I have related this incident as an illustration of the hazards to which needle-women are exposed when dealing with the more unprincipled employers. I will not say that tragedies of this character are of frequent occurrence,—or that the provocation to them has not been too often given. There have no doubt been frequent instances of employers being defrauded by sewing-women who have dishonestly failed to return the work taken out, even giving to them a fictitious name and residence. In such cases, an effort to obtain redress by public exposure, the only apparent remedy, might seem excusable. But though the fraud is vexatious, yet, as the utmost that a sewing-girl could steal would be of small value, the resort to newspaper exposure seems to be a very harsh mode of obtaining restitution. It appears to me that vengeance, more than restitution, is the object of him who hastily adopts it. It may lead to sad and even fatal mistakes,—fatal to life itself, as well as to the purest reputation, the only capital which too many sewing-women possess.
My weekly earnings with the needle, while a girl, never reached a sum more than enough to board and clothe me. But I felt proud of being able to accomplish even what I did. When any little sum for recreation was wanted, it was cheerfully handed out to me, but our recreations were rare and cheap, for we selected those which were moderate and homely. My father taught me to work in the garden; and there I spent many odd hours in hoeing among the vegetables and flowers, clearing the beds of weeds, and raking the ground smooth and even. This employment was beneficial to health and appetite, and afforded an excellent opportunity for reflection. He taught me all the botanical names that he had picked up from the gentlemen for whom he worked, having acquired an amusing fondness for remembering and repeating them. I learned them all, because he desired me to do so, and because I saw it gratified him for me to take an interest in such things. I do not think this kind of knowledge did him much good; for he was unable to give reasons when I inquired for them.
But for the use of these sonorous designations for common things was a sort of conversational hobby with him. I cannot say that he was unduly proud of the little draughts of learning he had thus taken at the neighboring fountains, but rather that it became a sort of passion with him, yet regulated by a sincere desire to impart to his children all the knowledge he had himself acquired. There was great merriment among us when he first began to use some of these hard botanical names. He did so with the utmost gravity of countenance, which only increased our amusement. I remember one summer evening he told Fred, on leaving the supper-table, to go out and pull up a Phytolacca that was going to seed just over the garden-fence. Fred stopped in amazement at hearing so strange a word; and I confess that it bewildered even me. Then followed the very explanation which father had intended to give. He told us it was a poke-bush.
"Oh," said Fred, with a broad laugh, "is that all?"
But the word was forthwith written down, so as to impress it on our memories, and none of us have yet forgotten it. It was singular, moreover, how the imitative faculty gained strength among us. We children acquired the habit of speaking of all our garden-plants by such outlandish names as father then taught us,—not seriously, of course, but as a capital piece of fun. We knew no more of relations and affinities than he, and so used these names much as parrots repeat the chance phrases they sometimes learn; still, the faint glimmerings of knowledge thus early shed upon our minds came back to us in after life, and, explained and illustrated by study and observation, now serve as positive lights to the understanding.
I thus learned a great deal by working in the garden, and at the same time became extremely fond of it, taking the utmost delight in planting the seeds and watching the growth of even a cabbage-head, as well as in keeping the ground clear of interloping weeds. I even learned to combine the useful with the beautiful, which some have declared to be the highest phase of art. Fred did all the digging, and in dry times was very ready to water whatever might be suffering from drought.
My mother encouraged these labors as aids to health. The time they occupied could be spared from the needle, as the garden required attention but a few months, and only occasionally even then, while the needle could be employed the whole year round. Besides, the family earnings were not all absorbed by our weekly expenses. We had no rent to pay, and there was nothing laid out in improvements. Hence a small portion of father's earnings was carefully laid by every week,—not enough to make us rich, but still sufficient to prevent us, if continued, from ever becoming poor.
While thus industriously working with the needle, we began to feel the effect on female labor which the introduction of sewing-machines had occasioned. The prices given by the tailors were not only becoming less and less, but our employers were continually more exacting as to the quality of the work, and evidently more independent of us. In very busy seasons, when they really needed all the clothing we could make up, they were courteous enough, because they were then unable to do without us. But the introduction of sewing-machines seemed to revolutionize their behavior. As every movement of the machine was exactly like every other, so there was an astonishing uniformity in the work it performed; and if it made the first stitch neatly, all the succeeding ones must be equally neat. Hence the beautiful regularity of the work it turned out. It looked nicer than any we could do by hand, though in reality not more substantial. Its amazing rapidity of execution was another element of superiority, against which, it was believed, no sewing-woman could successfully contend.
Heretofore, I had noticed that our employers had, on numerous occasions, set up the most frivolous pretexts for reducing our wages. In all my experience they never once advanced them, even when crowding us so hard as to compel us to sew half the night. The standing cry was that we must work for less, but there was never a lisp of giving us more. At one time the reason was—for reasons were plenty enough—that the merchant had advanced the prices of his cloths; at another, that a new tariff had enhanced the cost of goods; at another, that the men in their employ had struck for higher wages. Generally, the reason alleged for the new imposition on us was foolish and unsatisfactory, and to most women, who knew so little of merchandise and tariffs, quite incomprehensible. The whole drift was, that, as others laid it on the tailors, the latter must lay it on the sewing-women. But all the reasons thus set before us I turned over in my mind, and thought a great deal about. I never had the uncomplaining timidity of my mother, when dealing with these men,—and so, on more than one occasion, was bold enough to speak out for our rights. It struck me, from the various pretexts set up for cutting down our scanty wages, that they were untrue, and had been trumped up for the sole purpose of cheapening our work. Some of them were so transparently false that I wondered how any one could have the impudence to present them. Those who did so must have considered a sewing-woman as either too dull to detect the fallacy, or too timid to expose and resent it.
We had on one occasion just begun sewing for a tailor who was considered to be of the better class,—that is, one who kept a shop in a fashionable street, and sold a finer and better description of goods than were to be found in the slop-shops,—and while making up a dozen fine vests, were congratulating ourselves on having advanced a step in our profession. The man was very civil to us, and had justly acquired the reputation, among the sewing-women, of dealing fairly and courteously with those he employed. When our first dozen vests were done, we took them in. There was a decided commendation as to the excellence of the work,—it was entirely satisfactory,—the price was paid,—but if we wanted more, he would have to pay us so much less. This was at the very beginning of the season, when such vests would be in demand. Had it been at the close, when sales were dull and little work needed, I could have understood why a reduction was demanded, or why no more vests were to be given out; but now I could not, and felt mortified and indignant.