STRICTLY BUSINESS
By Lincoln Steffens
“There’s an extra, a Christmas girl downstairs, that I think you’ll want to keep; she’s a worker, but——”
The big store manager looked up at the tall, prim New England woman who was the head of his employment bureau, and he understood. But he’s a brute.
“But?” he insisted.
“Her references aren’t good.”
“Not good?” he said. “You mean they ain’t good people?”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “they’re good people; they’re very good people, but——”
“But?”
“They prefer not to speak, for or against.”
“I see,” he growled. “A case for bad people. Send her up to me.”
And up came the case, another Puritan, slim, alive, afire.
“I know,” she began, “I know what you’re going to say; every word of it. I’m fired, but, first, I must hear a lecture; the same old lecture. So fire away, but cut it short.”
“Won’t you be seated?” he said politely.
“Thanks,” she mocked.
He rose, and, with a chivalrous bow, begged her to “Please be seated.”
“No,” she declared decidedly, “I’ll take it standing, so I can get out if I don’t like——”
“Sit down,” he bellowed.
She sat.
He stood glaring at her. “Think I’d let you stand there lecturing and judging me?” he growled. And he lectured and judged her. Then he, too, sat.
“How do you know what I was going to say?” he demanded.
“Because you all say the same thing,” she flashed; “everywhere I work. They tell me I’m bad, so I’m discharged, but they all give me that lecture on how to be good—out of a job.” She named places she had worked: stores where the managers and the conditions were notorious. “They gave it to me at Freeman’s,” she sneered, “and,” she jeered, “at the One Price Stores! Everywhere I get it, and not only from you bosses. I see the other girls catch on to my story, and, with looks at me, pass it on. ‘Poor Thing,’ they whisper and, then, of course, the Poor Thing is fired.”
She didn’t look like a Poor Thing. She looked like a very Brave Thing to this manager of women, but he felt, with his man’s intuition, the despair that was washing her courage away. So he was kind.
“How old is the child?” he asked brutally.
“Five.”
“Who takes care of it while you’re at work?”
“Mother.”
“And you support all three?”
“Yes, and,” she blazed, “you needn’t worry about that. You fire away. I’ll make out, somehow. Only don’t, don’t tell me I’m bad again. I know that, too. Don’t I tell it to myself every hour, every day, and, if I forget it for one little hour, doesn’t some one remind me?”
He was afraid she’d break, and he didn’t want her to; not her. “Too proud, too brave.”
“You needn’t worry about me, either,” he said. “This is a business house, strictly business. No sentiment, and no scruples. We’re here to make money, and we’re on the lookout for women who’ll work and work hard for us. We don’t mind a little thing like a little child. Fact is, a little——”
She was lifting from her chair.
“Which is it,” he asked roughly, “a boy, or——?”
“A girl,” she said, and she dropped back.
“The fact is,” he resumed, “a little girl at home makes the mother work harder in the store. And that’s the report on you. They say you’re a hard worker, so I’d like to keep you on, regular, for life.”
She lifted again.
“But——” he said.
“But,” she collapsed.
“I don’t see,” he said, “how you can work hard, regular, if you go on telling yourself that lie every hour, every day; that you’re bad.”
He got up, huffily. “How bad are you, anyway? How good you been since—during the last five years?”
“As good as I was before,” she blazed, springing to her feet.
“Um-m,” he calculated. “I’ll bet you are, and I’ll bet that’s pretty good. Good enough for us. We ain’t so awfully good ourselves. Quick sales, small profits, and satisfied customers—lots of ’em. That’s what we call good.”
She was reaching for him again, with hands, with eyes.
“But,” he struck, “you can’t do much for us and the little girl if you’re afraid every hour, every day, that you’ll be found out and fired. We got to cut out fear.”
“You mean?” she gasped.
“I mean,” he thundered, “I mean that you got to cut out that every-hour-every-day business. See? It’s rot, anyhow. You’re as good as anybody, and if anybody here says you ain’t, you come to me and I’ll tell ’em this is a women’s business, run for profit; and women; including mothers; women, children, and—money. Y’on?”
She stood there staring; comprehending, and he felt that she wanted to break, but——
“Now, now, none o’ that,” the brute commanded. “Not here. This is business, strictly business. You get back on your job. D’y’ hear?”
Yes, she nodded; she heard, and she bolted for the door, but as she opened it she turned and she broke:
“God, how I will work! How I will——”