The Woman Who Toils Part 15

A preamble at the office, where they suggested taking me in as office help:

"But I am green; I can't do office work."

Then Mr. Preston himself, working-director in drilling-coat, sat before me in his private office. I told him: "I want work badly--"

He had nothing--was, indeed, turning away hands; my evident disappointment had apparently impressed a man who was in the habit of refusing applicants for work.

"Look here"--he mitigated his refusal--"come to-morrow at nine. I'm getting in a whole bale of cloth for cutting linings."

"You'll give me a chance, then?"

"Yes, I will!"

It was then proven that I could not starve in Lynn, nor wander houseless.

With these evidences of success, pride stirred. I determined before nightfall to be at work in a Lynn shoe-shop. It was now noon, streets filled with files and lines of freed operatives. Into a restaurant I wandered with part of the throng, and, with excitement and ambition for sauce, ate a good meal.

Factories had received back their workers when I applied anew. This time the largest building, one of the most important shops in Lynn, was my goal. At the door of Parsons' was a sign reading:

"_Wanted, Vampers_."

A vamper I was not, but if any help was wanted there was hope. My demand for work was greeted at the office this time with--"Any signs out?"

"Yes."

(What they were I didn't deem it needful to say!) The stenographer nodded: "Go upstairs, then; ask the forelady on the fifth floor."

Through the big building and the s.h.i.+pping-room, where cases of shoes were were being crated for the market, I went, at length really within a factory's walls. From the first to the fifth floor I went in an elevator--a freight elevator; there are no others, of course. This lift was a terrifying affair; it shook and rattled in its shaft, shook and rattled in pitch darkness as it rose between "safety doors"--continuations of the building's floors. These doors open to receive the ascending elevator, then slowly close, in order that the shaft may be covered and the operatives in no danger of stepping inadvertently to sudden death.

I reached the fifth floor and entered into pandemonium. The workroom was in full working swing. At least five hundred machines were in operation and the noise was startling and deafening.

I made my way to a high desk where a woman stood writing. I knew her for the forelady by her "air"; nothing else distinguished her from the employees. No one looked up as I entered. I was nowhere a figure to attract attention; evidently nothing in my voice or manner or aspect aroused supposition that I was not of the cla.s.s I simulated.

Now, into my tone, as I spoke to the forelady bending over her account book, I put all the force I knew. I determined she should give me something to do! Work was everywhere: some of it should fall to my hand.

"Say, I've got to work. Give me anything, anything; I'm green."

She didn't even look at me, but called--shrieked, rather--above the machine din to her colleagues:

"Got anything for a green hand?"

The person addressed gave me one glance, the sole and only look I got from any one in authority in Parsons'.

"Ever worked in a shoe-shop before?"

"No, ma'am."

"I'll have you learned _pressin'_; we need a _presser_. Go take your things off, then get right down over there."

I tore off my outside garment in the cloak-room, jammed full of hats and coats. I was obliged to stack my belongings in a pile on the dirty floor.

Now hatless, s.h.i.+rt-waisted, I was ready to labour amongst the two hundred bond-women around me. Excitement quite new ran through me as I went to the long table indicated and took my seat. My object was gained.

I had been in Lynn two hours and a half and was a working-woman.

On my left the seat was vacant; on my right Maggie McGowan smiled at me, although, poor thing, she had small cause to welcome the green hand who demanded her time and patience. She was to "learn me pressin'," and she did.

Before me was a board, black with stains of leather, an awl, a hammer, a pot of foulest-smelling glue, and a package of piece-work, ticketed. The branch of the trade I learned at Parsons' was as follows:

Before me was outspread a pile of bits of leather foxings, back straps, vamps, etc. Dipping my brush in the glue, I gummed all the extreme outer edges. When the "case" had been gummed, the first bits were dry, then the fingers turned down the gummed edges of the leather into fine little seams; these seams are then plaited with the awl and the ruffled hem flattened with the hammer--this is "pressing." The case goes from presser to the seaming machine.

The instruments turn in my awkward fingers. I spread glue where it should not be: edges designated for its reception remain innocent. All this means double work later. "_Twict the work_!" my teacher remarks.

Little by little, however, the simplicity of the manual action, the uniformity, the mechanical movement declare themselves. I glance from time to time at my expert neighbours, compare our work; in an hour I have mastered the method--skill and rapidity can be mine only after many days; but I worked alone, unaided.

As raw edges, at first defying my clumsiness, fell to fascinating rounds, as the awl creased the leather into the fluting folds, as the hammer mashed the gummed seam down, I enjoyed the process; it was kindergarten and feminine toil combined, not too hard; but it was only the beginning!

Meanwhile my teacher, patient-faced, lightning-fingered, sat close to me, reeking perspiration, tired with the ordeal of instructing a greenhorn. With no sign of exhausted patience, however, she gummed my vamps with the ill-smelling glue.

"This glue makes lots of girls sick! In the other shops where I worked they just got sick, one by one, and quit. I stuck it out. The forelady said to me when I left: 'My! I never thought anybody could stand it's long's you have.'"

I asked, "What would you rather do than this?"

She didn't seem to know.

"I don't do this for fun, though! Nor do you--I bet you!"

(I didn't--but not quite for her reason.)

As I had yet my room to make sure of, I decided to leave early. I told Maggie McGowan I was going home.

"Tired already?" There was still an hour to dark.

As I explained to her my reasons she looked at my amateur accomplishment spread on the board before us. I had only pressed a case of shoes--three dozen pairs.

"I guess I'll have to put it on my card," she soliloquized, "'cause I learned you."

"Do--do----"

"It's only about seven cents, anyway."

"Three hours' work and that's all I've made?"[2]

[Footnote 2: An expert presser can do as many as 400 shoes a day.

This is rare and maximum.]

She regarded me curiously, to see how the amount tallied with my hope of gain and wealth.

"Yet you tell me I'm not stupid. How long have you been at it?"