“My heart sank then, for I’d always had a place that was comfortable all my life, but it sunk deeper when I went up there. A hall bedroom, with a single bed an’ a small table, with a washbowl an’ small pitcher, one chair an’ some nails in the door for hanging things; that was all except a torn shade at the window. I looked at the bed. The two ragged comfortables were foul with long use. I thought of my nice bed down at Spring Street, my own good sheets an’ blankets an’ all, an’ I began to cry.
“‘You don’t look as if you was used to the likes of it,’ Bridget said. ‘There’s another room the same as this but betther. Why not ax for it?’
“I started down the stairs an’ came right upon Mrs. Melrose, who smiled as if she thought I had been enjoying myself.
“‘I’m perfectly willing to try an’ do your work as well as I know how,’ I said, ‘but I must have a place to myself an’ clean things in it.’
“‘Highty-tighty!’ says she. ‘What impudence is this? You’ll take what I give you and be thankful to get it. Plenty as good as you have slept in that room and never complained.’
“‘Then it’s time some one did,’ I said. ‘I don’t ask anything but decency, an’ if you can’t give it I must try elsewhere.’
“‘Then you’d better set about it at once,’ she says, an’ with that I bid her good-afternoon an’ walked out. I had another number in my pocket, an’ I went straight there; an’ this time I had sense enough to ask to see my room. It was bare enough, but clean. There were only three in the family, an’ it was a little house on Perry Street. There I stayed two years. They were strange years. The folks were set in their ways an’ they had some money. But every day of that time the lady cut off herself from the meat what she thought I ought to have, an’ ordered me to put away the rest. She allowed no dessert except on Sunday, an’ she kept cake and preserves locked in an upstairs closet. I wouldn’t have minded that. What I did mind was that from the time I entered the house till I left it there was never a word for me beyond an order, any more than if I hadn’t been a human being. She couldn’t find fault. I was born clean, an’ that house shone from top to bottom; but a dog would have got far more kindness than they gave me. At last I said I’d try a place where there were children an’ maybe they’d like me. Mrs. Smith was dumb with surprise when I told her I must leave. ‘Leave!’ she says. ‘We’re perfectly satisfied. You’re a very good girl, Almira.’ ‘It’s the first time you’ve ever told me so,’ I says, ‘an’ I think a change is best all round.’ She urged, but I was set, an’ I went from there when the month was up.
“Well, my eyes stayed bad for sewing, an’ I must keep on at housework. I’ve been in seven places in six years. I could have stayed in every one, an’ about every one I could tell you things that make it plain enough why a self-respecting girl would rather try something else. I don’t talk or think nonsense about wanting to be one of the family. I don’t. I’d much rather keep to myself. But out of these seven places there was just one in which the mistress seemed to think I was a human being with something in me the same as in her. I’ve been underfed an’ worked half to death in two of the houses. The mistress expected just so much, an’ if it failed she stormed an’ went on an’ said I was a shirk an’ good for nothing an’ all that. There was only one of them that had a decently comfortable room or that thought to give me a chance at a book or paper now an’ then. As long as I had a trade I was certain of my evenings an’ my Sundays. Now I’m never certain of anything. I’m not a shirk. I’m quick an’ smart, an’ I know I turn off work. In ten hours I earn more than I ever get. But I begin my day at six an’ in summer at five, an’ it’s never done before ten an’ sometimes later. This place I’m in now seems to have some kind of fairness about it, an’ Mrs. Henshaw said yesterday, ‘You can’t tell the comfort it is to me, Almira, to have some one in the house I can trust. I hope you will be comfortable an’ happy enough to stay with us.’ ‘I’ll stay till you tell me to go,’ I says, an’ I meant it. My little room looks like home an’ is warm and comfortable. My kitchen is bright an’ light, an’ she’s told me always to use the dining-room in the evenings for myself an’ for friends. She tries to give me fair hours. If there were more like her there’d be more willing for such work, but she’s the first one I’ve heard of that tries to be just. That’s something that women don’t know much about. When they do there’ll be better times all round.”
Here stands the record of a woman who has become invaluable to the family she serves, but whose experiences before this harbor was reached include every form of oppression and even privation. Many more of the same nature are recorded and are arranging themselves under heads, the whole forming an unexpected and formidable arraignment of household service in its present phases. This arraignment bides its time, but while it waits it might be well for the enthusiastic prescribers of household service as the easy and delightful solution of the working-woman’s problem to ask how far it would be their own choice if reduced to want, and what justice for both sides is included in their personal theory of the matter.