There was a good floor at Silver's and a brass band to dance to. It was great! The girls never lacked partners, and they made some very agreeable acquaintances.
In the dressing room, between dances, all the girls exchanged conversation, views on fashions, confidences about the young men and other gossip. Some of the girls were nice and some, it must be admitted, were "tough." What was the difference? The tough girls, with their daring humor, their cigarettes, their easy manners, and their amazingly smart clothes, furnished a sort of spice to the affair.
Sadie and Rosie sometimes discussed the tough girls, and the conversation nearly always ended with one remarking: "Well, if they don't get anything else out of livin', look at the clothes they put on their backs."
Perhaps you can understand that longing for pretty gowns, perhaps you can even sympathize with it. Of course, if you have a number of other resources, you can keep the dress hunger in its proper place. But if you have nothing in your existence but a machine—at which you toil for others' benefit—
Sadie and Rosie continued to spend their Saturday evenings and their Sunday evenings at Silver's Casino. At first they went home together promptly at midnight. After midnight these casino dance halls change their character. Often professional "pace makers" are introduced, men and women of the lowest class, who are paid to inspire the other dancers to lewd conduct. These wretched people are immodestly clothed, and they perform immodest or very tough dances. They are usually known as "Twisters," a descriptive title. When they make their appearance the self-respecting dancers go home, and a much looser element comes in. The pace becomes a rapid one. Manners are free, talk is coarse, laughter is incessant. The bar does a lively business. The dancing and the revels go on until daylight.
The first time Sadie and Rosie allowed themselves to be persuaded to stay at Silver's after midnight they were rather horrified by the abandoned character of the dancing, the reckless drinking, and the fighting which resulted in several men being thrown out. The second time they were not quite so horrified, but they decided not to stay so late another time. Then came a great social event, the annual "mask and shadow dance" of a local political organization. Sadie and Rosie attended.
A "mask and shadow dance" is as important a function to girls of Sadie's and Rosie's class as a cotillion is to girls of your class. Such affairs are possible only in large dance halls, and to do them impressively costs the proprietor some money. The guests rent costumes and masks and appear in very gala fashion indeed. They dance in the rays of all kinds of colored lights thrown upon them from upper galleries. During part of a waltz the dancers are bathed in rose-colored lights, which change suddenly to purple, a blue, or a green. Some very weird effects are made, the lights being so manipulated that the dancers' shadows are thrown, greatly magnified, on walls and floor. At intervals a rain of bright-colored confetti pours down from above. The scene becomes bacchanalian. Color, light, music, confetti, the dance, together combine to produce an intense and voluptuous intoxication which the revelers deepen with drink.
The events of the latter part of that night were very vague in Sadie's memory when she awoke late the next morning. She remembered that she had tolerated familiarities which had been foreign to her experience heretofore, and that she had been led home by some friendly soul, at daylight, almost helpless from liquor.
Frightened, haunted by half-ashamed memories of that dance, Sadie spoiled a good bit of her work on Monday morning. The forewoman descended on her with a torrent of coarse abuse, whereupon Sadie rose suddenly from her machine, and in a burst of hysterical profanity and tears rushed out of the factory, vowing never to return. There was only one course, she decided, for her to take, and she took it.
"Sadie, why did you do it?" wailed Rosie the next time they met.