I know to a cent just what I 've spent since I came, but I 'm going to put it down so I can see the figures; it will make me more cautious about spending. The car fare is more than I meant it should be, but, to save it, I walked the first three days from Eighty-sixth Street and Fourth Avenue—a bakery that advertised for a woman to sell the early morning bread in the shop; three hours of work only, at twenty cents an hour—down as far as the Washington Market where they wanted a girl to sell flowers in a sidewalk booth, for two weeks before Christmas. I found then that the soles of my boots were beginning to wear and that it saves something to ride.
Car fare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ .75
Bread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
Cheese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
1 tin pail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
6 eggs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
1 can baked beans . . . . . . . . . . . .17
2 pints soup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Tin lamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50
Cot and mattress . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.00
Room rent, two weeks in advance . . . . 3.00
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $9.51
And I have ten dollars and ninety-three cents left. I can hold the fort another two weeks on this.
Nov. 15. No work yet. I 'm going to keep a stiff upper lip and find work, or starve in doing it. This city sha'n't beat me, not if I can use my two arms and hands and legs, two eyes, one tongue and a brain! No!
Nov. 17. I scrubbed down the three flights of stairs for Mrs. T. to-day. She has the rheumatism in her wrists, and I was glad to do it for her to help pay for her loan of the pillows and for letting me heat my things on her stove. I must buy my own to-morrow. I feel ashamed to ask favors of her any longer, for I have put off the buying of it till I could get work.
Friday. Now I have just four dollars left; for I bought it to-day and set it up myself. A little second hand one with one hole on top—and no coals to put in it! I don't dare use the last four dollars, for the rent is due soon and I have to pay in advance. I suppose it's all right to secure herself, but it's hard on me.
Nov. 30. I believe I 'm hungry, and I don't remember to have been hungry before in all my life, without having enough ready to fill my stomach. But I don't dare to spend another cent till I get work. It must come, it must—
I 've lived three days on a half a pound of walnuts, half a pound of cheese and a loaf of bread—and walked my feet sore looking for a place. I know I could have had two places, but I dared not engage to the women. That woman in the Grand Central Station haunts me; these two women had a look of her! One wanted me in private manicure rooms to learn the trade; she said I had the right kind of fingers after the rough had worn off. The other wanted me to show rooms to rent in a queer looking house. Mrs. T. told me to keep away from it and all like it.
Dec. 1. I 'm not only hungry, I 'm cold too. I bought two pails of coals, and paid high for them so Mrs. T. says. They say there is going to be a coal famine from the great strike. It makes me mad that it should all pile up on me in this way! Why can't I have work? Why, when I am willing, can't I find a place?
An awful feeling comes over me sometimes, when I am turned down at a place I 've applied for: I want to throttle the first well-dressed man or woman I meet and say, "Give me work or I 'll make it the worse for you!" Then I turn all dizzy and sick after that feeling, and hate myself for the thought; it's so unjust.