To these girls has come the age of self-assertion. The experience is common to adolescence of becoming intensely aware of oneself. With the new intensity of self-consciousness comes the desire to assume control. At this age the girl resents being “bossed.” It is the time when many families feel the increased friction between brothers and sisters. Interference and guidance need to be gentle. Because the girl is young she is apt to be extreme and her assertion will often be crass and ill-balanced. These are traits of the adolescent girl of all classes, but this phase among our girls is accentuated sharply by a very definite set of circumstances.
Tradition still upholds her parents’ authority. What they ask from her is their right. They are backed by the practical code of morals which, in any community, counts more than many sermons. Public opinion demands the continued subservience of both boy and girl. The precarious state of family wellbeing has instituted a rigid system of household economics; this is needed for mere preservation. It is zealously guarded by the mother, ever the most wary of anything which threatens the group. According to custom she is the spender. All wages come to her untouched; the broken envelope violates the social standard. Husband, sons, and daughters alike are supposed to come under this rule. There should be no exception until the children reach the age of eighteen or nineteen. The mother doles out spending money according to the needs and the earnings of each.
There is no pity felt by her world for the girl who must turn over her meager pay. This is a duty taken for granted. It is the least return for the years during which her parents have made sacrifice and effort for her. The feeling has reason for holding good while economic conditions remain as they are. Each item in the family income is far too important for the girl to escape her toll. She is born to a contest in which she, too, must take part. Only a lucky accident can free her from this inheritance,—accident or rebellion. The pay envelope passes through her hands, and this means the possibility of some independence. At least the choice is hers to give grudgingly or freely. With the responsibilities which come to her so much earlier than to those more sheltered, comes also this earlier power.
Every degree of willingness or resentment in assuming her share of the burden is met with in the various girls. Little wisps and snatches of talk are straws that point to the set of the wind. “Oh, sure, there’s a lot o’ girls that ‘knock down.’ You take this week in our place,—we all made good overtime. I know I got two forty-nine. Well, I guess there wasn’t a single girl but me that didn’t change her envelope, on our floor. Whatever you make is written outside in pencil, you know. That’s easy to fix—you have only to rub it out, put on whatever it usually is, and pocket the change. They think I’m a fool. But I wouldn’t lie to my mother. She has to work an’ she ain’t had things none too easy. Some girls are like that. They’re only too proud to make so much t’ take home.”
A common trick is to pretend to the mother that wages are smaller than they actually are. Katie at seventeen was getting $7.50 a week; in six months she had risen from $5.00. This was unusually good for her set of girls. But her mother believed that she earned only $6.00.
On the other hand, there is the “worrisome” type of girl who surrenders all. Her unselfishness is as extreme as the wilfulness of others. She accepts her hard surroundings, as the others rebel against them, without counting the cost, and sacrifices unsparingly her youthful right to gaiety and pleasure. Mamie Reilly’s mother watched with anxious regret the effect of premature care and responsibility on her daughter. Mamie had been working five years since, as a child of thirteen, she first insisted on getting a job. “She’s a good girl, Mame is, but y’ never seen anything like her. Every pay night reg’lar she’ll come in an’ sit down at that table. ‘Now, Ma,’ she’ll say like that, ‘what are you goin’ to do? How ever are y’ goin’ t’ make out in th’ rent?’ ‘Land sakes,’ I’ll say, ‘one w’d think this whole house was right there on your shoulders. I’ll get along somehow.’ But y’ can’t make her see into that. ‘Now, what’ll we do, how’ll you manage, Ma?’ she’ll keep askin’. She’s too worrisome—that’s what I tell her. An’ she don’t care to go out. Mebbe she’ll take a walk, but like’s not she’ll say, ‘What’s th’ use?’ Night after night she jest comes home, eats ’er supper, sits down, mebbe reads a bit, an’ then goes t’ bed.”
Through everything Mamie had done more than her share. At eighteen she was tall and awkward, quiet and shy. Almost alone among these girls, she had never learned to dance. She had none of the frills—bangs, powder, and gewgaws—the cheap frivolities which were the joy of the rest. But she had a dignity and reliability which the other girls respected. In the whirl of excitement beckoning to the girl in New York, she had led a staid, colorless life. She had never “gone out” anywhere because she had never had any clothes. The price she had given had been the very sap of her youth. Her mother said, “She is too quiet-like an’ gettin’ humdrum at her age. It ain’t right as I know.”
There is less revolt against these early exactions among the girls than among the boys. In the midst of working hours groups of young fellows may be seen any day of the week idling on the street corners. They are significant of something badly awry in the social machinery here. But the girl who refuses to work is less usual by far. Often the loafer’s sister is going each day to her job, turning her money in to the common fund, while he is a parasite who drains the meager supply. Although she probably protests, it is amazing to find how often she tolerates a scheme so unfair. One reason, perhaps, is that a stay-at-home life is too dull to tempt her into idleness there, and to spend time on the streets speedily brands her as “tough.” But the chief reason is that she is ruled by the popular conception of duty. Inheritance and custom force her to a conformity which is not required of her brother. Her protest is fainter than his.
But within the home circle she makes her revolt felt. Rarely is a girl “worrisome,” like Mamie Reilly; few girls surrender so much. The trail of her way, a way glittering with “good times and fun,” carries her often to the other extreme. She follows the lure of her desires with an imperious insistence which does not scruple to shirk the irksome claims of her home. The result is an atmosphere surcharged with wrangling and spite. The girl who as a little child may have been devoted to her father, now switches away impatiently under his scolding. He, for his part, complains bitterly that she thinks only of dancing and new clothes.
One German father whom we knew, at home with his broken ankle bound in a cast, used his crutch on his fourteen-year-old daughter. “Don’t tell me about talkin’ to girls—I know how to take care o’ them.” He brandished his weapon with ire. The home was the scene of quarrels and threats. Amelia was given the worst of reputations by her parents. She “had been a disgrace to them.” She stayed out till two in the morning, hung around halls with boys, and had been brought home by a policeman. They had tried keeping her in and putting her under the surveillance of her nine-year-old brother, but no amount of punishment would change her fundamentally. Rancor and hatred had bitten into her soul. She was a strong, tall girl, loud, unkempt, and disorderly. She was more frank than most girls, partly from recklessness. But the bitterness with which she spoke of her parents, the coldness with which she said, “They can have my money if that’s what they want,” was that of hardened maturity.