"Well, she's satisfied, ain't she?" says I.
"That's the worst of it," says Sadie. "She seems to live for her work. Goodness knows how early she's up and at it in the morning, and at night I have to drive her out of the sewing room!"
"And you kick at that?" says I. "Huh! Why, on lower Fifth-ave. they capitalize such habits and make 'em pay for fifteen-story buildin's. Strikes me this Lindy of yours is perfectly good sweatshop material. You don't know a good thing when you see it, Sadie."
"There, there, Shorty!" says she. "Don't try to be comic about it. There's nothing in the least funny about Lindy."
She was dead right too; and all I meant by my feeble little cracks was that a chronic case of acute industry was too rare a disease for me to diagnose offhand. Honest, it almost gave me the fidgets, havin' Lindy around the house. Say, she had the busy bee lookin' like a corner loafer with his hands in his pockets!
About once a month we had Lindy with us, for three or four days at a stretch, and durin' that time she'd be gallopin' through all kinds of work, from darnin' my socks or rippin' up an old skirt, to embroiderin' the fam'ly monogram on the comp'ny tablecloths; all for a dollar'n a half per, which I understand is under union rates. Course, Sadie always insists on throwin' in something for overtime; but winnin' the extra didn't seem to be Lindy's main object. She just wanted to keep goin', and if the work campaign wa'n't all planned out for her to cut loose on the minute she arrived, she'd most have a fit. Even insisted on havin' her meals served on the sewin' table, so she wouldn't lose any time. Sounds too good to be true, don't it? But remember this ain't a class I'm describin': it's just Lindy.
And of all the dried-up little old maids I ever see, Lindy was the queerest specimen. Seems she was well enough posted on the styles, and kept the run of whether sleeves was bein' worn full or tight, down over the knuckles or above the elbow, and all that; but her own costume was always the same,—a dingy brown dress that fits her like she'd cut it out in the dark and had put it together with her eyes shut,—a faded old brown coat with funny sleeves that had little humps over the shoulders, and a dusty black straw lid of no partic'lar shape, that sported a bunch of the saddest lookin' violets ever rescued from the ashheap.
Then she had such a weird way of glidin' around silent, and of shrinkin' into corners, and flattenin' herself against the wall whenever she met anyone. Meek and lowly? Say, every motion she made seemed to be sort of a dumb apology for existin' at all! And if she had to go through a room where I was, or pass me in the hall, she'd sort of duck her head, hold one hand over her mouth, and scuttle along like a mouse beatin' it for his hole.
You needn't think I'm pilin' on the agony, either. I couldn't exaggerate Lindy if I tried. And if you imagine it's cheerin' to have a human being as humble as all that around, you're mistaken. Kind of made me feel as if I was a slave driver crackin' the whip.
And there wa'n't any special reason that I could see for her actin' that way. Outside of her clothes, she wa'n't such a freak. That is, she wa'n't deformed, or anything like that. She wa'n't even wrinkled or gray haired; though how she kept from growin' that way I couldn't figure out. I put it down that her lonesome, old maid existence must have struck in and paralyzed her soul.