Across the street from Kohlberger’s candy factory a child waited, peering anxiously at every group of girls that left the building. “Lucy!” she called out suddenly. Three girls stopped and the child ran up to them crying, “Oh, Lucy, your sister Mary’s got twins!” Lucy’s shriek of delight was echoed rapturously by her companions; they caught hold of the child and besieged her with questions. Several friends stopped to hear the glad tidings. Then the little group set out up Ninth Avenue for Lucy Colletti’s home to see Mary and the new arrivals.
The noise of the elevated trains drowned their voices and the crowds held them back, but they talked happily on. After the first excitement of the news had abated a little, they turned to other matters. “Perhaps your friend will be at your house, Lucy,” said one of the girls.
Lucy’s happy look faded.
“No, he won’t.”
“But he’s there at the door every night, and he goes up the stairs with you.”
“My father’s got no use for him, so I told him .... Well, what’s the use, we ain’t allowed to do anything,” she ended sullenly.
“Why don’t you do like Jennie does, and not let them know?” asked the other.
“They’d know. They don’t ever let me out at night, not even to go to the club. It’s just sit around the house all evening. If you’ve got a husband, he’ll take you out somewhere. Mary got married when she was fifteen and after that she went out all the time. I wisht I was married!”
As they turned from Ninth Avenue west into one of the Forties a girl and a young man approached them. “There’s Angelina!” exclaimed Jennie, calling to the girl. Angelina greeted them warmly. She was thin and looked delicate, as though she had just recovered from a severe illness. In answer to the girls’ eager questions she said that she was better; that she and Nick were to be married at Christmas and go to live in the Bronx; that she’d get well fast then. She asked in turn about the girls at the factory and said that she missed them.
Angelina was sixteen. Two years before, she had gone into the candy factory. She started at $3.50 a week and after a year got $4.00, packing chocolates in the basement. It was cold there and damp, and in spite of her heavy sweater and two pairs of stockings she had contracted a severe cold which lingered on her lungs. She failed steadily until one day after a bad fit of “coughing blood” she fainted and had to be taken home. She could not go back, although her mother missed the $4.00 sadly, as her father too was out of work. But when she was able to be up and care for the baby and do her mother’s work as janitress, the latter managed to get cleaning jobs and things were easier. This last week her father had got employment. He was washing dishes in a saloon for $9.00 a week. Now it would be possible for Angelina to marry. Her friends shared in her happiness with quick responsiveness, and continued to talk of her marriage to Nick until the nearness of Lucy’s house brought them back to the first interesting topic of the evening.