Susan signed her name to what she saw at a glance was some sort of contract.She knew it contained nothing to her advantage, much to her disadvantage.But she did not care.She had to have work--something, anything that would stop the waste of her slender capital.And within fifteen minutes she was seated in the midst of the sweating, almost nauseatingly odorous women of all ages, was toiling away at the simple task of making an ugly hat frame still more ugly by the addition of a bit of tawdry cotton ribbon, a buckle, and a bunch of absurdly artificial flowers.She was soon able to calculate roughly what she could make in six days.She thought she could do two dozen of the hats a day; and twelve dozen hats at forty cents the dozen would mean four dollars and eighty cents a week!
Four dollars and eighty cents! Less than she had planned to set aside for food alone, out of her ten dollars as a model.
Next her on the right sat a middle-aged woman, grossly fat, repulsively shapeless, piteously homely--one of those luckless human beings who are foredoomed from the outset never to know any of the great joys of life the joys that come through our power to attract our fellow-beings.As this woman stitched away, squinting through the steel-framed spectacles set upon her snub nose, Susan saw that she had not even good health to mitigate her lot, for her color was pasty and on her dirty skin lay blotches of dull red.Except a very young girl here and there all the women had poor or bad skins.And Susan was not made disdainful by the odor which is far worse than that of any lower animal, however dirty, because the human animal must wear clothing.She had lived in wretchedness in a tenement; she knew that this odor was an inevitable part of tenement life when one has neither the time nor the means to be clean.Poor food, foul air, broken sleep--bad health, disease, unsightly faces, repulsive bodies!
No wonder the common people looked almost like another race in contrast with their brothers and sisters of the comfortable classes.Another race! The race into which she would soon be reborn under the black magic of poverty! As she glanced and reflected on what she saw, viewed it in the light of her experience, her fingers slackened, and she could speed them up only in spurts.
"If I stay here," thought she, "in a few weeks I shall be like these others.No matter how hard I may fight, I'll be dragged down." As impossible to escape the common lot as for a swimmer alone in mid-ocean to keep up indefinitely whether long or brief, the struggle could have but, the one end--to be sunk in, merged in, the ocean.
It took no great amount of vanity for her to realize that she was in every way the superior of all those around her--in every way except one.What did she lack? Why was it that with her superior intelligence, her superior skill both of mind and of body, she could be thus dragged down and held far below her natural level? Why could she not lift herself up among the sort of people with whom she belonged--or even make a beginning toward lifting herself up? Why could she not take hold? What did she lack? What must she acquire--or what get rid of?
At lunch time she walked with the ugly woman up and down the first side street above the building in which the factory was located.She ate a roll she bought from a pushcart man, the woman munched an apple with her few remnants of teeth."Most of the girls is always kicking," said the woman."But I'm mighty satisfied.I get enough to eat and to wear, and I've got a bed to sleep in--and what else is there in life for anybody, rich or poor?""There's something to be said for that," replied Susan, marveling to find in this piteous creature the only case of thorough content she had ever seen.
"I make my four to five per," continued the woman."And I've got only myself.Thank God, I was never fool enough to marry.
It's marrying that drags us poor people down and makes us miserable.Some says to me, `Ain't you lonesome?' And I says to them, says I, `Why, I'm used to being alone.I don't want anything else.' If they was all like me, they'd not be fightin'
and drinkin' and makin' bad worse.The bosses always likes to give me work.They say I'm a model worker, and I'm proud to say they're right.I'm mighty grateful to the bosses that provide for the like of us.What'd we do without 'em? That's what __I__'d like to know."She had pitied this woman because she could never hope to experience any of the great joys of life.What a waste of pity, she now thought.She had overlooked the joy of joys--delusions.
This woman was secure for life against unhappiness.
A few days, and Susan was herself regarded as a model worker.
She turned out hats so rapidly that the forewoman, urged on by Mr.Himberg, the proprietor, began to nag at the other girls.
