The family of the chair-maker consisted of himself, his wife, and two daughters. They were Germans, with the usual talent of that race for money-getting and money-keeping. And the man made at least a hundred per cent. on every old, rickety, worm-eaten bureau or table that, mended and varnished, left his shop. They added to their income, by letting the rooms of their house, and occasionally by taking a profitable boarder.
It was in the early part of the same autumn which found her sister Carolyn in Lisbon—and Mrs. Clifton and Catherine alone at Hardbargain, that Zuleime became a tenant of the German cabinet-maker. She occupied the back room, on the second floor; the two daughters of the family using the front room as a sleeping apartment. She had the use of the street passage door, and so reached her room without passing through the shop or any part of the house occupied by the family or their boarders. The refinement in which she had been born and bred, was not lost amid her bitter poverty. It constrained her to seek privacy of life at least. She supported herself and child, just now, by doing fine needle-work for some ladies on a transient visit to the city. But the work was precarious, and the supply might be cut off at any moment. Her expenses were small, however, and her economy wonderful. Her neat, but poorly furnished room, cost her but ten shillings a month; a bushel of meal and a pint of salt, five shillings; milk for the child, two shillings; fuel, eight shillings; washing, three shillings; candle-light, two shillings; and the attendance of a boy to bring water and cut wood, three shillings—making the sum total of her monthly expenses only one pound, fourteen shillings, or little more than six dollars. Her only food was mush or corn-cakes prepared from the meal. She could not have kept up very long under this regimen; indeed, although she knew it not, she was slowly dying of a disease as common as lingering, and as universally ignored as that of a broken heart—namely, innutrition or slow starvation. Her German hostess, kind-hearted, notwithstanding her money grasping propensities, often sent her a bowl of “noodle soup,” with a little plate of “sour-krout,” and a tumbler of schnapps, or some such combination of German luxuries. But Zuleime, who managed to exist upon coarse food, could not endure gross food, and she would turn away from such, scarcely able to conceal the sickness the very odor so appetizing to a Dutch stomach, excited in hers. Still her refusal of the viands was couched in words so gentle and grateful, as never to offend her landlady. Some of my readers may wonder why Zuleime did not do her washing, water-drawing, etc., with her own hands, and take the money paid for having those things done, and buy better food? Because, for one reason, she had not the requisite physical strength or skill—and besides, perhaps, she shrank from the exposure necessarily incurred in these labors. She had not in these two years, forgotten the delicacy and refinement in which she had been nurtured. On the contrary, everything in her appearance and manners, betrayed the gentle-woman. She had but one dress in the world—all the others had been cut up to make clothes for her little girl. Her sole gown was black bombazine, which she had worn daily for nearly two years—yet so good was its original quality, and so well had it been preserved, that it was now neither rusty nor threadbare. It was shaken out and hung up every night, and well brushed and sponged every week. This dress, with the little inside ‘kerchief of linen, was always neat and lady-like. Zuleime’s fine needle-work gave out—as she knew it would—and she found herself without employment, or funds. It was then that Bertha and Wilhelmina Erhmientraut, the daughters of her landlord, told her of a German clothier on Main street, who had advertised for a number of needle-women to make vests. Zuleime confessed her total ignorance of that branch of needle-work. But the kind German girls promised that if she would procure the work, they would give her some instructions how it should be done. Zuleime gratefully accepted their offer, and prepared to set out on her long walk by donning the little black bonnet and shawl, as neat and as well preserved as her dress had been. She could not further tax the kindness of her landlord’s family by leaving her child in their care, she had been obliged to put the little one to sleep, and lock it up in her room, only leaving her key with her landlady—“in case anything should happen” while she was gone. It was a long, weary tramp to Main street, where the clothier’s store was situated. When she entered the show-shop and made her business known, she was directed into a back room, where a man, behind a long table, was engaged in cutting out garments—and many bundles of cut out but unmade clothes, tied around with skeins of thread, lay piled up at one end. Zuleime walked up to this table. The foreman, as he appeared to be, laid down his shears and looked up, saying deferentially—
“What did you wish to look at, madam? Mr. Schneider, attend this lady.”
“You are in error. I do not wish to look at your wares. You advertised work to give out; can I have some?”
The tailor looked at her again. He saw, from her gentle manners and appearance, that she was a lady, guessed from her dress that she was a widow, and knew by her errand that she was self-dependent, unprotected; so there existed no earthly reason why a coarse-minded, craven-hearted man, who spent his whole days in smirking, cringing, deprecating and deferring to others, should not refresh his soul by a little impertinence and insolence to so safe a subject as a poor lady.
“And you ever make vests?” he asked, in a short, curt, insolent manner.
“No,” answered Zuleime, “but I sew very neatly—unusually neatly, my patrons say—and as you cut and baste the work, very little instruction would enable me to make them very nicely.”
“I shan’t trust you! I have had quite enough in my time of giving out work to people who know nothing about the business.”
It was not the words so much as the insulting manner of the man that shocked the gentle-hearted woman, and she turned and left the shop, ready to sink, not so much under disappointment, though she knew not where to turn for work or money or food—but under the deeply humiliating sense of the rudeness and vulgarity to which she was forced to expose herself in this bitter struggle through the world. She walked slowly, thoughtfully, sadly away from the shop, till the sudden thought of her child’s awakening, electrified her, and she hurried on until she reached home. She obtained her key from the landlady, in the basement, and entered the passage. It was then that she heard a very sweet, gentle voice, apparently near her room door, saying—
“Don’t cry, baby! poor baby, don’t cry! mother will come by-and-by! Dear pretty baby, don’t cry! I’ll bring you all my playthings, and a little dog, when I can get in.”