Those chocolates appeared in a store window in Watertown, and that's enough. Not for their moonlit souls the clang of the men building a new dipper and roller in our room—the bang of the blows of metal on metal as they pierce your soul along about 5 of a weary afternoon. Lena's giggles and Ida's “Lee-na, stop your talk and go to work!... Louie, stop your whistlin'!... My Gawd! girls, don' you know no better n' to put two kinds in the same box? ... Hey, Lena, this yere Eyetalian wants somethin'; come here and find out what's ailin' her.... Fannie, ain't there no more plantations?... Who left that door open?... Louie, for Gawd's sake how long you gonna take with that truck?... Lena, stop your talkin' and go to work....”
And 'round here, there, and every place, “My Gawd! my feet are like ice!” “Say, len' me some of yo'r cardboards—hey?” “You Pearl White [black as night], got the tops down there?” “Hey, Ida, the Hungarian girl wants somethin'. I can't understand her....”
Those two sit on the sofa. The moon shines on the nightingale singing in the sycamore tree. Nor do they ever glimpse a vision of little Italian Pauline's swift fingers dancing over the boxes, nor do they ever guess of wan Louisa's sobs.
II
286 On Brass
Sweetness and Light.
So now appears the candy factory in retrospect.
Shall we stumble upon a job yet that will make brass seem as a haven of refuge? Allah forbid!
After all, factory work, more than anything so far, has brought out the fact that life from beginning to end is a matter of comparisons. The factory girl, from my short experience, is not fussing over what her job looks like compared to tea at the Biltmore. She is comparing it with the last job or with home. And it is either slightly better or slightly worse than the last job or home. Any way round, nothing to get excited over. An outsider, soul-filled college graduate with a mission, investigates a factory and calls aloud to Heaven: “Can such things be? Why do women stay in such a place?”
The factory girl, if she heard those anguished cries, would as like as not shrug her shoulders and remark: “Ugh! she sh'u'dda seen ——'s factory where I worked a year ago.” Or, “Gawd! what does she think a person's goin' to do—sit home all day and scrub the kitchen?”