“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, motor horns, 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 home-going, the end of the day’s toil, the feeding time of the great army of workers.
§ 7
Dinner had still to be prepared by the time Jeannette 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. Welch, 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 Jeannette’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 Sixth Avenue a variety of canned food was obtainable. Jeannette and Beatrice were particularly fond of canned chicken á 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 ice-box 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 Jeannette. The latter was forever proclaiming she “despised” to cook and was therefore averse to betraying any interest in plans for an 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 tea-pot 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.
Jeannette 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 Jeannette 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 Mehitable brought home the “wash” on Friday nights, Jeannette devoted half-an-hour to running pink satin ribbons through her chemises and brassières. 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 kimona, and, with hair hanging in pig-tails 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 theatre. Saturday afternoons Jeannette 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.