There was a little "flap" chair turned up against each of the four counters, and at ebb-tide of custom Win looked at them wistfully.
"I suppose we're allowed to sit down for a minute when there's nothing to do?" she inquired of a plump, dull-eyed girl who was furtively polishing the nails of one hand with the ball of her other palm.
"We're legally allowed to, if that's what you mean," replied the other. "But we're not encouraged to. I wouldn't, my first day, anyways, if I was you."
"Thank you very much," said Winifred. "It's good of you to tell me things. I won't sit down, since you advise me not. But it is hard, standing up so long, especially after such a rush as we've had, isn't it?"
"Oh, if you think this is hard!" echoed the plump girl, Miss Jones. (Win noticed that the saleswomen called each other by name, though officially they were numbers.) "You ain't bin three hours yet. Wait and see how you feel to-night when ten o'clock comes."
"Ten o'clock!" gasped Win. "I thought we closed at six."
"We're supposed to shut up then, but folks won't go these busy weeks. They can't be chased out. And we have to stay hours after they have gone, putting away stock and—oh, shucks of things. Little do the swell dames care what happens to us once they're outside the doors. I guess they think we cease to exist the minute they don't need us to wait on them."
"I've always heard that rich American women took
such an interest in the working—I mean, in us, who work," Win hastily amended.
"Oh, when they're old or sick of their diamonds and their automobiles they think it'll be some spree to come and stir us guyls up to strike against our wrongs. But when we've struck it's just about their time for getting sick of us. I got caught that way once when I worked in a candy-box factory. I bet I don't again! See here, I'm kind of sorry for you if you thought the Hands was a party where they asked you to sit down and have afternoon tea. Fred Thorpe, the floorwalker in this depart, is a real good feller, and he'd be glad to give us a rest—a big difference between him and some I've knowed! But he dasn't treat us as white as he'd like. In this show every Jack and Jill is watched from above. There ain't nobody except Father himself das' call his soul his own. If a chap thinks he's safe to do some tiny thing his own way, gee! a brick falls smack on his head. That's one of Peter Rolls's little ways."