My resolution was taken. I proposed to my sister to go to the market with me to buy meat and fruit for the morrow. She looked at me with blank astonishment, but without heeding it I said calmly, taking from the bureau drawer the chain of my watch, “Anna, opposite the market there is a pawnbroker. No one knows us, and by giving a fictitious name we can get money without thanking any one for it.” She was satisfied, and taking a little basket, we went on our errand. I asked six dollars of the pawnbroker under the name of Müller, and received the money, after which we made our purchases and went home in quite good spirits.
On Monday morning, the knitters brought home their work. I paid them, and gave them enough for another day, after which I set about finishing each piece, completing the task about two in the afternoon. This done, I carried the articles to Broadway, and leaving a sample in a number of stores, received orders from them for several dozens. Here, I have to remark that not being able to speak English, I conducted my business at the different stores either in German or in French, as I easily found some employees who could speak one of these languages.
I then went to the worsted store in John Street, where I also obtained orders for the manufactured articles together with ten dollars’ worth of worsted on credit, having first given my name and residence to the bookkeeper, with the names of the stores from which I had received orders.
In the evening when my sister came home, I was, therefore, safely launched into a manufacturing business. The news cheered her greatly, but she could not be induced to quit her sewing. The new business had sprung up so rapidly and pleasantly that she could not trust in the reality of its existence.
CHAPTER XI
Social relations largely limited to learning the lives of her employees and helping them by work, by sympathy and by friendliness, and sometimes by taking them into her house to tide over an emergency. (Twenty-four years of age: 1853.)
I must tell you here something of the social life that we led. We had brought a number of friendly letters with us from our acquaintances in Berlin to their friends and relatives in America; all of which upon our arrival we sent by post, with the exception of two—the one sent by a neighbor to his son, Albert C., the other to a young artist, both of whom called for their letters.
About four weeks after we were settled in New York, we received a call from some young men whose sisters had been schoolmates of my sisters in Berlin, who came to inquire of us where to find Mr. C. We could give them no information, as we had not seen him since he called for his letter; neither did we now see anything of the G.’s. But the acquaintance thus formed with these young men was continued, and our solitude was now and then enlivened by an hour’s call from them. Soon after I had commenced my new business, they came one day in company with Mr. C., whom they had met accidentally in the street, and, on his expressing a wish to see us, had taken the liberty to bring him to our house.
My business continued to prosper, and by constantly offering none but the best quality of goods for sale, in a very short time I had so much to do that my whole time in the day was occupied with out-door business, and I was forced to sit up at night with my sister to prepare work for the knitters.
At one time, we had thirty girls constantly in our employ, and in this way I became acquainted with many of those unfortunates who had been misled and ruined on their arrival by persons pretending friendship. Two of these in particular interested me greatly.