CHAPTER II
Domestic Service
When Marie was about fifteen years old, her mother took her away from the factories and put her into domestic service. Factory work was telling on the girl's health, and the night freedom it involved did not please her mother. The young woman for some time had felt the charms of associating with many boys and girls unchaperoned and untrammelled. She liked the streets at night better than her home.
"When I got into the street," said Marie, "I felt like a dog let loose." Of course, she hated to go into domestic service, where the evenings would no longer be all her own, but her mother was still strong enough to have her way.
"At that time," Marie wrote me, "I was a poor, awkward girl, somewhat stupid, perhaps, but who would not be at my age and in the same environment? I had received most of my education in the factories and stores down-town, which was perhaps beneficial to everybody but me. Even my mother, who in some ways was stupid and hard, noticed that this sort of education was likely to have what is called a demoralizing effect on me. So she induced a kind-hearted, philanthropic woman, Mrs. Belshow, to take me as servant girl. Mrs. Belshow was high in affairs of the Hull House Settlement Workers, and generously paid my mother one dollar and a half a week for my services.
"Mrs. Belshow had a beautiful house. At first these fine surroundings, to which I was entirely unused, made me more awkward than ever. But soon I got accustomed to the place and became very serviceable to my employer. I was lady's maid as well as general housekeeper, and my fine lady duly appreciated my work, for she never asked me to do service after half-past nine at night or before half-past five in the morning. Besides, she allowed me Sunday afternoon free, but only to go to church or Sunday School. For the honourable lady told me very kindly that she did not wish to interfere with my religion in any way whatever. This advice I accepted meekly, as I was greatly in awe of her, though I should have much preferred to spend my half holiday in my home locality and to dance there with other stupid boys and girls in Lammer's Hall, where the entrancing strains of the concertina were to be heard every Sunday afternoon. The young folks out that way were not strong on religion; or, if they were, they would receive all the soul's medicine necessary by attending church in the morning, no doubt thereby feeling more vigorous and fit for enjoying the dance afterwards.
"But I, poor stupid, had learned from my mistress that dance-halls were vile and abominable. Of course, I believed all that Mrs. Belshow told me. I had not the slightest idea that she did not know everything. Why, she belonged to Hull House, that big place in Halsted Street, which had flowers and lace curtains in all the windows, and big looking-glasses and carpets and silver things on the inside; and many beautiful ladies who wore grand silk dresses and big hats with feathers came to see my mistress nearly every day, and they all talked a great deal about the evils of dance-halls and saloons and theatres. I had always stupidly thought that those places were very nice, especially the dance-halls, because I always enjoyed myself there better than anywhere else. I had never been in a theatre, but I had often been in the saloons to rush the can for my father, and I had noticed that people seemed to enjoy themselves there. There were long green tables in the saloons on which men played pool, and there were books scattered about in which were jokes and funny pictures. And the men played cards and told stories and danced and sang and did about anything they wanted to. This seemed to me good, and I felt sure at the time that if I were a man I should like to be there, too.
"But now I learned that these were terrible places, dens of vice and crime. What vice was, I did not know, but crime meant murdering somebody or doing something else dreadful. I thought about what I heard the fine ladies say until my poor little head became quite muddled. Left to myself, I could not see anything so terrible about these places, but if these finely dressed ladies said they were terrible, why they must be so. They knew better than I did. But I wondered dreamily if all terrible places were as nice as dance-halls.
"After the novelty of the situation wore away, life became rather wearisome to me, and I sometimes wished I were again working in the old factory. I thought of the evenings, when my day's work in the factory was done and I was walking in the streets with my chums, telling them, perhaps, of the small girls who worked with me in the factory, and of the guys who waited for them on Saturday nights and took them to the show. And one of the girl's guys always used to give her a whole box of the swellest candy you ever tasted.