It was a cafeteria with the serving-counter shaped like an elongated horseshoe. A squad of men, all in spotless white, stood within the hollow of the horseshoe serving the workers as they passed along, the women on one arm of the shoe, the men on the other. On paying their score the men turned into the men’s dining-room, and the women into that reserved for women workers.
That, my first lunch, as recorded in my diary, consisted of two slices of roast beef, each as large as my hand and almost as thick, on a mound of mashed potatoes with a-plenty of brown gravy; one-eighth of a large apple pie; bread and butter, a cup of coffee with grade A milk and all the sugar I wanted—all for eighteen cents. Everything was deliciously cooked and carefully served. After the atrociously cooked and slovenly served meals of the Belgrave this factory lunch-room seemed to me nothing short of marvellous.
That night I recounted my experience to Alice, the hat-trimmer, and the little organist. They all threatened to give up their jobs and go to packing crackers. Every evening after that they never failed to ask:
“Well, what did you have for lunch to-day?”
The portions were so surprisingly generous that I often found it difficult to eat it all. It may have been that our stern course of appetite suppression had affected me. Be that as it may, there were several days when only shame prevented me from asking permission to take home with me the slice of meat I had not been able to eat. Mrs. Wilkins and Alice would have been glad to get it.
At that time meats of all sorts were so high that none of us women on the top floor thought of having it oftener than once a day. Potatoes were so expensive that Mrs. Wilkins and the organist had stopped buying them—Alice and I were rice-eaters. Milk had gone up a cent a pint, and the loaf of bread for which we were then paying eight cents was decreasing in size so rapidly that each time we bought one we wondered if we would not be forced to use a magnifying-glass to be able to see our next.
Ah me! The time came all too soon when I had to leave this job of good food and cheerful surroundings—a whole week before the date set for me to take the position left vacant by the marriage of Mary’s cousin. And I bitterly resented the circumstances that caused me to leave though it was the offer of a promotion.
“We never promote a girl until she has been here two weeks,” Jane Ward said to me late in the afternoon of my second Friday. “Your second week won’t be up until next Tuesday, but you have done so well that the manager says I may put you in charge of that machine.” She indicated a machine which at the time she spoke was bringing down hot gingersnaps from the oven on the floor above. Then she added: “It means a dollar a week raise for you, and it is a sit-down job.”
For two whole days I debated with myself the question—to accept the promotion or not to accept. Those bountiful well-cooked lunches were a real temptation. Alice and Mrs. Wilkins had remarked more than once on the change in my appearance. The scales proved that I had regained seven of the fifteen pounds lost while in Atlantic City. If Jane had not been so eager to reward me! Or if only I hadn’t been so eager to make good.
Late Sunday afternoon I posted a letter telling Jane that it would be impossible for me to return to work the following day as I was needed at home. Though untrue, that excuse represented the awakening of my sense of personal responsibility.