"Just let me tell you what an able-bodied corps I have in the kitchen. Old Allen, the steam woman, has a broken wrist. The cook is lame in one of her hips. One of the sink women has fits; the women say, the other is a 'poor weak thing.' One of the slide women is in that condition which some women, of the class that are here, find themselves without a lord, and always demands consideration. Another has just got up from her confinement. One of the sweeps is blind of one eye, and can't see with the other. The only able-bodied woman that I have complains that I put every hard thing upon her to do."
The Deputy laughed good humoredly at my description, and said,—
"I will see what I can do for you; but I'm sure the Master will not be willing to spare you one of his shop hands."
To get a large amount of contract work done, and show the figures that were received for it, was the Master's way of recommending himself to the Board of Directors; and it was what enabled him to keep his place.
It must be an apparent fact to the most shallow comprehension, that dollars and cents are essential to the welfare of humanity; but there are various ways of calculating their benefit.
The "almighty dollar" enlarges and increases in value, as it is contemplated, and its advantages dwelt upon. In the same ratio does an appreciation of human suffering decrease as it becomes familiar to the observation. The Master had evidently been through the mental process in both directions. The dollar had grown till it covered the whole surface of human life; the suffering had diminished till it became a mere speck in the distant view which he took of it.
"Let me have Callahan?" I proposed.
"I don't believe it would be best," and he shook his head wisely. "You would get along with her, and she would make you no trouble; but it wouldn't be a week before she would be in a broil with the other women, and I should be obliged to lock her up."
"When she was in here before, she was in the kitchen four months, without being locked up, wasn't she? She gets locked up where she is now."
He saw that I was informed upon Callahan's past history. She did a great deal of work in the shop; the Master would not be willing to spare her. He knew that to transfer her to the kitchen would be to interfere with Mrs. Hardhack's plan of breaking her temper, and she would resist her removal. His influence was not strong enough to overcome that of the two combined. He shook his head,—