“Sixteen dollars a week.”
“Ho—sixteen dollars!—and last Monday it was fourteen dollars. You're going up, yes?”
“But the work's much harder 'n I thought it 'ud be.”
“So you go from fourteen dollars to sixteen dollars and I got you here to tell you you'd get twelve dollars.”
Oh, but I was mad—just plain mad! “You let me work all week thinkin' I was gettin' fourteen dollars. It ain't fair!”
“Fair? I pay you what I can afford. Times are hard now, you know.”
I could not speak for my upset feelings. To pay me twelve dollars for the endless labor of that week when he had allowed me to think I was getting fourteen dollars! To add insult to injury, he said, “Next week I want you should work later than the other girls evenings, and make no date for next Saturday” (I had told him I was in a hurry to get off for lunch this Saturday) “because I shall want you should work Saturday afternoon.”
Such a state of affairs is indeed worth following up....
Monday morning he came around breezily—he really was a cordial, kindly soul—and said; “Well, dearie, how are you this morning?”
I went on pinning.