I agreed I was in no hurry about matrimony.
“Hurry? Na, no hurry; that's right. The h-h-hurrier you are the b-b-b-badder off you get!”
The next morning the Italian girl was late. The forelady gave her locker to some one else. Such a row! Louisa said: “I got mad, I did. I told her to go to hell. That's only w-w-w-way anybody gets anything in this world—get mad and say you go to h-h-hell. Betcha.”
A little later the forelady, when the Italian was on one of her trips after a drink, leaned over and gave me her side of the story. She is such a very nice person, our forelady—quiet, attractive, neat as a pin. Her sister addresses boxes and does clerical work of one sort or another. Two subdued old maids they are; never worked any place but right on our third floor. “Ain't like what it used to be,” she told me. “In the old days girls used to work here till they got married. We used to have parties here and, say! they was nice girls in them days. Look at 'em now! Such riffraff! New ones comin' in all the time, new ones worse each time. Riffraff, that's what they are. It sure looks nice to see a girl like you.” (What good were the earrings doing?) “We'll make it just as nice here for you as we can.” (Oh, how guilty I began to feel!)
She looked around to see if the Italian was about.
“Now you take this Eyetalian girl next to you. Gee! she's some fright. Oughtta heard her this morning. 'Spected me to keep her locker for her when she was late. How'd I know she was comin' back? I gave it to another girl. She comes tearin' at me. 'What the hell you think you're doin'?' she says to me. Now I ain't used to such talk, and I was for puttin' my hat and coat on right then and there and walkin' out. I must say I gotta stand all sorts of things in my job. It's awful what I gotta put up with. I never says nothin' to her. But any girl's a fool 'l talk to a person that way. Shows she's got nothin' up here [knocking her head] or she sure'd know better than get the forelady down on her like that. Gee! I was mad!”
Louisa returned and Miss Hibber moved on. “Some fright, that forelady,” remarked Louisa. That night Louisa departed for good.
The second day I kicked over six thousand times. It seemed a lot when you think of the hard stool. It was a toss between which was the worse, the stool or the air. This afternoon, I was sure it must be 3.30. I looked back at the clock—1.10. It had seemed like two hours of work and it was forty minutes. No ventilation whatever in that whole room—not a crack of air. Wonder if there ever was any since the place was built decades ago. Once Louisa and I became desperate and got Tony to open a window. The forelady had a fit; so did Tillie. Both claimed they'd caught cold.
Tony is the Louis of the brassworks. He is young and very lame—one leg considerably shorter than the other. It makes me miserable to see him packing heavy boxes about. He told me he must get another job or quit. Finally they did put him at a small machine press. So many maimed and halt and decrepit as they employed about the works! Numbers of the workers were past-telling old, several were very lame, one errand boy had a fearfully deformed face, one was cross-eyed. I remarked to Minnie that the boss of the works must have a mighty good heart. Minnie has been working twenty-three years and has had the bloom of admiration for her fellow-beings somewhat worn off in that time. “Hm!” grunted Minnie. “He gets 'em cheaper that way, I guess.”
The elevator man is no relation to the one at the candy factory. He is red faced and grinning, most of his teeth are gone, and he always wears a derby hat over one eye. One morning I was late. He jerked his head and thumb toward the elevator. “Come on, I'll give ya a lift up!” and when we reached our floor, though it was the men's side, “Third Avenue stop!” he called out cheerily, and grinned at the world. He had been there for years. The boss on our floor had been there for years—forty-three, to be exact. Miss Hibber would not tell how many years she had worked there, nor would Tillie. Tillie said she was born there.