menu_book Chapter 30

Book III, Chapter I, Sections IV-7 Of Bread For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Wild Shimmering Path Read by Charles G. Norris

Book III, Chapter I, Sections IV-7 One section of the sixth floor was Jeanette's domain. She had tried for years to have her department walled off by partitions, but the best she had been able to obtain for herself and her girls was a line of screens and bookcases. She had 24 clerks under her now, although the number fluctuated, particularly during October when the fall campaign was in progress. Then her force often swelled to over a hundred, and the extra help was quartered temporarily in neighboring vacant lofts and offices, rented for a few weeks.

She then had her lieutenants to superintend the work, which for the most part consisted merely of folding and inserting circulars in envelopes, sealing, and stamping. Her department was well organized. The work had been so systemized that it now moved with perfect smoothness. Old Sam Harris, who represented all that was left of Walt Chase's regime, supervised the

card catalogs. Miss Stenick was in charge of the girls. The inquiries were checked and answered by Mrs. Martle, while orders were entered and forwarded to the stockroom for filling by Little Miss Lacey. Jeanette devoted herself to the preparation of copy for letters, circulars, and advertisement. This was the most important part

of the work, and she believed her time and brains could not be better employed. She kept huge scrapbooks in which she pasted circulars and letters issued by other mail-order houses, and spent hours poring over them. Her desk stood on a low platform, and from this vantage point she could overlook her department as a schoolteacher surveys her schoolroom. She prided herself she could tell at a glance what any particular girl ought to be doing. If ever in

doubt, she promptly summoned Mrs. Martle to her desk and inquired. All the girls respected and admired her. They knew her to be fair-dealing and straightforward, though swift in censure when merited. She liked to have them think of her in this way and cultivated the idea. You're conscientious and you try hard, she would say in admonishing some unfortunate bungler. I want to be just to you. In conducting the affairs of this department I want to be as

lenient as I can. I strive to forget personalities and think only of my assistants, or perhaps I better say associates, as co-helpers in a big machine, each one functioning to the best of her ability at her particular piece of work. I've explained my ideas to Mr. Alistair repeatedly. I want the girls in the mail order department to be every one her own boss, to come and go as she pleases and feel responsible, not to me but to the work. I want to be a big sister to every girl

under me. I'm placed here to help, advise, and direct, not to scold. But if you fail to perform properly the work assigned you, if you're clumsy and careless and haphazard in your methods, then it is my duty to call the fact to your attention. I want to be fair to everyone. I have no favorites. The lecture might continue at some length, particularly if Miss Stenick, Mrs. Martle, or Little Miss Lacey was within earshot. For a long time this mail-order branch

of the business of which she was the head had called forth Jeanette's great pride. She had felt it was all hers, her work, but of late she had been stirred less and less. After all, what had been accomplished? For nearly ten years she had bent her energies to making this phase of the activities of the Corrie Publishing Company aboundingly successful. There no longer remained any question as to whether or not she had achieved her purpose. A year or two ago, a recalcitrant

spirit among her girls had immediately aroused in her a determination to break it. The discovery of an error at once had challenged her to trace it to its source. The questioning of her authority or trespassing upon her prerogatives had stirred her upon the instant to battle. One of the keenest pleasures of her days had been to draft laws that should govern her girls, and to see that these were enforced. She had begun to detect in herself within the last year or two an increasing

indifference to all such things. She did not care as she once had cared. She was no longer hampered or troubled by those downstairs. Her assistants and her girls gave her small occasion for supervision. The work of the department ran on well-oiled wheels. With opposition eliminated, the task of organization perfected, the maximum volume of business attained. There remained nothing to fire her spirit or brain, to stimulate fresh effort, and she was distressed by a suspicion that more

and more persistently obtruded itself upon her consciousness that perhaps she was getting old, that the indifference to what went on about her and to her work was merely a sign of approaching age. She rebelled at the idea, she put it from her vigorously, she refused to entertain it, but she was only 43. She was in the heyday of her powers. Her judgment, her mind, her capacities were never so keen as now. She was equal to far more exacting, more difficult work. Disturbed by

this fear, she decided to look about her for fresh fields of endeavor. There was no higher position in the Corrie Publishing Company open to her. More important places were all filled by members of the firm, and it was not likely that any one of them would step aside and give her a chance at his work. No, though proud of her long years of service and record with the publishing company, she decided that neither was of sufficient importance to keep her indefinitely on its

payroll until she was ready to follow in Miss Holland's footsteps. She let it be known in mail order circles that she was looking for a job. Of Walt Chase she continued to think enviously. She had heard he was now one of the big men in Sears Roebuck and Company, a fact that exasperated her, because she felt herself to be cleverer than he, more able in every respect.

He was getting 10,000, 12,000, 15,000, whatever it was, a year, and climbing the ladder of success rung after rung while she was doing the work he had left behind him at the Corrie Publishing Company in a far more efficient, economical, and profitable way, and was being paid fifty dollars a week. One day she learned of a vacancy in the American Suit and

Cloak Company, where they were looking for someone familiar with mail-order work. She wrote and applied for the position. A conference with the general manager followed. It developed he was in search of a man. A woman, it was feared, was not qualified to do the work. But the manager admitted he knew Miss Sturgis by reputation, and would be glad to make a place for her in his organization, if she was dissatisfied, where she was, and he could promise her, well, he could pay her $35 a

week. Jeanette declined, and eased her mind by writing a coldly worded letter of thanks and regret. The general manager of the American Suit and Cloak Company must have a poor opinion of her sense of values, if he expected her to resign from a position where she was the head of a department and receiving fifty dollars a week to accept an underling's place at a smaller salary. But fifty dollars a week from the Corrie Publishing Company was far below what she was worth,

Jeanette considered. It infuriated her to think that while Mr. Allister and those downstairs were glib with their commendation of her work, there was never any talk of expressing this appreciation by a raise in salary. Her first business in the mornings upon reaching her desk was to fasten a sheet of paper about each of her wrists and pin another to the front of her shirtwaist as a protection against dirt. It was almost impossible to go through half a day and keep one's linen

clean without these shields. Dust from the street filtered in through the windows. That must be kept open at the top for ventilation, and occasionally little feathery balls of soot made their appearance. Contact with office furniture always held the risk of a smudge. Jeanette had her desk and chair thoroughly wiped off by one of her girls before she reached the office in the morning, and again when she went to lunch, but in an hour or two after these protective measures,

she would begin to feel grit under the tips of her fingers and observe a fine gray layer on the surfaces of white paper. She usually arrived five or ten minutes before nine o'clock at which hour the business of the day was supposed to begin. Never late herself, she had trained her girls to be equally punctual. It was a matter of pride with her that in the mail-order department work began promptly on the stroke of the hour. There was no formality about the way it commenced.

Without sign or sound from Jeanette, the girls set about their various duties with simultaneous accord. The noise of the chatter and laughter died away, there was a general scraping of chairs on the cement floor, and the buzz of typewriters like the chirping of marsh frogs began slowly to gather volume. First, Jeanette turned her attention to her incoming basket, neatly stacked the clipped correspondence, memorandums, and communications before her, and armed with a

thick blue pencil began their disposal, marking certain letters and papers a vigorous no, or OKJS, pinning a sheet of scratchpad to others and scribbling thereon a brief direction or query. Most of the pile before her disappeared into her outgoing basket, but in an upper corner of her desk was a folder inscribed, Mr. Allister, and into this she would occasionally slip a letter or memorandum. Its contents would go to him by boy later in the day. Once in a while she carried

some important matter to him herself, but she troubled him as little as possible. She tried to keep the affairs of her department to herself. The less she attracted the attention of the directors, the less they were likely to ask for reports or feel called upon to supervise or investigate her work. She preferred to let the monthly statements of sales speak for her. By ten o'clock the incoming basket would be empty, and she could begin the preparation of copy for an advertisement,

a circular letter, or the arrangement of a leaflet setting forth the features of a new set of books. This was the work she loved best to do, knowing she was unusually good at it. There were daily evidences her copy polled that the touches she gave her advertisements were productive of sales. No one downstairs appreciated how clever she was, though there were the reports of sales to attest to her ability. She often wished there was more of this particular kind of ad writing and circular

preparing to be done, but the books of the Corrie Publishing Company sold by mail year after year very little in type. These were a standard dictionary, a home library of living literature, a set of handbooks for garden and kitchen, and then there were the dressmaking books issued in connection with the pattern department, how to sew, how to knit, how to embroider. In addition to the circularizing for these was that for subscriptions to the magazines, offered in

conjunction with some particular premium. When a special letter had to be prepared, Jeanette preferred to write it at home or come back to the office at night when she could be alone and undisturbed. There was continual interruption during the day. She rarely enjoyed five minutes of consecutive thought. One source of distraction and a great annoyance was having personally to initial every request for supplies, no matter how trifling.

This was one of Mr. Kipps's schemes. He had made it a rule that heads of departments must okay all such requisitions. a paper of pins, a pot of paste. A pad of paper could not be issued by the stock clerk to any of her girls without Jeanette's initials being affixed to the request. All day long she was interrupted by, Can I have a pencil, Miss Sturgis? Please okay my slip for some paper, Miss Sturgis.

Excuse me for interrupting you, Miss Sturgis, but I need some pen points. Mr. Kipps's idea was to prevent waste, but Jeanette frequently realized with exasperation that her time was of a great deal more value to the company than pencils, pens, or papers, and there was a far greater waste in interrupting a line of constructive thinking than in trying to conserve the supplies of the stockroom. The telephone at her desk was continually at her ear. The composing room wanted

the cut for job 648. The engraver didn't have the Ben Day she had specified. Mr. Sanders, Mr. Kipp's assistant, wished to know if she could use a five and a quarter envelope just as well as a number six. She had requisitioned 5,000 two-cent stamps, and they had not been delivered. She needed a hundred thousand more dictionary circulars, and would like Stamper and Bachelor to submit her some. M.F. laid 24 by 36 in various tints. The stencil machine was out of order, and she wanted

to borrow one from the mailing department. One thing followed another all day long. If we insert that return postal, we can't mail this attack under two-cent postage. Hello, Miss Sturgis. Say, events can only give us a half page. Will you prepare a new copy for the smaller space. They're waiting to go to press. Miss Sturgis, we're running short on how to knit. Miss Sturgis, we'll have to get in some extra girls if you want those letters signed by hand.

Miss Sturgis, do you want these mimeographed or printed? Miss Sturgis, Mr. Allister'd like to see you. Miss Sturgis, can I have some pens? At a quarter past twelve, she went to lunch. She made a point of going promptly. There was a time, some years back, when she had fallen into the habit of letting her lunch hour lapse over into the afternoon, allowing the demands upon her further and further to postpone it,

and it had been two o'clock, sometimes three, before she went out. As a result, indigestion and headaches commenced seriously to trouble her, and the doctor advised a regular hour for lunch. At twelve-fifteen, therefore, she compelled herself to drop whatever she had in hand and leave the office. One of the girls was instructed to call her attention to the time.

She always went to the Clover Tea Room for her luncheon. This was a little basement restaurant operated by two elderly sisters. It was prettily appointed with yellow lights, yellow candles, yellow embroidered table doilies, and yellow painted furniture. Jeanette had her own special table daily reserved for her. Lunch cost 65 cents and consisted generally of a small fruit cocktail, a chop, a little fish, or an individual meat pie with an accompanying dab of vegetable and a dessert.

She was accustomed to enter the tea room at 12.20 almost to the minute. A tall, fine-figured, handsome woman in her dark tailor-made, her modish hat, and fur scarf. She would proceed directly to her table, exchanging a smile and a word of greeting with the elder Miss Hanlon as she passed her desk. Unbuttoning her gloves and drawing them from her hands, she would study the handwritten menu. Minnie would presently come for her order. Morning, Miss Sturgis. What's it today?

Stew looks good. Good morning, Minnie. Well, if you say so, I'll have the stew, and don't forget to bring lemon with my tea. The tea-room would be but partially filled when Jeanette entered, but as she waited for her lunch other people began to arrive. Ah, here was Miss Hogan of Lemon and Howell, and here was that pretty Miss Thompson of Altman's. Mr. Crothers of the stationer's supply was late. No, here he was. Mrs. Diggs had that funny-looking hat on again.

This person was a stranger, and that couple busily talking were quite evidently shoppers. A gray-haired woman in the corner appeared at the tea room several times of late. Jeanette decided she must ask Miss Hanlon who she was and find out where she was employed. At quarter to one or perhaps ten minutes before the hour, Jeanette would pour a little drinking water from her tumbler over her fingertips into her empty dessert saucer, moist in her lips,

wipe them on the little yellow napkin, and draw on her gloves nicely. She always left ten cents for Minnie and paid her check at Miss Hanlon's desk on her way out. Usually, she had the better part of half an hour before it was time to return to the office. Between the tea room and the corner of the avenue, she almost invariably encountered Miss Travers, the cashier who likewise patronized the little restaurant. They would nod and smile at one another as they passed, but neither had

time to pause for words. Jeanette frequently had a small errand to perform, gloves to get at the cleaners, her shoes polished, a bit of shopping, a book to exchange at the library. When there was nothing specially pressing, she would pay a visit to a bustling Fifth Avenue store where she would make her way through crowds of jostling women and inspect counters, examining, even pricing the merchandise that attracted her. In the long years she had been an office worker, she had spent many

a luncheon hour in this fashion. She never grew tired of such visits, nor of acquainting herself with the new fads, novelties, and latest styles in feminine apparel. Just one hour after she had left it, she would be back at her desk, readjusting her paper cuffs and repinning the sheet at her breast. At once the demands upon her would recommence, Miss Sturgis, while you were out, engravers phoned and said they can't find that cut. Miss Sturgis, Mr. Kipps wants to know how

many copies of Garden and Kitchen we sold up to November 1st last. Miss Sturgis, Miss Hilliker went home sick. Miss Sturgis, will you sign my requisition for a box of clips? Miss Sturgis, can I have a pencil? Thus it would continue for the rest of the day. The afternoon light would shine bleak and garish through the fireproofed windows with their meshed wire embedded in the glass. The dust would settle on desks and paper. The thundering presses on the lower floors would

send fine vibrations through the building. Typewriters would maintain a clicking droning, a buzz of small noises would harass the ear, there would be a continual flash of paper and of white hands at the folders tables, while pervading everything would be the thick, sweet smell of ink emanating from stacks of new print matter fresh from the press room. Five o'clock always surprised Jeanette. Her work absorbed her if she threw a hasty glance at the

neat small mahogany-cased clock on her desk. It was to ascertain if there was time enough to complete one more task that day, or to begin preparations for a new one. The ringing gong that sounded quitting time invariably startled her into a blank sensation of discouragement. She would wish at that moment for another hour to finish the matter in hand, just a little longer, and she would have it out of the way. The commotion among the girls which instantly followed the gong

never failed to annoy her. In less than five minutes, save for Mrs. Martle, little Miss Lacey, Miss Stenick, and Old Man Harris, her department would be empty. These assistants remained a little later to clean up the day's work and prepare for the morrows. In another quarter of an hour, they too would begin to bang desk drawers shut and prepare to depart. Presently, Jeanette would be alone. She usually was the last to leave. It was then that a feeling of fatigue, a weariness

of soul, a distaste of life, would begin to assert themselves. Reaction from the racing events of morning and afternoon would close down upon her, and of a sudden her work, her days, her whole life would seem drab, colorless, profitless. What did it matter if a few more copies of the dictionary were sold? What difference did it make if the new attack was a success? Whether or not little Miss Lacey was inclined to be careless, or that Mr. Kipps had attempted to interfere with her again.

Of what importance was the mail-order department of the Corey Publishing Company anyway, or the concern itself? Mr. Corey had worked hard all his life, and then he had died and left it behind him. What good had it ever done him? This racketing building represented such trivial enterprise, after all. It seemed ridiculously trifling. She would get to her feet with a great sigh of apathy, disgust for her work and life, rising strong within her. Frequently,

with a sweep of an impatient hand, she would scoop the papers before her into the top drawer of her desk or thrust them back into her incoming basket. They could wait until the morrow. Tonight they bored her. She wanted to get away, to shut them out of her mind. Ah, it was all so petty. No one would thank her for working after hours. She was sick to death of it. She would adjust her hat with her usual care before the mirror in the dressing room, tucking her hair neatly beneath its brim,

don fur and gloves, and proceed to the elevator. On the way out she might encounter Mr. Kipps or Mr. Allister. Good evening, Miss Sturgis. Good evening, Mr. Allister. The street would be blue with gathering dusk and crowded with dark hurrying figures homeward bound. Lights here and there streamed from office windows, dabs of brilliant yellow in the purple scene. Motor trucks and delivery wagons backed to the curb were being piled with crates and packages by hustling,

calling men and boys. The tide of workers let loose from desk and counter set strongly in conflicting currents. Long lines of traffic filled the congested thoroughfare and waited for the signal to move forward. A dull clamor, a pulsing bass note, a sound of feet, voices, motorhorns, a banging and bawling, a thumping and hubbub, clatter and rumble throbbed persistently. There was a sense of hurry and dispatch in the air. No one had any time to waste. It was the

hour of homegoing, the end of the day's toil, the feeding time of the great army of workers. Dinner had to be prepared by the time Jeanette reached the apartment in Waverly Place. Beatrice, who was employed by a manufacturer of soaps and toilet waters a few blocks from where she lived, was usually in the kitchen when her friend arrived. Beatrice did the marketing at her lunch hour, or in going to and from her office. Mrs. Welsh, who lived downstairs,

obligingly took in packages and kept an eye on Mitzi, well qualified, however, to look after herself. The cat mysteriously disappeared during the day to present herself bright-eyed, hungry, and affectionate the instant Jeanette's or Beatrice's steps sounded in the hall. The dinners the two working women shared were usually simple. Very seldom they ate meat, eggs in any form were popular, and the evening meal, nine times out of ten, began with a canned soup served in cups.

From the Delicatessen on 6th Avenue, a variety of canned food was obtainable. Jeanette and Beatrice were particularly fond of canned chicken a la King, which had merely to be heated, seasoned, and poured over toast. Sometimes they made their dinner of soup, a can of asparagus tips, tea, and crullers. The asparagus tips made frequent appearances.

Beatrice kept in the icebox a little jar of mayonnaise, which she usually whipped together on Sundays. Macaroni salad was another prime favorite, and there were also tuna fish, creamed or made into a salad, and fish balls whenever they could be obtained. Once in a while, on a Sunday or on one of those rare occasions when company was expected, Beatrice struggled with meat and potatoes for a three-course meal. But in these ventures, she received small encouragement from Jeanette. The latter was forever proclaiming she despised to cook, and was therefore averse to betraying any interest in plans for any elaborate meal.

The odor of meat cooking in the house smelled the place up horribly, she declared. Punctiliously, however, she performed her share of the work in cleaning up after dinner. She dried the dishes, gathered the small luncheon cloth by its four corners, and gave it a quick shake out of a rear window, put away the silverware, and restored to the sideboard drawer the two fringed napkins in their red lacquer rings, rearranged the table, and pushed back the chairs against the wall.

Beatrice, meanwhile, would be busy fussing in the kitchen, washing the one or two pans she had used, the teapot and few dishes, feeding Mitzi the remnants of the can of soup and perhaps a bit of fish or a little fried liver. By half-past seven, dinner would be a thing of the past and the little home in order again. Jeanette made it a practice to spend the ensuing hour or two in the seclusion of her own room. In many ways, this was the happiest time of the day for her. She was

alone finally and could count upon being unhurried and undisturbed. First, she made her bed with care. The undersheet must be stretched tight and tucked well under the mattress. There must be no wrinkles and the covers must be folded in loosely at the bottom. She affected a baby pillow which twice a week must be slipped into a fresh embroidered case. Five minutes followed with the carpet sweeper, the room was tidied, everything put in its right place. When all was done, she would feel

free to turn her attention to herself. If there was mending, she next disposed of it. Distasteful though sewing had always been to her, she had grown dexterous with her needle. She spent fifteen minutes manicuring her nails, and an equal time brushing her hair and rubbing a tonic into her scalp. The gray was very thick over the right temple, and Beatrice had urged her to have it touched up, but Jeanette rather liked it as it was. She considered it added a distinguished touch.

There were other intimate offices she performed at this hour with great thoroughness, her vigorousness increasing as time carried her into middle age. Twice a week, sometimes oftener, she took a hot bath about nine o'clock. Great preparations were attached to this performance, and she indulged herself in perfumed bath salts, perfumed soap, and delicately scented powder. When Mietable brought home the

wash on Friday nights, Jeanette devoted half an hour to running pink satin ribbons through her chemises and brassieres. The ribbons she carefully steamed herself once a month and pressed with the electric iron in the kitchen. But those nights on which she did not bathe, when her room was in order and her toilette completed, she would don a kimono, and with hair hanging and pigtails down her back, her feet in Japanese wicker sandals, shuffle her way to the front room, with a book

under her arm, to join Beatrice for perhaps an hour's chat or reading before finally retiring. Neither she nor her companion ever went to the movies, and seldom to the theater. Saturday afternoons Jeanette spent in tours of shrewd and calculated shopping, and on Sundays she went to Cohasset Beach to spend the day with Alice and the children.