My mother said nothing. On such occasions she invariably submitted to the imposition without remonstrance. It is the misfortune of most sewing-women to be obliged to bear these hard exactions in silence. Continued employment is with them so great a necessity as to compel them to do so. But not feeling this urgency myself, and being now grown a little older, and no doubt a little bolder, I ventured to address the tailor in reply.
"Why do you ask us to take less for our work, Sir?"
"Goods have gone up, Miss," he responded. "The importers charge us twenty per cent more."
"Do you require them to take less, as you do us?"
"Oh," said he, "they're very independent. We may buy or not, they say, just as we please. Everybody wants these goods,—they are very scarce in the market, and we must pay the advance or go without them."
"Then," I added, "if the goods are so scarce and desirable, the vests made of them ought to be equally so, and thus command a corresponding advance from the consumer."
"Certainly," he quickly replied, "we put the advanced cost on the buyer."
"Then the same reason holds good to make him pay more and us to take less," I replied, with an impetuosity of tone and manner that I could not resist, "If you get the advance out of him, why do you take it off of us?"
I saw that my mother was growing restless and uneasy, but I continued,—
"Do you consider the reason you have given for reducing our scanty wages to be either just or generous? You require us to sit up half the night to get this work done, that you may supply customers who, by your own statement, will pay you as good a profit on our next week's work as you get on that which we have just delivered. You advance your own prices, but cut down ours. By the money paid us you see that we have made only four dollars in the week, and now you ask us to work for three. Can two women live on three dollars a week? You might"——