“Hm!” he continued; “the women of America are the boss. Just think of it; you can’t get a woman to black your boots. That is the reason so many men get a divorce.”
He knew all about the American woman’s luxuries, and talked loudly and long of silken petticoats, lace waists, and other sartorial mysteries; for he had worked in a tailor’s shop and was acquainted with all woman’s “doings.”
“The American men are to blame!” exclaimed a man who was crowded close to me. He had returned from America some time before, and was travelling up and down the country, buying butter and eggs. He had caught a vision of the American man and his business methods in Chicago, where he had worked in a large packing-house, and in a modest way, he was applying his knowledge.
“They work like niggers,” he continued, “and let their women remain in idleness, sitting all day long in rocking-chairs, rocking, rocking”—and he imitated the motion—“and eating candy. Just think of it! They buy candy by the pound!”
Evidently he was not imitating the example of American men in the treatment of his wife who was with him, sharing the hardships of the journeys from village to village. While he was speaking, she drew their luncheon from her ample pockets: hard rye bread and Salami, a sausage as hard as the bread.
“No, indeed!” He had not taken her to America. “That’s where they spoil the women.”
His aspiration was to ultimately control the butter and egg business in his region, and future historians may record his name as a “Captain of Industry,” with those of Armour and Swift. He knew a little of every language spoken in the dual monarchy, and that, together with the fact that he spoke some English, made him a most interesting travelling companion. The greater part of the time he preached to the peasants the gospel of business. “You poor rascals,” he said; “you work in the fields from sunrise to sunset, eat bread-soup, and not much else, three times a day, and carry loads heavy enough to break your backs; while the Jews, who do the business, live in fine houses, eat the best spring geese, which you raise for them, and send their children to college. You ought to go to America and see business. Even the little boys of rich people sell newspapers and lemonade in front of their fathers’ palaces. Go into business and the Jews will have to go back to Jerusalem where they came from.”
The peasants all nodded their heads and said: “Tak ye, tak ye,” it is so, it is so; but one could see in their placid, half-stupid faces, that if they ever have the spirit which ventures, they must first go to America.
The corpulent woman who had accepted my seat knew something about the lot of her kind in America, and, having by this time recovered her breath, she very emphatically gave the butter and egg man her views on the subject.
“You say that women don’t work in America, and that they are spoiled? I just come from there; I have been there fourteen years, in McKeesport, Pa. I have kept boarders ever since I went there, and I haven’t had time to sit in a rocking-chair, and my husband never bought me any candy. It’s true, you can’t beat us women there as you can over here. Soon after we went there, my husband beat me when he was drunk. I took it as patiently as I did here, and he beat me again and I didn’t say anything; although I carried a black eye for a week. Then the young woman who takes the money at the grocery store asked me how I hurt myself. I said I didn’t hurt myself, my husband did it. Then that young girl, as thin as a rail and as meek-looking as a swallow, said: ‘You tell me the next time he hits you.’