and shuffled them until he found one on which he had transcribed some figures.

"Yesderday afternoon to dis Astor Library I found a report vat vas made by people sent out by de State of Massachusetts. It got a kind of census from four dousand vomen in sixty different cities, all ofer. Before dey vent bad, five hundret vas garment-vorkers, und eight hundret vas rope-makers, milliners, laundry people, paper-box, cigar und cigarette makers, candy-box packers, or vorked in textile mills or shoe factories. All dem, see, vorked in de poor paid trades, und a hundret und sixteen come from department-stores, und dot's as bad as Katie'll tell you. Vorse yet de job of house-servant--sixty per cent. vas dot. Und all de rest--all de ozzer sixty-two per cent.--vere girls who hadn't had not jobs, und dey had to live und couldn't no ozzer vay earn a livin'!"

"Then you think," asked Violet, "they wouldn't go wrong if they could get decent work at decent wages?"

Hermann looked at her quickly.

"Vould you?" he asked.

She shivered and shook her head and Hermann, seeing that the heat of his zeal had led him into a personal appeal that all his normally slow instincts prompted him to avoid, hurried back to the safe ground of generalities.

"Nobody vat knows," he said, "could belief it. Nobody vat knows could belief girls'd go into such a life, or once dey got into it stay dere, because dey vanted to. Vell, vat den? Ve must find out vhy is it dey gets in und vhy dey stay. It is because all de whole luckier vorld lets dem be kep' fast, und, first und foremost, because all de whole luckier vorld lets dose factories dey come from be bad blaces, und couldn't gif dose ozzer sixty-two-per-cent girls no ozzer vay to earn a livin' yet."

Violet thought again, as she still so often thought, of Max.

"An' what about the men that start them?" she inquired.

Hermann brought his heavy fist down upon his knee.

"Dem too!" he said. "Dem is de vorst mens in de vorld. If I can hate any man, dey is him. It makes my red blood to steam und my skin to get all brickly to see dem or sink of dem. But I know dot dey, too, are results of conditions, und dey sink dot dey are doing kindness to de girls by not letting dem go to chail or starve. De vorst mens in de vorld--next to politicians as lets dem live und takes most dot dey earn! Und de politicians demselves are only vat dot big system as makes us all vork for less as ve earn, und makes us all pay more as ve can--only vat de big system makes dem!"

Violet understood but partially; yet she had seen enough to know that the slavery must have its political side, and it was concerning this that she now asked.

That Hermann made wholly clear. He told her the story of the growth of political parties, the development of political machines, the necessary preying of these machines, in every city, first upon gambling and then, as that passed, upon prostitution, and of how this meant both money and votes.

As he talked, she learned how this brought into being the "cadets"--the followers of the low heelers--who scoured their own and other towns, hanging about the doors of factories, tenements, shops--wherever the life was so hard as to drive those who lived it to despair--themselves impelled by economic conditions, by the choice between hard work and small pay on the one hand and base work and better pay on the other, and themselves forced into the "gangs" of childish marauders while at the primary schools, and so trained upward, step by step, to the "gang" of the politician. She learned how, after the last outcry, a popular leader had struck a cadet, in the presence of the press-agents, and then, when this one blow was taken as the end of the infamous relation, had quietly joined with his fellows in strengthening that relation as it never could have been strengthened with the attention of the public upon it. And she learned how the result had been a whole criminal confederacy, with its capital in the poorer quarters, bound together politically and financially, with its officers, its agents, and its regularly retained lawyers, at once to defend and to attack.

Out of his own observation, Hermann told her of the saloons that were in reality the clubs of these procurers. He sketched the methods of procuring false bail-bonds, of influencing magistrates, juries, and even judges, and of turning upon the few conscientious policemen with suits charging oppression and false arrest.

"O'Malley und dese ozzer mens like him ofer here make sometimes all of sixty dousand a year," he declared, "und de people lofe dem because dese O'Malleys take deir daughters durin' twelve mont's und gif dem coal fur four."

"An' no one person is to blame?" asked Violet in amazement.

"I vish dere vas, but dere ain't."

"So there ain't no way out of it?"

"Von vay--und only von. For de single time badness makes poverty, ninety-nine times poverty it makes badness. Do avay vith poverty. Reorganize de whole of de industrial system; gif effery man und voman a chance to vork; gif effery man und voman effery penny dey earns. So only you do avay vith poverty, so only you do avay vith unhappy und discontented homes und unhappy und discontented people, und so only you do avay vith badness."

He was in the midst of his subject when Katie served the scanty supper, and he would have had neither time nor inclination for the mere eating had not his sweetheart sternly ordered him to be silent. But, as soon as the meal was over and the few dishes washed, he continued his talk to Violet as, with the two girls ahead of her, she leaned heavily on his arm all the way to Rivington Street.

The concert was, it must be confessed, interesting chiefly to the women that had promoted it, the young people that took part in it, and the relatives of the performers, who succeeded or failed vicariously. Stiffly seated in the cleared gymnasium, a little ashamed and wholly ill at ease, the audience, drawn from the neighborhood and from among the friends of the settlement-workers, bore it, however, with commendable fortitude. They heard an amateur orchestra play "La Paloma" out of time; they heard Eva Aaronsohn read an essay on "A Day in Central Park"; they heard a promising soprano solo spoiled by fright, and a promising baritone not yet escaped from the loosening leash of boyhood. Morris Binderwitz delivered a hesitating oration upon Abraham Lincoln, as culled from his former debate regarding the great emancipator, and Luigi Malatesta, having consulted the same original sources, repeated by rote a ten-minute tribute to the military genius of George Washington. There was a duet, a piano solo--a simplified version of "O Du Mein Holder Abendstern." Everything was conscientiously applauded, nearly everything was encored and then, amid a scraping of chairs and more strains from the amateur orchestra, the ordeal came to an end.

As the crowd slowly dispersed, Carrie made her way to the side of one of the women-workers with whom she had some slight acquaintance and, after the formal catechism upon "how she was doing," made her plea for Violet. She told, of course, nothing of the girl's story, nor was anything asked. It was enough that she should say that her friend was fresh from the hospital, was in need of a position, and, though still weak, was able to do light housework.

The woman to whom this appeal was made called Marian Lennox to her side and, with a brief explanation of what the girl had just said, introduced Carrie.

"Didn't you tell me," she asked, "that you'd heard to-day of somebody that needed an extra servant?"

Marian had heard of such an opportunity. The word had not come at first hand, and the housewife was personally unknown to her. She was sure, however, that the place was entirely estimable, and she at once gladly gave the address, to which her co-laborer added, upon strength of Carrie's assurances, a recommendation.

Violet was brought over and presented, and when Marian saw the girl's wan cheeks and dull eyes, and read there the plain tokens of suffering, her own fine face shone with sympathy.

She drew Violet aside.

"Have you ever done housework before?" she asked.

"Only at home, ma'am," said Violet.

"Well, you'll like it, I'm sure. I can't see why all you girls are so foolish as to go into factories. Housework is so much more healthy and safe, and it's just what women are made for. It pays so well, too. Even if you can't cook, you can scrub and clean and help and get three dollars or more a week for it, and board, too."

"I think I'll like it," Violet assented, knowing in her heart that she would like any work that gave her a living and protection.

"Then be sure to come to see me after you're settled," said Marian.

She was now wholly immersed in the work of the settlement; but, though she had undertaken no distracting outside investigation, her indoor duties had thus far brought her into touch chiefly with children of the neighborhood, and from them, wise beyond their years as they were, she had learned only enough to feel that she had not yet come into touch with the great problems that her young heart was so eager to answer. In this first chance to give what she conceived to be practical help, it seemed to her that she was at last getting near to the heart of what she sought.

How near she had come to the heart of another problem, and how that problem was involved in the problem of her own life, she little guessed as she smiled into Violet's grateful face and, exacting another promise that the girl should report to her in any difficulty, bade her good-night.

XVIII

IN SERVICE

The house to which, next morning, Violet, still weak and still afraid of her enemies, made, with many timid inquiries, her slow way was in West Ninth Street, near Sixth Avenue. It was a four-story, grimy, brick house, with rows of prying windows through which no passer's eye could pierce, a dilapidated little yard in front of it, and a bell-handle that, when pulled, threatened to come off in Violet's fist.

The woman that answered this uncertain summons much resembled the building she inhabited. She was tall, and she had a sharp face just the color of the house-walls. The spectacles high on her beaked nose gleamed like the windows and, like the windows, conveyed the impression that they saw a great deal without permitting any outsider to look behind them. Her once formidably austere black dress was rusty, and her hands were so lean that Violet felt sure they must stretch when one shook them.

"What do you want?" asked this woman in a voice that cut like a meat-ax.

"Are you Mrs. Turner?"

"Yes. What do you want?"

"I heard you needed a girl."

"Where'd you hear it?"

"At the college-settlement in Rivington Street."

The woman's mouth tightened.

"Don't see how anyone there come to know aught o' me," she said. "Got a reference?"

Violet, beginning to tremble lest this chance should slip away from her, fumbled after the note that had been written for her, and finally found it and handed it over.

Mrs. Turner's gleaming glasses read it twice, plainly suspecting forgery. Then she calmly placed it in her skirt pocket.

"Where's your home?" she next demanded.

"In Pittsburgh."

"Hum. How much do you expect?"

"Sixteen dollars," quavered Violet, who had received instructions from Katie.

Mrs. Turner shook her head vigorously.

"Won't do," she said. "Can't pay it. Twelve's my best, and when I have a cook--I'm out of one just now--all you have to do for it is to scrub and sweep and clean the house, wash dishes, and wait on table. How long did you stay in your last place?"

Mrs. Turner gave another skeptical "Hum" as Violet answered:

"Two years."

"Will you take it at twelve dollars, or will you not?" asked the woman, sharply.

Violet had been told to descend gradually and not to accept a cent under fourteen dollars a month; but she was no haggler.

"I'll take it," she said.

"And good pay, too, considerin'," commented Mrs. Turner. "I dunno. It someways don't look reg'lar. Got your trunk over to the settlement?"

Violet explained that she had no trunk; that she had just come from the hospital and had as yet had no opportunity to replenish what had been a sadly depleted wardrobe.

"Hum!" said Mrs. Turner.

In the penetrating glare of the impenetrable spectacles she studied the white face before her.

"You wait a minute," she concluded. "Not inside. Out here on the stoop."

She came outside herself and closed and locked the door.

"I'll be back soon," she said, and Violet dumbly watched her lank, hatless form stride to Sixth Avenue and turn the corner.

True to her word, Mrs. Turner was not long gone.

"I guess it's all right," she announced, as she reopened the door to the house. "I 'phoned that woman to the settlement. She was out, but a friend answered and said the reference is _genuwine_. She described you so's I'd be sure. Looks queer of me, p'r'aps, but a person can't be too careful in this town."

The gleaming glasses seeming to search her soul for a reply, Violet said that she supposed a great deal of care was necessary.

"Try to get along without it," responded Mrs. Turner, "and you'll mighty soon find out."

That ended preliminaries, and Violet, agreeing to send for her few belongings, began work without further formality.

She discovered that Mrs. Turner was a New Englander, who conducted a boarding-house in a manner that sensibly stirred the servants' sympathies in favor of the patrons. Just now the season had greatly decreased these, but the absence of the cook--it was a chronic absence--left plenty to be done.

Violet had to rise with the sun and attend to the kitchen fire. She had to help the mistress in the preparation of every meal, and of the serving of every meal and the washing of all dishes she was left in solitary authority. She made all the beds, she emptied all the slops, she swept the floors, beat the rugs, cleaned the windows, polished the stove, and scrubbed the steps. Even in the scant hours free of actual work, she must still be within call of the door-bell and Mrs. Turner's voice: the service was continuous from dawn until ten o'clock at night.

It would have been, upon a frailer nature, a terrible tax, but, fresh though she was from the hospital, Violet, her sturdy stock standing her in excellent stead, managed so to stagger through it that her wracked nerves seemed actually to benefit by her physical exhaustion. Her lot had all the horrors of the average disregarded under-servant and yet, when she crept to her stifling attic room at night--a room ventilated by only a dwarfed skylight--she slept soundly and well.

The situation was one that could not, however, long continue. Mrs. Turner was a pious woman and as such knew that there must be what she described as "somethin' sneakin'" about any maid that could bear her ill-temper. Long experience of one servant after another leaving the house in anger, had not only innured the good lady to such losses, but had ended by really creating a sort of appetite for the kind of condolence that she secured from her neighbors when without servile aid. It was therefore with almost a desire for the worst that she endeavored to delve into Violet's past.

This course of innuendo, suggestion, and cross-questioning, pursued by day and night, through work and rest, in strength and weariness, ended one afternoon when another boarder had departed, taking three towels with him, as is the custom of departing boarders, and when, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Turner secretly felt that she could no longer afford a maid.

"Where," she asked, meeting Violet on the stairs, "is them towels as was in Mr. Urner's room?"

"I don't know," said Violet.

"Well, they was there this morning, before lunch--I seen 'em myself--and now they hain't."

Violet recalled that Mr. Urner had been to his room in the meantime and had then left forever.

"Hum," said Mrs. Turner; "but you see the soap's gone too."

For some reason ungiven, the landlady plainly thought that the theft of the soap--perhaps because of Mr. Urner's personal habits--was proof positive that Mr. Urner could not be the thief, and that Violet must be. The girl was not in love with her work, but she was immensely comforted by the shelter it gave her, and she now throbbed with terror at the thought of its loss.

"I didn't take it, Mrs. Turner," she pleaded, "honest, I didn't."

"I didn't just _say_ you did," replied the landlady; "but you can't blame me if I think things, the way you come here.--Where'd you say your home was?"

The question was hurled so suddenly, and was accompanied by such an uncommonly strong glare from the penetrating spectacles, that Violet's slow brain tottered. For the life of her, she could not think of the city that she had formerly mentioned.

"Well"--Mrs. Turner's foot beat sharply on the floor--"that ain't a hard question, is it? Where'd you say you come from?"

In desperation, the girl named the first city that her lips recalled.

"Philadelphia," she murmured, and realized at once that this was wrong and that her tormentor knew it.

"You said Pittsburgh last week, miss," clicked Mrs. Turner. She raised a knotty finger. "Now I ain't sayin' you took that soap nor yet them towels--mind you that--but I am sayin' you lied. Me and liars ain't good company: you'd better go."

The tears came to Violet's eyes. They overflowed and she broke down. In three short sentences she had confessed enough for Mrs. Turner to guess the entire truth, and had cast herself upon the woman's mercy.

But Mrs. Alberta Turner's straight bosom was no pillow for the unfortunate. Rugged as it was, it was no rock of safety. She drew her black figure to its greatest height; she called upon all her religious experience for backing, and upon all her study of the Bible for phraseology, and she launched at the girl a sermon the burden of which was that, as she would have been glad to receive into her care a woman that had erred and had repented, so she was in Christian duty bound to cast forth and utterly repudiate one that had shown herself far from repentance by seeking employment without first baring her inmost soul.

Violet, in a word, was put upon the street. She was told that she could have her few possessions when she called for them, but she was given neither the Rivington Street recommendation nor a new one.