The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The East

by Walter A. Wyckoff

In the case of the luggage, it was easy to bow acknowledgment and to decline in favor of Sam, the stable-boy, who, beaming with delight, stood ready to receive gifts to any amount, and who loved me warmly. But when I was alone with some guest in the act of a personal service, the situation created by a proffered fee proved embarrassing to us both, and was not to be relieved by bows and expressions of sincere appreciation.

The evening's duties are usually the lighting of the lamps at nightfall, and assorting the mail that comes in after supper, and attending the billiard and pool tables, and answering the bell-calls. Saturday afternoons and evenings are varied with industrious preparations for extra guests. This makes added demands upon us all, and the servants dread Sunday as bringing always the severest strain of the week. My own share of extra work is confined to Saturday afternoon and evening, when I put up cots, and carry bed-linen and blankets about, under the orders of the house-keeper, usually until midnight. And when I go to sleep at last it is on the hay in the barn, for my room is swept and garnished on Saturday and given up to a guest. It is no hardship to sleep on the hay, but, through knowledge gained from the scale of prices posted in the office, I can but understand what an admirable business arrangement it is for the proprietor to so utilize my room over Sunday. The added revenue which is thus yielded during my stay amounts to fifteen dollars, and as the total sum of my wages for the three weeks is five dollars and sixty-seven cents, the net returns to the proprietor in service and profit speak well for his management.

But there is other evidence of good management, and in a quarter that appeals to me more. His treatment of the "help" is so uniformly fair. I do not like him; but, so far as I know, I am alone in my dislike among all the servants of the house; and I cannot fail to see that a feeling of personal loyalty is behind much of the patient, enduring service to which I have been witness. Only once was there an approach to a collision between us, and certainly I emerged from that in rather a ridiculous light.

It was but two or three evenings ago. Usually I have been able to eat at our table enough at least to deaden appetite, but on that evening I could eat nothing. As I passed through the pastry-kitchen on my way back to the office I saw a few pieces of corn-bread which were apparently to be thrown away. I asked the cook for some, and she readily told me to help myself. On a flagging near the kitchen-door I sat down to eat the bread, and the proprietor must have seen me there in the dim light. I had not finished when the negro head-waiter came upon me in much excitement. I belong to a lower order of service than he, but he treats me civilly, and there was nothing more than nervousness in his manner now.

"You mustn't get cheese from the pantry without leave," he was saying in high agitation.

I thought that he had gone mad, but he presently made clear that the proprietor had come to him with the complaint that I was eating cheese, which is kept in the pantry, and is not intended for the lower servants. The supper-table had upset me, and the corn-bread which caused the present trouble had been cold comfort. I was furiously angry now, hot and aglow with a passion of rage which at that moment was a splendid sensation. With great civility I thanked the head-waiter, and explained the mistake, and showed him a fragment of bread still in my hand, and then asked where I should find the proprietor. He had gone to the office, and I followed him there, scarcely conscious of touching the ground. It was close upon the mail-hour, and the office was crowded with guests. Near the stove stood the proprietor, and he saw me as I approached him. I was looking him full in the eyes when I told him, without introductory remarks, that if he had any further criticisms to offer upon my conduct he was at liberty to bring them directly to me. If I had had any sense of humor left I should have laughed then at his appearance, and have forestalled the ridiculous scene, in which, with a look of distressed embarrassment, he edged toward the door, and I followed, with my eyes on his, as I treated him to the most cynically patronizing sentences which I could frame, while the guests looked on in silence.

Once in the quiet of the veranda, he explained to me that, since he holds the head-waiter responsible in such matters, he had naturally complained to him, and added that he was sorry if any mistake had been made. I pointed out the mistake, and felt the fool that I was, and spent the evening in a long walk over the hills, returning only in time to lock up and put out the lights.

As a basis of comparison I have now the two short terms of service at West Point and here. I received employment at both places as almost any laborer might have done, and I found in them both the means of livelihood. But as a servant, I have found more than that. The man who had been engaged as porter appeared about a week after my arrival. He proved to be Martha's brother, and a newly landed immigrant. There was no mistaking the last fact. His peaked countenance, with surviving traces of ruddy color; his queer pot-hat, that rested on his ears; his bright woollen tippet, defying the heat; his baggy suit, which had doubtless served for day and night through all the voyage; his heavy boots—all proclaimed him the raw material of a new citizen. Nor could there be a doubt of his kinship with Martha. She stood with me awaiting the stage, directing eager glances down the carriage-drive and excitedly asking questions about its coming. She was the first to see it, and to recognize her brother on the seat with Sam, and she fluttered about in the unconcealed delight of affection, perfectly unconscious of everyone, until her arms were about her brother's neck, and she was leading him away to the kitchen.