 9. Mabel's new employer. By four o'clock on Saturday afternoon Mabel was round at the Lake Street store with her dozen shirts neatly finished. Her employer scanned her work with a critical eye. Had his real thought been known it must have shown him not only satisfied but much surprised at the neatness and finish of the sewing, for he was one of the meanest of the class to which he belonged and could not look for such work as was now presented him for the pay which he gave. He was careful, however, that no token of satisfaction displayed itself upon his countenance. I suppose you are content with my work? said Mabel, her eyes fixed earnestly on the lowered features of the man. It will do, was the reply, apparently reluctantly given. I never look for very good work. He opened the drawer of his counter and handed her out a fifty-cent note. You have made a mistake, said Mabel. You told me you paid a dollar a dozen for these shirts, a dollar to my regularly employed hands, but fifty cents only to one I don't know. Fifty cents won't do for me, said poor Mabel, emboldened by the necessity of her case. The price you named was a dollar and I must have it. Fifty cents is all you will get, said the hard man. You will take it or none. There rushed over poor Mabel thoughts of her weary hours spent on those dozen shirts and of her poor lily needing what the withheld amount would procure her. In a sort of desperation she made a bold move to write herself. Summoning all the appearance of composer she could she lifted the dozen shirts which still lay on the counter. You cannot have the shirts, she said, till you pay me the promised price. What are you doing? exclaimed the proprietor, coming quickly from behind the counter, put down my property or I'll have you arrested. Mabel had retired to the doorway, the shirts still on her arm. They are my property, until you pay the promised price of my work. She replied, in so sharp a tone as quite startled herself. My necessities do not permit me to be imposed upon. Pay me the dollar or you will have more trouble than the sum is worth to you. It's you will have the trouble, rejoined the man. Give up my property or you will get it. But the clear young eyes, with a temporary gleam of fierceness in them, were looking bravely and steadily into his own, and the craven quailed before them. Put down the shirts and you will get the dollar, he said, in a changed tone. I have no trust in you. Hand me the money first. He hastily produced a dollar note from his pocket-book, and with one hand extended it to Mabel, while with the other he caught the shirts from her arm. Mabel let them go and took the money. Mind you never come here again for work, he cried, as she hurried off. There are plenty of girls in Chicago who will work for one dollar, or for fifty cents, plenty of them. Mabel trembled so she could scarcely walk. She was terrified at thought of what she had done. Terrified because one half minute before she entered the store just quitted she would not have believed it possible she could be driven so to act and speak. The incident recalled her conversation of a night or two back with Hilda and recalled it with grave concern. How was it possible to mark out a line of conduct, even for herself to follow, unknowing what moment some unlooked-for emergency might necessitate a contrary course? And if she could not mark such out for herself, how much less could it be done for her sister, whose impetuosity of character left her particularly open to sudden impressions? Mabel would gladly have returned directly home after the painful occurrence just mentioned, but necessity did not permit this. There was no work awaiting her at home and work must be procured. Her little store of money was melting away with the rapidity which made her painfully anxious for coming days. For, despite her cheerful hopefulness of temper, there was too much depending on her individual efforts for the burden not to press sorely upon her. She gave as little expression to such anxieties as possible, wishing to uphold the hopes of others, even at the moment of her own greatest inquietude. But the picture of the little sister, confided to her care by a dying mother, was ever before her. That child now, by accident, brought to a condition of helplessness and suffering pitiable to see. This patient child, to be deprived of the few comforts life yet held for her? There was distraction in the thought for Mabel. It was this desire to give all the solace in her power to Lily, which kept her firm in the resolve to remain at home with her. For her very presence was a comfort to the little sufferer. It was not only that the child clung to her with an affection and reliance she felt toward no other, but that the various attentions needed for the little girl's well-doing could not efficiently be rendered by the only substitute presented for Mabel herself. Hilda had no intuitive capacity for nursing and was too hasty and impatient to acquire the ability. A profound wonder to her were those easy and efficient movements of Mabel's by which the latter contrived to procure her little patient some change of position that, while it effectively relieved present weariness, brought no after distress. For Hilda herself could scarcely touch the child without causing her serious inconvenience, and her consciousness of this inability rendered her yet more incompetent. Mabel visited several clothing establishments seeking for work and finally succeeded in procuring two dozen shirts of the sort she had recently done and on somewhat better terms, that is, one dollar a dozen, but with the thread furnished her. Considering herself, after her recent difficulties, fortunate to procure even these, she hastened home to relieve the neighbors who had obligingly remained with Lily during her absence. What did the new man say to your work, Mabel dear? inquired the little girl soon as they were alone together. He said it would do, my darling. Mabel was preparing to sit down to her sewing machine with her new invoice of flannels, and answered the question with a cheerfulness which conveyed no impression of the distress she had suffered since leaving home. Is that all? rejoined Lily in a disappointed tone. Didn't he say it was neat and pretty? No, dear Lily, but no doubt he thought so, for I took pains to do it well. And did he pay you a bigger price? I heard you tell Hilda you thought he would. No, darling, he only paid me what he promised. But I have these others from a better man, and shall go to him no more. I'm glad you found a better man, Mabel, and now just please move the pillows a little bit, so I can see you better as you sew. I'm so glad you're home again, and with plenty of work. Ah! with a sigh of relief as the change of position was made. I'm in for a nice time now, Mabel, dear, with you home, and the sewing machine going click, click, the way I love. Hilda was not so easily put off with replies as little Lily had been when, upon returning home, she plied Mabel with questions concerning her success with her Lake Street employer. I can see that you have had just the sort of time with that old sharpard that I expected, she said. I had heard plenty of him, but wouldn't tell you, because you'd already got his work. I wouldn't say anything about your putting such fine work on his old flannels neither, because I saw you were giving him such a fair chance to act decently if he had it in him. But he hasn't. He's a mean, contemptible, soulless creature. To make a difficulty about giving you the pay he had promised when such work as yours had never seen the inside of his store before. For I can tell you girls don't kill themselves taking pains for such prices as he pays. But what does he care? The things hold together till they're sold, and he has his profit off of them, and that is all he looks to. Mabel went on steadily at her shirts for a week, working into the night hours as she had done on the first. When Saturday came round again she was engaged on a new supply, having a day or two before taken home the first two dozen. Mrs. Lemming had permitted many to come to her sisters a little more frequently since the illness of Lily, and upon each Saturday afternoon she made her appearance to remain until the supper-hour. A sad pleasure it was to the kind-hearted girl to devote these hours to the entertainment of her suffering little sister, and she never failed to bring with her some trifle calculated to amuse the child. Very grateful was Lily for these attentions. Not only for the temporary relief they afforded her weariness, but from the proof they gave her that many had thought of her went away. Upon the Saturday just mentioned above she sat by Lily's bed, amusing her with some newly brought toy while Mabel plied her sewing machine near at hand. By and by Hilda returned home and soon got into conversation with Mabel. I have something to propose to you, Hilda, Mabel said. Something I have been thinking over in my own mind for this week past. I can barely make four shillings a day at shirts and but little more at pantaloons. Now, if I understood vest-making I could get so much more than this that in consideration of increasing expenses through the coming winter and the little I had laid by being almost gone it seems to me it would be well for me to learn. What do you think of it? It would take you weeks to learn, Mabel, and what would you do for a living in the meanwhile? It would take me three weeks only, replied Mabel. I have known more than one who learned in that time. The three weeks would be a loss to be sure, and more than that as I shall have to pay something to learn. But I am then insured at business that, while I have health to make long days at it, will keep us from want at least. Still, Mabel, where is the money to live on for those three weeks and to pay for learning? I will sell something Hilda, or pawn something. Hilda opened her eyes very wide. What is there we can spare? She said, looking around the scantily furnished rooms. There are one or two things we could do without, replied Mabel. The bureau and seté, for example, and if they will not bring enough, I mean the sale of them, there is something I could pawn. I should be sorry to do it. I hope not to be forced to it, but we may hereafter be obliged to make greater sacrifices if we don't make this now. Hilda looked hard at Mabel again. What had they, the mere paunting of which would bring so much money as was needed for that more than loss of three weeks of Mabel's sewing? One thing only, and Hilda's eyes turned uneasily from her sister's face to a point just above the head of Lily's bed. Where hung the gold watch which had belonged to both their parents? The look was enough. The look and the meeting of the eyes that followed it. No word needed to be spoken. Hilda sank into silence, while Mabel plied yet more busily her sewing machine. I wish I had a grain of sense to help you, said Hilda at length, under depression of that humble estimate of herself which at times beset her. But I haven't. I'm a mere child where any judgment is concerned. I think differently, returned Mabel, and that is the reason I consult you. Two heads are better than one, Hilda, even if one does happen sometimes to think a little too fast. You're putting the best face on my failings as you always do, Mabel. It's provoking that the only wits I have are just the sort that can be turned to no account in the time of need. Those inside eyes of yours, Hilda, can they not be put to outside work for this emergency? Mabel spoke in something of forced playfulness. But Hilda's reply was given in all gravity. No, therefore different sort of work, there to see close into things meant to be hid, while what you want is a pair of experienced sharp peepers that can look a long way ahead and take count of all the probables and improbables that may turn up. Still, Hilda, do your best to aid me in the difficulty? If your opinion agrees with my own, I shall be better satisfied as to the course I take. Hilda was silent for something like a minute. She appeared to be gravely reflecting, and from time to time stole hasty glances in the direction of the watch. If you leave it to me, she then said, I decide, in favour of the vest-making, cost us what sacrifice it may. Expenses now are above what we both together can make, and when constant fires have to be kept, as they soon will be, we shall be getting into debt, which, I've heard you say hundreds of times, is the worst thing we could do. When you have once learned the vest-making, you will be able to make enough to keep us out of that, at least. Your conclusion is a good one, replied Mabel, and agrees entirely with my own. By Wednesday evening I shall have this last dozen shirts finished, and I will then bring home no more. Of Mabel Ross, the sewing-girl, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. CHAPTER X MINI On Monday afternoon, Minnie unexpectedly presented herself before Mabel. There was a brighter look than customary in her eye as she kissed the latter and little Lily, and a tint of colour too, on her usually pale cheek. You'll get your shirts finished on Wednesday, Mabel? She said, leaning over the back of her sister's chair, as the latter sat at her sewing-machine. I hope too, dearest. Lily has been so much better the last few days that I get a good deal more time for sewing. And after that, you'll work no more at shirts, will you, but learn the vest-making that pays so much better. Yes, dear Minnie, I shall learn vest-making. I know all about it, whispered Minnie. I heard you and Hilda talking Saturday evening. And maybe, Mabel, what I have here will save your having to pawn the watch. Oh, I wish it might. I've scarcely thought of anything else since I heard about it, Mabel, and I laid awake that night thinking of it, and making up my mind what I'd try to do. Take it, Mabel, and tell me if it will help you much. With her arms passed over Mabel's shoulders, she put a small portmonnais on the sewing-machine. It is just ten dollars, she added, as her sister took it up. I've been saving five of it a long while for you, and Mrs. Lemming added the other fives this morning. Ten dollars? My dear little sister! And Mabel caught the hands that lay on her shoulders and pressed them to her lips. Will it help you much, Mabel? Will it save the watch? With a few things I can sell, it will, darling. Tell me how Mrs. Lemming happened to give you the five dollars. I asked her for it, Mabel. She often gives me a little money when she gives to Clara. And I'd been laying it all by for you. I had five dollars, all but fifteen cents, and meant, when I got that much more, to bring it to you. But after I heard your talk with Hilda Saturday evening, I saw five dollars wouldn't do much. So I made up my mind I'd ask some more of Mrs. Lemming. She told me, or almost told me, when I first went to her, that I was never to expect her to help any at home, but I thought, for all that I'd try. She wasn't angry a bit, she never is. Only, only that other five and the fifteen cents was all she'd give, and she said she gave it to me. Mabel folded many to her breast, and for a little while both were silent. You are a good, kind girl, then said Mabel, and have done a service to us all. But never, my darling, ask Mrs. Lemming for money again. She is kind to you, she does much for you, and you should strictly obey her wishes. Now, go to Lily, my dear, she is wanting to kiss you for your kind gift. Not for long had Minnie felt so happy, as when bending over her little sister, she received her kiss and her thanks. Good, good, Minnie! whispered the little girl. I'm so glad you've helped along, Mabel. Mabel's getting so poor, Minnie, and I guess it's a dreadful, dreadful thing to be poor. It's to be hoped Clara won't take up this business of Minnie saving her money for you, Mabel, said Hilda, when she came to learn what had occurred. She'd make such a fuss if she undertakes it that Minnie'll never get another cent of pocket money. Minnie seemed to be under no such apprehension, replied Mabel. She'd not hint it to you if she was, rejoined Hilda, but it wasn't a big deal. Rejoined Hilda. But it would be just like Clara to do it, and it's nothing more than I expect. By Wednesday the shirts were completed, and having taken them home and received the pay for them, Mabel went immediately to the learning of that vest-making which was to enable her better to meet the expenses of her little family. It was a sore trial to poor Lily to be left from early morning until evening by her loved sister, but she was sensible of the necessity for it and submitted without a murmur. Hilda almost came out of herself, in her anxiety to feel credibly the place vacated by Mabel, showing a thoughtfulness and tenderness for the little girl which quite surprised her older sister. Beside these attentions she was able to take Mabel's place at the sewing machine, employing herself on such work as the latter had recently been engaged on. Little Lily was now not unfrequently to be seen seated by the window in the big arm-chair, finding an inexhaustible fund of entertainment in watching the passers-by and in talking to Hilda of the varying scene before her. Through September the mid-hours of the day were so warm that the window could sometimes be left open, the little girl delighting in the sunshine that streamed in upon her. Quite near to the house, within the little enclosure which Lily called the Garden, stood a fine mountain ash which was the child's a special admiration. Resting forward upon the windowsill, a position which appeared to bring her ease, she could almost touch with her hand the great clusters of red berries on the tree. And when, swayed by a passing breeze, the boughs lent toward the house, the little fingers could actually pick a berry or two from the rich bunches. Hopeful grew Mabel's heart as she marked the improvement in her little patient, and hopeful, too, grew that of Lily herself. It was her delight to talk of the time which she believed was coming, a time of renewed health and happiness. Surely she was going to get well. Surely those ugly pains, which had troubled her so much less than they had done, would, after a while, leave her entirely. I'll be having a beautiful maying with you, like last year, after all, Mabel, she, one evening said, and plenty of nice walks into the country before that time comes, too. I trust you, Will, my darling. Mayday is a good way off, but whenever Lily is well enough, she shall have one of her old walks with her sister. And when will I be well enough, Mabel, dear? Next Sunday, do you think? Scarcely so soon, my darling. Sunday is only four days off, you know. Well, then, the Sunday after. Mabel, say you think the Sunday after. I say I hope so, my precious Lily. It is all in God's hands, darling, and as he wills it, so it will be. I know it, Mabel, and I'm going to pray to him every night to make me strong and well again. I did think maybe I was never, never going to be well again, Mabel, but now I feel so much better, and able to be up sometimes, it's put all those sad thoughts out of my head. Now I think all the while of our dear old times coming back to us. She caught her sister's eye resting sadly upon her as she said this. Sadly, because, though Lily was certainly looking brighter than she had done for a long time, there was that in the little wasted features which contradicted the hopes the child so confidently expressed. Mabel turned hastily away, with a word or two of encouragement to her little charge, but Lily had not only caught the look, but read the misgivings it expressed. I've not forgotten, Mabel, she said, in a fainter tone, that I'm to bear patiently what God chooses to bring me, and that I'm to pray for this patience if the thing's hard to bear. Maybe, she added with a sigh, he won't think it for the best to make me well again. Maybe he won't let the dear old times come back. But hope is good for us. Didn't you say so the other day, Mabel? So I'm going to hope all I can. End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 of Mabel Ross, The Sewing Girl This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 11 Unwelcome News One evening Mabel was met on her return home with unlooked for and unwelcome news. From Minnie, who was awaiting her, and hilded together, she learned what neither alone appeared in condition to relate. Namely, that Mrs. Lemming, whose health had for some time been failing, was in obedience to the directions of her physician, about to leave for a visit to Europe, and was planning to put her niece and Minnie at a school in New York during her absence. Mrs. Lemming has been thinking of it for some time, added Minnie to the hurried statement furnished by Hilda, but she never told me about it till to-day. She said I might come round and tell you and Hilda. She will leave here for New York next week, and means to take Clara and me along with her, that she may see us comfortably entered at the school before she sails. Mabel was taken too completely by surprise to be prepared with a reply. She could only look her grieved astonishment, as poor Minnie, out of breath through agitation and hurry together, brought her story to a conclusion. Oh, tell me one thing, Mabel, then said Minnie. Must I go? Is there no way to get off of this being sent from you and dear little Lily and Hilda? It doesn't seem to me I'm to go, Mabel. To think there will be no chance for me to see any of you again till Mrs. Lemming comes back, and that may it be for months, for a year even. She's entering me and Clara for a whole year, for she read it so out of the letter she wrote to-day to the principal of the school. To think, Mabel, a whole year! Oh, how can I bear it? Tell me. Tell me, Mabel. Must I go? She had knelt at Mabel's feet and put her arms about her. Mabel gently returned the embrace. She was looking very pale, but was now quite composed. You must go, my darling Minnie, she said. There is nothing for you to do, nothing for us all to do, but to bend to the will which is ordering these things. God's providence is arranging for us, and it is not for us to rebel. Were there a proper way for you to be spared this going, and for us to be spared the parting with you, I would turn to it. But there is none. Our dear mother left you to Mrs. Lemming, and Mrs. Lemming has acted kindly to you. She is acting kindly to you still, in providing for you a home during her absence, where the education she promised our dear mother for you will still be going on. She could leave me with you, Mabel, sobbed Minnie, for tears had overtaken her now. She could do that, as Hilda's been saying, and not let me be a burden to you neither. Yes, she's rich and could do it, put in Hilda warmly. It's what she ought to do. She could pay Minnie's board to you, Mabel, and leave money for her clothes, and then we'd all be together for a while, without loss to anyone. Yes, but there would be a loss, Hilda, a loss to many of many months perhaps of schooling, and improvement in her studies is an important thing to her. No one can justly find fault with what Mrs. Lemming is planning, my dear girls. It is the best to be done under the circumstances, and we must strive to be content. The studies have nothing to do with Mrs. Lemming's calculations, I'll answer for it, said Hilda. What she's concerned about is leaving Minnie with her poor sewing-girl sisters. She's afraid all her trouble to make her a lady will be knocked over by vulgar examples set by her vulgar relations. Look how she's kept away from us herself, and how, but for poor Lily's accident, she'd have been keeping Minnie from us all this time. I tell you, Mabel, Mrs. Lemming's just of a piece with cousin Algern, and the Barrett's, and the rest of them, and yet you can't see it. Haven't you been saying all along that Mrs. Barrett would do us some kindness if we'd only give her time? And here, it's two years nearly since we've been poor through her husband's means, and she's not so much as come to visit us. You're all the time thinking too well of people, Mabel, and I think it's a shame. If I were you, I'd fly right in the face of Mrs. Lemming and take poor Minnie away from her, let her go to Europe if she likes, and send her precious mischief-making Clara to the New York boarding school. But Minnie belongs to us, and she has no right to be dragging her hundreds of miles from Chicago. It is probable Hilda would have found a good deal of the same sort to say, only that, talking very fast, she was here for want of breath, brought to a stand still. It is not kind, Hilda, to talk in this way and make Minnie more unhappy, said Mabel, finding she could now put in a word. Let us rather do what we can to content her with a change which is unavoidable. Get up, Minnie, dear, and sit beside me in your old way. Let us believe all these things are for the best, and meet them in the spirit our dear mother taught us was the right one, of reliance on him who directs all our ways. In this way Mabel sought to reconcile her sisters to the separation which was before them, losing sight of her own distress in consideration of theirs. Meanwhile little Lily was quite overlooked. When at length Mabel went up to her, she found she had been silently weeping. I don't want to cry, Mabel dear, she said, as the ladder gently wiped the tears from her cheeks, because I heard you say it was right and all for the best. But when I thought how happy it was for me that dear mother left me to you, and how poor Minnie was left to Mrs. Lemming, I pitied Minnie so much that I got started off when I didn't mean to. The thought of how much less happy, in this particular, Minnie was than herself, here started off little Lily again, and it was not without considerable trouble that Mabel succeeded in soothing her. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of Mabel Ross, The Sewing Girl Chapter 12 The Bad Heart The day Mrs. Lemming had proposed to leave Chicago with her young charges came round, and so did the hour of parting between the sisters. Poor Minnie made her appearance at Mabel's looking pale and thin, for she had been quite sick through the week which had passed since her conveying to her sisters tidings of the contemplated change. I've had such a disappointment, she said, as she hung weeping on Mabel's neck. The only comfort I had in going is taken from me, Mabel. Your only comfort, my darling? Try to find many, dear Minnie, look for them, and you will have them. But what is this only comfort you speak of? Minnie then explained that learning from Mrs. Lemming she was to have a liberal supply of pocket money at command during her stay at the New York School, she had planned the sending of it in letters to Mabel. But Clara had that morning informed her of arrangements made by Mrs. Lemming, through which she would only receive this money from the hands of the principal of the school, on stating the purpose she had for it. Clara had not left her in doubt as to the reason for this arrangement, since she plainly told her Mrs. Lemming chose that the money should be spent by Minnie herself on fancies, like the other girls, and not given away on any pretense whatever. Oh, Mabel, I feel this as you can't think, said poor Minnie in conclusion. Hilda's been telling me how hard you find it to get along through your learning of the vest-making even after selling your nice sofa and bureau, and I thought how pleasant it would be every once in a while to send you some money when you'd been put back so. Poor child, I can understand your disappointment, replied Mabel, but don't distress yourself. What is needful for us will come from some quarter. God is not going to let us suffer my sister. But I'm miserable to think, Mabel, that I'm having every comfort in life, while you and Hilda and dear little Lily are wanting so many things. Oh, Mabel, maybe you don't think it, but I'd rather have some wants and troubles like the rest of you, than I'd not be reproaching myself as I do. Never reproach yourself, darling, for you are a kind, affectionate sister, and you have your own troubles too, Minnie, your troubles and your wants, as you have just proved to us. I should think so, indignantly put in Hilda. I should say having a girl like that Clara Dean prying around and interfering in one's concerns was just about trouble enough for anyone. This is all her contriving, Mabel, and I told you how it would be when Minnie gave you that ten dollars. Mrs. Lemming would never have made such strict arrangements but for her interfering. Tell the truth now, Minnie. Isn't Clara at the bottom of it all? Mrs. Lemming is kind and good, replied Minnie, and I don't think, of her own accord, she'd keep me from doing what I please with the money. Of course not, chimed in Hilda, but she's driven and followed up by Clara, till she's got to do just as she likes. I hate that girl, I just hate her. Hate no one, my sister, reproved Mabel. Remember the lessons taught us by dear mother. I'm sure you can't expect me to love her, petulantly returned Hilda. I'm sure no one could be better for loving such a girl as Clara Dean. Not for loving her ugly ways, certainly, Hilda, but for trying to love and pity the poor girl herself. Surely she is to be pitied for being so unhappy. Unhappy, Mabel, with every comfort and indulgence around her. Unhappy because she has a bad heart, Hilda. There is no sureer source of unhappiness than a bad heart. Poverty's worse, returned Hilda, who was evidently in one of her less amiable moods. Poverty's the hardest, bitterest, most crushing unhappiness one can know. The sisters stood beside Lily's bed, Mabel with one arm around Minnie. She now put the other about Hilda. We all love each other, she said, and there are no bad hearts among us. Oh, be sure, Hilda, there is more to be thankful for in this than in the wealth of the world without it. There is no need to linger over the sad parting which soon followed on this little conversation. It came and passed, leaving each heart oppressed with the thought of the many months likely to intervene before a meeting should take place. The term of Mabel's apprenticeship to vest-making expired a few days after the leaving of many, and she again resumed her home labours, having gotten a tolerably good supply of vests to work upon. For Hilda, she had lost her place at the store where she had worked by remaining at home to take care of Lily. Not more effectually was it lost to her through her three weeks' absence, however, then it would have been had she remained away but a day, the man who employed her not permitting his sewing-hands so much as this short absence from his working-rooms. It now became necessary for Hilda to find a new place, as Mabel's occupation of the sewing-machine did not permit her to continue homework. Mabel agreed that it would be well for her to spend a little time in seeking work that would compensate her somewhat better than she had previously had, and thus a day or two were lost to her. Upon the afternoon of the second day that had been thus fruitlessly spent, Hilda returned home yet more weary and dispirited than upon the first. Tomorrow finds me a place at any mean price, she exclaimed, impatiently throwing off her hat as she seated herself beside Mabel. Oh, Mabel, Mabel, since sewing is a business, surely it ought to be possible to live by it. Some do, replied Mabel, but they are the few, though so fortunate as to secure such a place as I once had. The many must nerve themselves for a hard struggle and a long one. And we are of the many, Mabel. Oh, if I only had your patience for this hard and long struggle, for it is coming, Mabel, it is on us now. I was calculating closely after I went to bed last night, and even with your vest-making and my getting as much as fifty cents a day, as much as fifty cents, think of it, Mabel, fifty cents for ten hours close and steady work, and a poor girl glad to get it. Well, even with this fifty cents added to what you make, we shall have a hard, hard time to get along this winter, if we do get along. We shall get along my sister, never fear. Think of the coal and the rent, Mabel. I do. As concerns the rent, there must be a change made. I was speaking to Mrs. Powers this morning about our rooms, proposing from next week, when our month is up, to retake one only. We cannot afford two rooms, Hilda, and I should not have kept them so long, only on account of Lily. The doctor attaches so much importance to a good ventilation and to no overheating, but the season is now coming when a fire will need to be kept all the time. Therefore it will make less difference to have the cooking and washing going on in the room with Lily. And which room will you keep, Mabel? Neither, my dear, Mrs. Powers objects to renting one without the other. She has always rented them best together. We will have to look elsewhere. While you are out for work tomorrow, you will make inquiry for a room that will suit us, and I can then go and engage it. I tell you, I shall have a search for it. Why, there's the greatest trouble to find a place of any sort in Chicago now, Mabel. I'm hearing about it all the time. I don't believe that even in such a place as Polk Street you'll get a room for half what you pay for one of these. Perhaps not, Hilda, but you know we cannot keep one of these. Do your best, my sister. We have still nearly a week in which to make the change. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 The Old Boots Hilda's search of the next day did not result in her procuring a room or a place for work. But she was more fortunate upon the morning following, having discovered a room in a small house on Polk Street, from which the tenants were going to move out in a few days. It is true this family informed her that the cause of their leaving was the raising of the rent. The landlord now demanding seven dollars a month in place of the five and a half which had previously contented him. But the difficulty of finding a room was great. And time, to Hilda, was now important, as she had engaged to enter upon a new sewing place upon the following day. Upon her reporting concerning this room to Mabel, therefore, the latter concluded to go the next morning, when she would be out carrying home some vests and, if possible, engage it. That afternoon she noticed Hilda busying herself in a corner about something she seemed desirous to keep to herself. What are you doing, Hilda? She inquired at length. Mending my boots was the reply. Or, I mean, trying to mend them. They've been letting in the water for some time, and this morning a stone got in and almost blamed me. Let me look at them, rejoined Mabel, who was engaged with her sewing machine. No, for I don't want you to be bothering over them, and I know that will be the next thing. I want to be a little more self-reliant, Mabel. You have enough to do without mending my old shoes. I didn't propose to mend them, only to look at them. Perhaps I can show you a better way to manage them. Hilda limped across the room, the boots in her hand, and silently placed one of them before her sister. Mabel lifted it and gravely examined it. Poor child! I did not think they were so far gone. She said, I see you have cobbled them up before, but they are almost past mending now. I think I can put a piece of that old slipper into the largest hole, replied Hilda. See, I have almost done this one. Not badly done, Hilda, but still it will scarcely stand your walk tomorrow to the store. You will have to have a new pair, my sister. And where are they to come from? Oh, Mabel, if you only knew how I have watched and watched the wearing of those shoes, and how I've hoped and hoped again that something would turn up to enable me to get another pair at my own cost. What a miserable, ill-contrived girl I am that I can't even earn my bread and a pair of boots after three months' work and more! At three shillings a day how could you? said Mabel soothingly. But cheer up, Hilda! You have a place now, and you can take your first earnings to buy a pair of good new boots. And take bread out of your mouth and, dear little lilies, to do it? Oh, Mabel, I've been a simpleton and a wicked, wicked girl. I ought to have stayed at Cousin Algins. You were right, as you always are. I ought to have stayed. If she'd put her foot on my neck even, I ought to have stayed. But she didn't. She was decent enough in her way, and she believed she was giving me a decent enough time, too. She kept me in good clothes and good food, and I only didn't know how good they were. If I hadn't come from her with things almost new, and with boots just out of the store, I'd have been in rags and barefoot now. And I don't know how I'm to keep from being barefoot and in rags, Mabel. Oh, I don't know! I don't know! It's coming on me fast, fast! But I suppose I've got to bear it like many a better girl before me. As she finished speaking, Hilda bent her head over her old boot and burst into a passion of tears. This is not the way to be self-reliant, Hilda, dear, said Mabel gently. Finish your boot and put it by for outdoor wear. You can always have my slippers for the house, and that will save them until you can get others. While saying this, Mabel was quietly progressing in the cobbling of the boot Hilda had left with her, and before the latter, having checked her tears, had gotten well under way at the finishing of the one she had been busy about, her sister had the other completed, in as good a way as circumstances permitted. Oh, you have done it! And how nicely! Hilda exclaimed, as having at length finished the mate, she took up the other one from beside Mabel. If I could only be like you, Mabel, only so smart and capable and so able to do everything well, why was I made such a clumsy bungler at everything I take up? We have all our gifts, dear Hilda, all something to be thankful for. Gratitude for these is not only to our creator, but makes our own happiness. Tell me of one thing I have to be thankful for, just at this time, Mabel, said Hilda after a pause, something, I mean, besides a good kind sister to advise and help me. I know I have that. To begin with, Hilda, you have health, which is a very great blessing in itself. Compare your condition with that of our suffering little Lily, with that of many a poor, sickly girl who, like yourself, has to work for a living. Have you forgotten those two consumptive sisters you were telling me of the other day, who sow for steam, and that go with scant clothes and almost shoeless feet through cold and damp? Oh, Mabel, I had forgotten them, and I do thank God that he hasn't made me like them. Poor girls! I believe if they had decent comforts they'd be nearly as well as others, but with all they have to go through it's no wonder they're what they are. They boil over their tea leaves a second time to drink, and take it without sugar or milk. And all they have to eat with it is a crust of bread, and that, maybe, dry and stale. Their mothers are crippled and can do nothing, and they have to support her, as well as themselves, on the little pay they get for their sowing. If you were but to see those poor girls, Mabel, you'd think, like me, that it would be no strange thing if they were, one day, to fall dead over their work. And if they did, what would it matter, except to the old mother, who would be left to starve? Steen would have two other girls in their places before an hour was over, two others to grind down, as he has poor Fanny and her sister. I tell you, Mabel, this sowing business seems very like some of the dreadful things we read of from the war. The sowing girls are poor creatures, fighting for the morsel to eat and the rag to wear. And when their health and strength are gone, or their hopes died out, why, one after another they fall, and are trodden underfoot. Others, oh yes, plenty of others crowding on to fill up the ranks, greedy to get even the little pittons such men as this Steen give. But it's something, and so is a dime something, though it's to buy bread and clothes and pay for coal and house rent. My dear Hilda, how you excite yourself! Is it any wonder, Mabel? Hilda asked this in a tone so low as to form a strange contrast to the one in which she had just spoken. Isn't it for this very Steen? I go to work tomorrow. My dear sister, it is. But don't be discouraged because of that. You are young and in strength, and neither are you alone, but with a sister beside you, who will do all God gives her to do to lighten your burden. Mabel, it discourages me more than you can think to have to work for this man's Steen. I tried so hard to avoid it, as you know, but what could I do? Any place where better pay is given, if ever such a trifle better, is caught up by others who have more experience than I, and so I'm reduced to the condition of that crowd pressing on to fill up the ranks, the poor girls willing to catch at anything that may be called something. But this little something is not the all we have to depend on, Hilda, and for that let us be thankful. With little Lily so much better as she is now, the more time I shall have to work at the vests. I don't fear, but we shall do well. Still, Mabel, it doesn't change the fact that I shall be bringing a mere might to help along. Nor does your bringing, what you call a mere might, change the fact that you will be doing your best, dear Hilda. It is not your fault that you can bring no more, but the fault of those who, taking advantage of the necessities of poor sewing women, make such unsuitable return for their labour. Mabel, are there not many things in the Bible which seem to touch directly at the employers of poor sewing girls? There certainly are. Very many are the warnings against that greed of gain which induces this one class of people to be so cruel to another. The oppression of the poor is spoken of as a sin particularly hateful in the sight of God. A dreadful score will there be against such men as Steen and Lelemon then? Dreadful indeed, for we cannot but believe that God, in his justice, will deal with them in that spirit of retribution he has promised. Chapter 14 The House Agent The next morning, having taken home her vests, Mabel sought the proprietor of the house in which she proposed taking a room. He was a house agent, by the name of Brumbly, doing business in a little box of an office on Dash Street. He was in his office when Mabel entered it, and received her with the disagreeable gruffness of manner of which his appearance gave promise. So discouraged indeed was poor Mabel by the address of this man that, had there been time and opportunity to find a room other than the one she had come about, she would have been tempted to retire from his office almost upon the moment of entering it. In return to the question put to him by Mabel concerning the terms, per month of the room, he inquired what business she followed. Mabel replied that she sowed for a living. Just the sort of tenant I don't want! he growled, giving her an ugly look from under his shaggy brows. Sowing women are the most troublesome sort of folks to deal with. They're always poor as rats, and whining like whipped currs. They get behind hand with their rent, and expect house owners to have hearts soft as mush, and heads a good deal softer. I, for one, haven't a head or heart of that sort, and I give no quarter right or left. I have always been able to pay my rent punctually, said Mabel, and hope to do so still. That may be, but I'll be bound. Some confounded thing will turn up after you get into my house to give me trouble. How many in family? Myself and two sisters, one grown, the other a sick child. That's small enough for a family, but I see trouble through the sick child. A sick child, or sick mother, or grandmothers forever being thrown in one's face as excuse for backward rent. I have no consideration for these things, and will as leaf turn into the street a sick child, mother, or grandmother, as a young woman in good health. I hope to have no trouble, sir, Mabel rejoined, and yet, thanks be to God, I never have had. The man gave her a sharp and lengthened look. It was evident that the expression of goodness on the countenance of Mabel was not without its effect even upon this crabbed piece of humanity, for he followed up the look by stating the price of the room. Seven dollars a month, did you say? repeated Mabel. I thought it might be less than that. It's neither more nor less, replied the man, with an aggravation of his gruffness. I suppose you thought to get it at a dead bargain, because those people who are leaving it got it at a dirt-cheap price. But I'm going to have no more of such work as that. The person who owns that house is one that looks sharp to every dime, and ain't going to let folks live on her property on terms that might be called rent-free at a time when every hole in Chicago brings its price. Let that room slip through your fingers, and unless you have more time to throw away than sewing girls generally have, you'll be apt to find yourself with no room at all. Mabel saw there was only too much truth in these words, and for a time stood irresolute. The rent was higher than she thought safe to take upon herself, and she had come in strong hope of getting the room on terms better suited to her. Prudence suggested that the wiser course would be to make an attempt to find a place better suited to her means, even if the effort necessitated some loss of time, and she acquainted Mr. Brumbly with her resolve. Ninety-nine to a hundred, but you find that room rented by the time you come back. For back you will come, was the reply. Rooms of that sort don't wait in these times, for people to make up their minds. Mabel commenced her search, confining herself to such neighborhoods as Hilda had not already looked through. No success, however, attended her efforts, and in some anxiety she returned, after the lapse of several hours, to close with the offer made her by Mr. Brumbly, were it still open to her. You're just in time, he said. A man's gone round to look at that room this minute. Well, so you take it. Rent to be paid in advance, to be brought here to me punctually, to the day. If it don't come to me, I come after it. And remember, there's no use to throw the sick child in my face. I've gone through those dodges, they're played out. When do you move in? On Tuesday morning. Pay the seven dollars now. Mabel had not the money with her and told him so, saying she would return with it in the afternoon. If you don't you'll lose the room, was the rejoinder. Maybe you'll lose it anyhow. Mabel feared this so much that she hurried home for the money, and returned with it without loss of a minute. The man took the seven dollars in silence and gave a receipt for it. Mind you be punctual to the day, he then said, scowling on her in a threatening way. Some may be imposed on, but I can't be. If you know what you're about, you won't try it. And one thing more, the first thing and the last thing. Don't throw the sick child at me, mind you. Don't throw the sick child at me. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of Mabel Ross, the sewing-girl. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 15 The Mountain Ash Seldom had Mabel been discouraged as upon this day. The having burdened herself with a rent large for her means was depressing in itself, and was rendered yet more so by knowledge that the change about to be made must narrow in every way their comfort and convenience. How different a prospect from that of their present snug rooms on Jackson Street was presented by this room in the Polk Street House, with its crowded neighbourhood and neglected surroundings filled with ponds of stagnant water and vagrant poultry? Gravely she thought on the possible effect the unfavourable change might have upon the condition of her little Lily. For she knew from her own observation, as well as from information of her physician, that the child was peculiarly under influence of cheerful sights and sounds, and a pure atmosphere. But in face of all this, that stern taskmaster necessity was against the loving sister, and there was nothing for her but to submit. The mere fact of the change was a novelty that, in contemplation alone, quite aroused the little Lily, and she plied her sisters with questions relative to their new home. Will there be a pretty mountain ash in the garden? She asked, and will the garden be right under the window, like it is here? There is neither garden nor pretty mountain ash, my darling, replied Mabel, clasping to her heart the little hands, eagerly put forth with the question. But, sister, we'll buy you a sweet-smelling mignonette instead, and after a while a pretty geranium, too, with bright red flowers, like the one in the garden. But a look of grief stole over the little pallid features, and during the short silence that followed, and while she pressed her head against Mabel's shoulder, two big tears rolled from under Lily's eyelids and coursed down her cheeks. Won't it be something to have the pretty mignonette, dear Lily? Mabel asked, in as cheerful a tone as she could assume. And to think by and by of the bright red geranium beside it? Yes, dear Mabel, almost sobbed the child, but still, also miss the garden at times I can sit up to the window and the mountain ash that I can all but touch with my hand. Oh, Mabel, Mabel, the pretty red berries, I shall so miss the pretty red berries. Mabel thought how few sources of pleasure were now open to the little sufferer, and reproached herself that she, even so unwillingly, narrowed these to her. You will still have Hilda and Mabel, Lily, dear? She said, and you know the other day, after sitting up at the window, you said, after all, lying down with Mabel to hold your hand was as nice as being up and looking into the garden. Because I'd been up so long then, and my back pained me till I got to bed again. For often times on Sundays you sit by me at the window and hold my hand, and that's better than all. Lily said this, still struggling with her tears, but at the last words she caught a view of Mabel's face, and the grief she read there recalled her to other feelings. But never mind, Mabel, dear, she hastened to add, I'll cheer up and make the best of it, as you often tell me to do. And won't you ask Mrs. Powers to let us take away a big bunch of her mountain ash, and then we'll put it in water on the mantle or somewhere, and see the pretty red berries long as we can. I will, my darling, and I know she'll let us, and so we'll have a little tree of our own, and one that Lily can see while she's in bed as well as when she's sitting up to the window. Yes, yes, Mabel, I never thought of that. I can see it all the time, and that will be nice, though it is but a little tree, and not growing in the garden. Tuesday came round, and the move was made. Mabel retained only so much of her furniture as was actually needed in the more confined boundary of their new home, disposing of the remainder to Mrs. Powers. All they took with them was neatly arranged as circumstances permitted. The room was somewhat larger than either of those they left, still, with its two beds, stove, little cupboard, sewing machine, table, and chairs. It had a crowded appearance, and one not calculated to impress cheerfully the new occupants. Little Lily was conveyed to her new home on her bed, placed in the express wagon, and as it was a pleasant sun-shiny day, the novelty of being out of doors and the ride together had the effect of putting the little girl in unusually good spirits. By the window Mabel had placed the invalids' big armchair, and on the windowsill, the driver of the wagon nailed aboard, to give room for the standing of the little Minionette pot which Mabel had that morning purchased. The plant looked cheerful there in the sunshine, and so did the great bow of Lily's favourite tree, which Mrs. Powers had herself cut off and placed in a large, broken vase of her own. The Minionette in the mountain ash had travelled in the express wagon with Lily herself, and so close to her that she could at any time touch them by putting out her hand. The express man was a border of Mrs. Powers, and had frequently seen Lily in her better times from her seat at the window, and pitied her little white face with its look of patient suffering. Tenderly as a man handles his own feeble infant, did he carry in his strong arms the little bed with its light occupant to and from its place in the wagon, and when he put it down in its new resting place, it was with tears in his honest eyes that he said, God help you little one, it takes a brave heart to bear what he has put on you. He refused to take the dollar Mabel offered him. Keep it yourself, he said, every dollar is much to a girl that's got one like her, pointing to Lily, to look to. You have honestly earned it, said Mabel, still proffering him the money, and perhaps are not rich enough yourself to afford to be so generous. I'd feel poor enough if I took it, rejoined the man, turning away. I'm a good bit more than a dollar richer without it. For a moment or two after he had left, Mabel stood silently with the dollar in her hand, it was little Lily's voice that broke the quiet. It was a good angel gave you the dollar, Mabel, she said. It was my darling, was the reply, and sent of God as you know all good angels are. Yes, Mabel, Hilda was talking the other day about dreading the time you'd come to your last dollar. That time's further off now, isn't it? Further off, by a good bit maybe? Just so far off as God wills it, my darling, he best knows how it should be. End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 of Mabel Ross The Sewing Girl This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 16 Died at her post Hilda had now taken her place in the sewing-room of her new employer. The thirty-five or forty cents a day, which was promised herself, was all that was paid to those among whom she labored, and it was not long before she discovered that a general dissatisfaction prevailed regarding the wages paid. Such a pittance don't keep body and soul together! Said to Hilda, an intelligent, bright-eyed girl of about twenty, who appeared to be a leading spirit among the little company. I'd like Steen himself to be portioned out by it, for a month or two. Perhaps it might open his crab-jew-heart a little. It would be a good thing if he could be made to go to work, with pen and paper, and figure out how a poor girl is to live on it. Let him put down, in black and white, the cost of lodging and of board, with clothes and fuel, and bring the amount anywhere near the money that can be made by working for him. Look, too, what it costs us in shoes if we trot back and forth to his store. Or what car-pay comes to, if we live so far off we can't walk. I keep a strict account of all I get and all I spend, and I know exactly what a girl can do on Steen's pay. I know that one pair of good boots will last me just eight weeks, and I'm not so hard on my shoes as many another. So there's over two shillings a week for boots alone at present prices, and that's only one out of many things to be settled for. I tell you, Hilda Ross, I look with pity on every girl that gets into the clutches of this Steen. I've seen more girls get broken down and ruined at his work than at any others, and I worked three years before I came to him, and have only been with him thirteen months. I've only worked at Lellerman before, said Hilda, and I thought him bad enough, but this Steen is worse. I've heard plenty of Lellerman, too, was the reply. I've heard plenty of them all. I know them out and out. But why is it the sewing girls can't make these men do better by them? Asked Hilda. Suppose they were to refuse to work but for better wages. Wouldn't that settle it? Yes, but for the crowds of women and girls wanting work so badly that they'll take it at any price. If all would act together and could afford to starve till their employers were forced into decent terms it would work well enough. But unfortunately we all have to eat and drink and must have a place to lay our heads in, so there's no forcing them into amend. They'll be a mighty day of reckoning for these men, exclaimed Hilda, a sudden fire in her eye. If all the evil there the cause of is put down against them, and why won't it be? Isn't God looking on? Why, where will they stand? Tell me that now. Where will they stand? Hilda's companion regarded her with surprise. Your irregular little go-ahead one, she said, and have eyes and ears for everything. I like that. I wish more of the girls were so. Instead of being the easy, weak sort they are, they sit crying over their work day and night, taking everything as it comes, as if there was nothing for them to do but to take it. Poor things, because they've been at it so long that their hearts and souls are crushed out of them. Do you believe all the heart and soul could be crushed out of you or me? Asked her companion. I tell you no. Oh, Hilda Ross, what a thing it would be if there were an army of women and girls like you and me in Chicago. Something might be done then, something would be done. And let me tell you, if anything ever is done for the poor sowing women of this town, it's the sowing women themselves will have to do it. And maybe this something will be done. She added, looking curiously at Hilda. Maybe even the poor, sickly crushed set we have at Steens will get their courage up for trying it. It will be a little matter to be sure, a little matter to succeed or fail in many would say, but it may be the first stone rolled that brings down a mountain. Some have said not to speak to you about it, because you are a new hand, but I know you may be trusted and that you're of the sort we want. She then went on to explain that there was a strike actually in contemplation, and that this was something entirely new in the course of sowing women and in the experience of their employers. Say nothing about it, she said in conclusion. If Steen gets to know of it before it's actually commenced, he has the whip hand of us. The greater surprise it comes to him, the better. Suppose it's altogether a surprise. Do you expect much from it? asked Hilda, whose interest was aroused by the relation. It's impossible to tell what may come of it, was the reply. Steen's a man without a soul, but then, like all such men, he's a rank-coward at heart, and may be willing to come to reason rather than have the whole thing brought against him. For however it appears that we poor sowing girls are overlooked with our troubles by the community, there is, every once in a while, an interest excited for us, and even some talk of doing something to better our condition. God knows it needs bettering. Of course, you've heard of the affair of Peggy Bonner and Roxy Billings. No, what was it? I thought Harriet Prince might have told you, as she was intimate with poor Peggy and Roxy. I ought to have begun by telling you about them. For the truth of it is, it's the very thing that's roused the girls to the point of this strike. Roxy and Peggy were cousins, and lived like sisters together. They rented a little room on the lower end of Lincoln Street and boarded themselves. They could only live by a regular scratching through, like the rest of us, and Roxy, who was a delicate girl, soon began to sink under it. They had never worked so hard till they came to Steen's, because Peggy had had a mother living with a life interest in quite a nice little property, and this mother had brought up Roxy, who was a sister's child, like her own, and they all lived comfortably together, the girls doing the work of the house. Fortunately, they had a good sewing machine, and when Mrs. Bonner died, and someone else came in for the money they had all lived on, they began to work at sewing for a living. Then they came to Steen's to work. As I was telling you, Roxy was delicate, and after a while she got into such poor health that she had some times to stay at home for a day, or maybe two or three days together. She couldn't sit to her sewing machine, you see, she was so weak. By and by, she got so much worse that Peggy had to stay home sometimes with her. Then Steen threatened to dismiss Peggy, making out he didn't believe she was nursing her cousin, but taking holidays for amusement. Amusement, indeed. I'd like to know where she'd have found heart or money for amusement, so near ruin and starvation. At last, after a great deal of threatening and trouble, Steen generously consented, as the poor girls had been working for him for nearly two years, and didn't they deserve something for standing by him that long at his prices? He consented, I say, that Peggy should work for him at home, but brought down the price from that he paid at the store to two-thirds only. How these two poor girls had supported themselves long as they had is a mystery to those that put two and two together, and that know that bread doesn't come like manna from the clouds, and shoes and calico dresses don't grow on trees. Maybe they were helped by some of those who claim a price to be paid in another world as well as this. They were open to suspicion, since they did live, and were not yet reduced to their last rag, so some whispered it of them. But, if it were so, was the fault all theirs? Hilda Ross, was it? I'd put that question to myself again and again, and from my heart, lighted by the best knowledge I have of right and wrong, there has come this answer. The deadliest weight of the sin is on those who drove them to it. If a poor beast is driven into water and kept there, is it his fault if he drowns? Then how is it with these poor girls? I tell you, Hilda Ross, starvation, cold, and rags are hard things to face, even when in the distance. Harder still to bear when they are upon you, and when there are those at hand who tend the aid which is ruin, poor human nature has to be hedged in with a good deal of the angel to stand it. See, I have decent clothes, and so have I a decent home, and enough, in reason, to eat and drink. But how have I these? Why, because I have two good brothers who let me spend what I make on my clothes, or as I choose, not taking board of me, though I have no time with my sewing to keep house for them. But does that make Steen's prices better? Does it make it easier for others to live on them? Indeed it doesn't, replied Hilda. But you haven't finished about Peggy and Roxy. Well, the finishing is near at hand. These poor girls went on long as they could, suffering and suffering, without complaint too, for they were of the spiritless patience sort we were speaking of, till one day a person in the house, remarking that she hadn't seen them about since the day before, went to their room, and there found both the poor things dead. Dead, repeated Hilda, her cheeks and lips quite pale. Yes, dead of cold and neglect, the one stiffened upon her bed, the other at her sewing machine. Probably Roxy died first, and without her cousin knowing what had happened. But it was plain poor Peggy had been trying to get through her night work, for she often sewed night as well as day, to earn her pitons for the morrow. It was an intensely cold spell, and she had used up her coal, the last was found in the little stove burned to ashes, and working in that bitter cold was more than life could stand. It was said there was an aid society going to do something for them, or talking about doing something for them, and that it was the work promised by these ladies poor Peggy was looking for from day to day. But I don't know. Anyhow, nothing was done for them, and that cold night ended all their troubles. There should be another great hood to write a story about that girl, Hilda, and it should be called, Dying on her post. For wasn't it so? Just as the oil of her sewing machine was frozen, so was the blood in her veins, still and dead. I have heard and known of strange and sad things about sewing girls, but never anything so sad and terrible as this of Peggy and Roxy. There was trouble taken to keep it out of the papers, and it was kept out, but it got to be known to a good many besides Steen's people for all that. When did it happen? questioned Hilda in a whisper. Late last February it made a great stir at Steen's, with all his trying to keep it down, and this business of the strike has been working ever since. It ought to have come right upon it. But there are always slow coaches on these things. I believe if the strike had come at the right time it would have made its mark for every sewing woman in Chicago. But better late than never. Our little affair may come to something last as well as first. By the time Debbie Curtis had finished her relation, she and Hilda found themselves at the home of the latter, for it was during their walk from their place of work that the relation was made. They parted almost in silence, Hilda so much impressed by the melancholy story of poor Peggy and Roxy that she could think or speak of nothing else during the remainder of the evening. The whole of it was repeated to Mabel, with exception of the contemplated strike which was the result, this for private reasons she determined to keep to herself. The story of Peggy and Roxy haunted Hilda's sleeping as well as waking thoughts. She dreamed she was present in the room of the poor girls on that night of terrible cold, though in a condition that left her no power of motion or even ability to make a cry. She knew what was happening, knew what was about to happen, yet was without power to assist in any way the unfortunate cousins. Still, with a sort of fascination which was terrible to her, the scene before her engaged all her attention, and particularly was her interest fixed upon the poor girl who was about to be overtaken by death while busy at the instrument which had been her means of livelihood. To the dreamers fancy, it seemed that the sewing machine was a thing of life, like poor Peggy herself, and that it struggled like her for the vital spark which was departing from it. The oil of the machine was frozen, like the blood in her veins, both cold and stiff, Debbie Curtis had said. To Hilda's fancy it was all blood, springing, running, deep red blood, contending with the icy chills which were stealing around it. She was agonizingly conscious of the whole scene, though at the same time quite insensible to any personal inconvenience from the cold. She heard the whir and click of the machine and saw the busy wheels run and the treadle rock. She saw the hands of the toilet too, plying busily her work, striving, it seemed, by rapid motion to fight off the enemy that had marked her for his own. The fire got lower, the room chillier, the hands stayed and bungled over their work, the running gear of the machine became clogged. Then an icy, icy coldness filled the room, it fell everywhere, it turned to icicles the breath of the workwoman. A stone-like stillness crept over her, the sound and motion of the machine were over. Life had departed from both. Peggy had died at her post. CHAPTER 17 THE STRIKE It was a day or two later, and the sewing women and girls in Steen's employ were collected at the place of their labours. All had come punctually to the hour, not a few in advance of it. A different appearance from the usual might have been observed about each and all of these poor women today, for once the look of stolid indifference, that outward sign of crushed hopes and exhausted energies common with most of them, had given place to a something like expression of feeling. Some countenances wore a look of determination and strength, others of anxiety and weakness, even of fear. Some eyes flashed brightly and hopefully, others drooped despondently, a few even tearfully. No bonnets or hats were taken off, none divested themselves of the outside covering they wore. But leaving untouched the machines, which were generally the first objects of interest, they gathered together in a group, conversing in low tones, and apparently awaiting the coming of someone, for many were the glances cast in direction of the inner door. That someone came at last. It was the foreman, a person considerably younger than Steen himself, but one, in his own way, not less unprepossessing in his appearance. The moment he appeared, Debbie walked up to him. Mr. Levi, she said, We shall work no longer for Mr. Steen at his present wages. The winter is coming on, and the price of everything rising with every day. And unless Mr. Steen allows us better wages, something we can live by, every woman and girl employed in this room will leave at once, and never come back to him. Mr. Levi stared at her, then ran his eye over the group standing, all attention, a little way off. His countenance expressed slight surprise, nothing more. He will find plenty of others to come, he then said, bringing up once more with his eyes upon Debbie. You know that, Debbie Curtis. Plenty may come and plenty may go too, rejoined Debbie with concentrated feeling, and his busy time may be ruined by it. I'll engage he'll find no others to stay as we have done. Some of these, glancing round at her companions, have been working for him these two years. I myself have been taking his niggerly pay for nearly fourteen months, and Peggy Bonner and Roxy Billings would have been with him two years and four months this day if he hadn't frozen them up. None of the rest of us want to be frozen to death by him, nor to die in any other way by his hands. We want to live, and to live by our work. While we spend every minute of ten hours a day for him, he owes us a living, and has got to give it to us. All we want with you is to tell him so, and to tell him just as you heard it. Certainly I will tell him, was the reply, in the same unimpassioned tone as before. It is not very difficult to do that, and the undemonstrative foreman quietly left the room. For a moment after his departure, not a word was spoken by the women, then Debbie suddenly broke the silence to say, Margaret Klein, move back! I can stand alone at this work. Now, Margaret Klein was the woman who had volunteered to stand second to Debbie, and for whose reappearance at her place of labour the strike had, for some time, been postponed. What's the trouble? she asked, in a voice that she vainly strove to steady. Ain't I ready to do all I promised? No, for you can't do it, rejoined Debbie. Poor girl, this sitting up with your mother's been too much for you. You're sick yourself today. Margaret put her hands over her eyes and silently wept. Debbie Curtis was right. She was sick. Not only sick, but hungry. For the time lost through nursing her mother had given opportunity for starvation to enter the house. She had no heart for the strike today. I haven't been nursing or sitting up with anyone, said Hilda, pushing forward to Debbie's side. And just what I'd like is to stand by you, Debbie Curtis, shall I? Debbie's only reply was to press the hand which Hilda, while speaking, had slipped into her own. For at that moment, Steen himself appeared in the room, followed by his passive foreman. Approaching the two girls, Debbie and Hilda, who stood somewhat in advance of the others, he said, What is this my foreman tells me, Debbie Curtis? You ask for higher wages? With great self-command, Debbie repeated what she had said to the foreman, and nearly as possible in the same words. If the allusion to the melancholy fate of Peggy and Roxy touched the man in any way, he gave no intimation of it, but passed it over in silence. I do business for twelve years in Chicago, he said with an ugly scowl, and this is the first time a thing like this happened, and it is for me to make one example of it. I know right well how to start. I know that it is juan, two, maybe three girls, that ish dissatisfied, and they work up the rest to help on the trouble, but it will do no good, but only harm. My price is fair price, and plenty will work for it. Never will I choose to have any work for me, but that is satisfied. Satisfied, exclaimed Hilda, her temper rising upon this cool retort of her employer. Where will you find a girl satisfied with wages not fit for a dog? Were poor Peggy and Roxy satisfied? Did the miserable way those poor girls died speak up for your fair prices? Then suddenly getting her temper again under command. In a changed tone, she added, Mr. Steen, we ask for justice and fairness, nothing more. We are sowing women, and sowing women are expected to live by their work. Now we have one and all found we cannot live on what you pay us, so beg you to do better by us. That you may be quite satisfied of the truth of what we say we have made up a list of a poor girl's necessary expenses, absolutely necessary ones only you understand, and have brought it to you, signed by all these girls and women present. If you would only take a look at it, you would see how far it goes beyond the weekly wages you pay us. As she concluded these words, Hilda took a paper from the hand of Debbie and offered it to their employer. Surprise only had so long kept the man silent, surprise at the prompt and determined address of a girl who was not only the youngest present but so much of a stranger in his employ, but his anger, if for a while held back, was not the less positive when it asserted itself. I not look at it, he cried, impatiently waving aside the paper. I have nothing to do with expenses you choose to have. I simply want to pay fair price, and I do pay fair price, and so it is to stand. If you all have made up your mind to go, if there is nothing better for staying, then go, if there is nothing better for staying. I have but one thing to do myself, and that is to pay a fair price. Mr. Steen, here resolutely put in Hilda, if you really wish to pay fair prices, why not look over the paper? You will find that with boots at two seventy-five and calico thirty-five cents a yard. That is none of my business! Irrately interrupted, Steen. My business is only to pay fair prices, and it is your business to make the fair price cover the expense of living. Plenty of women in Chicago willing to work for me, and that is proof my price is fair price. It is proof that Chicago is filled with hard, cruel men like yourself. Retorted Debbie, her eyes flashing with indignation in the very face of the person she addressed. Men that grind down poor sewing women in their employ to the last farthing, and the bitter struggle these poor women have to live, is proof that God's anger will some time be wreaked upon you all. That is enough, Cooley returned, Steen. I don't choose more. You can all go, right this minute. But I tell you, you'll be coming back again, asking to do my work, every one of you. But there is that too shall never get work when they come back. No, not if they starve. And that is Debbie Curtis and Hilda Ross. Those two shall never show themselves here again. Having delivered himself of these words, giving particular emphasis to the prohibition upon Debbie and Hilda, Steen left the sewing-room, followed as when he had entered it by the foreman. The women and girls hung together for a while, whispering their indignation, their disappointment, and their anxieties, then quietly passed downstairs and out of the store, seeing nothing further of either of the men. It's ended in nothing, said Debbie, soon as she and Hilda were together in the street. Yet I'd do it again, sure of its ending just the same. There's not a bit of spirit taken out of me. Is there out of you, Hilda Ross? No, was the reply, in a more assured tone than her companion had probably looked for, for Debbie had noticed a look of grave concern upon the countenance of Hilda. I feel we've done right, come what may of it. The worst that can come of it is two of us being without a place for a while, rejoined Debbie, but to be sure, that would be a big matter to many. She paused and looked gravely into the face of Hilda. Maybe it's a big matter to you, she said. It is, replied Hilda, choking down a sob. It's a great matter, because of my poor little sister, who is helpless as a baby through a hurt from a fall. And of my good elder sister, who has such a hard time to make both ends meet for us all. I feel my heart sink at the thought of going home to say I have lost my place at Steens. Poor girl! Oh, I don't know that I can altogether say I would do it again if it was undone. You blame me, Hilda Ross, in your heart you do. You must blame me. I blame no living being but Steen, replied Hilda, in reason there's no one else to blame. That's all I ask, rejoined Debbie. Keep up your spirits, Hilda, child, and the bright day may come for us at last. A strike among sewing hands is a new thing in Chicago, and when Steen comes to think of it and some others to hear of it, good may grow out of it, all the good we looked for. They, soon after this, arrived at the parting place. Go to your sisters with as light a heart as you can. Then said Debbie, for I shall try and do something for you. If the rest are driven to go back to Steen he will take them, and it can't be at lower wages than they've been getting, so they're no worse off than before. I'll use my time in hunting up work for us both, and I promise you, if I get but one place you shall have it. I can better afford to lose time than you, Hilda Ross, so you shall have work first. Hilda pressed in silence the hand extended her, then hurried homeward. The first sound that greeted her upon entering the room was the moaning of Little Lily. The poor child was laboring under one of those paroxysms of pain, from which she had latterly been almost exempt, and though the soothing morphine had already been administered by Mabel, her suffering was acute. Sad was it to see the pale face with its wand and pinched features distorted with pain, and to hear the feeble voice raised in bitter wailing. Mabel hung over the pillow of the little sufferer, soothing the best she could with kind words, while the tears which coursed over her cheeks told all she was suffering at the sight of the little one's agony. Every look and every moan of the child came like a reproach to Hilda, and she shrunk away to herself with feelings of wretchedness and self-condemnation. She had gone from home that morning, her heart filled with hope of bringing cheering tidings on her return. She had figured to herself Steen succumbing to a necessity forced upon him, and raising the wages of his hands to the really fair price that he affected to believe he paid. But alas, it was the reverse of this picture that was before her. The strike was a failure, and she had lost the place which, after several days' search, was the only one attainable, and the small pay of which was, at least, better than nothing. She dreaded to tell Mabel, poor Mabel, already distressed at this bad turn of little Lilies, yet was impatient to have it told and to know what her sister would say. Hilda was not one to shield herself under false representations, and when the moment for the disclosure came, Mabel received the story without an attempt upon the narrator to make the part she had herself taken in it appear any better than it was. Mabel was grieved, but seeing Hilda's distress said little as she could to add to it. I hope your new friend will succeed in finding you a place, she observed. But for the present, I am not sorry to have you home to help with poor little Lily. Poor child, these dreadful spells of pain take all my attention, yet it is absolutely necessary I make progress with my work. If I understood vest-making, or if I wasn't so stupid about learning things, said Hilda, I could do well by staying at home, for I might be basting in making buttonholes while you are at the machine. But you don't understand it, replied her sister, so something else must be found for you. Hilda repeated the encouragement held out to her by Debbie Curtis. She is a good kind girl, she said, and will act up to her word with me. She's been at the sewing business for years and understands a good deal more than I do about hunting up work, so I can safely leave it to her, and stay at home to help you with dear Lily. End of Chapter 17. Chapter 18 of Mabel Ross, The Sewing Girl. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 18 Good Angels The next morning, Hilda made preparation to be off early for some needful household purchases. I wish I had stayed at Steens long enough to earn a pair of boots, she said, as she fastened on the overworn ones which she and Mabel had cobbled up. Think that I was working for that man nearly a week, and didn't even make a pair of boots. Little Lily was somewhat better this morning, and reclined, propped a little on her pillows, while she dressed and undressed her doll. Bent on giving the child an agreeable surprise, Mabel had spent a while before retiring the night before in making a pair of neat boots for Miss Dolly, whose necessities in this respect had hitherto been quite overlooked. Lily happened to be engaged in putting upon Dolly's little feet for about the twentieth time since waking, those same pretty boots, when Hilda made the foregoing remark, I wish you had a good angel to make you a pair of new boots overnight, Hilda, like my Dolly has, she said, suddenly pausing in her employment and looking affectionately at her sister. Mabel's my good angel, and Dolly's too, and where would we either of us be without her? You'd be where I would be without her, exclaimed Hilda, in rags and without a home. Oh, Mabel, why am I such a useless quad as I am? Worse, a good deal worse than if I wasn't. The hat she had been about putting on was thrown from her hand, and burying her face in the corner she wept and moaned as though a new misfortune had come to her. Mabel looked up from her basting, surprised at the sudden outbreak. Don't talk in that unhappy way, Hilda, she said, and don't cry so. You are everything to me, my companion and my solace. You cannot think how sadly I see you go from us, and with what pleasure I look for your return. Yes, with such news as I brought you last evening, groaned the unhappy girl. Oh, Mabel, the terrible thoughts and dreams I had all night because of that business at Steens has made me perfectly miserable today. There's no use denying it. I'm a wretched clog at your heels, and I had such hopes of helping you and Lily when I first came to you. But now they're all faded out. Worse than faded out. It's hard that, with every wish to be of use to you, I'm to be a mean clog for ever. It makes me hate myself. It fairly makes me hate the bright light of day. With her countenance wearing a look of grave concern, little Lily rebukingly put up her fingers. Oh, Hilda! she said, in the solemn tone she sometimes used. How can you expect any good angel will come to you overnight, if you talk that way? Then, suddenly changing her tone, she added, But yes, Hilda, dear, there's a good angel pities you so much she'll forgive you, even if you do forget, once in a while, because you're unhappy. Dear, dear mother's that angel, in a whisper, and she's with us all the time. Oh, I want to believe it, Lily. Well, Hilda, you may believe it. She's with me when I'm in pain, and she often whispers things to me that make me feel better. Sometimes, you know, I forget, like you do, and I get cross and complaining, and don't think for dear Mabel as I ought. Then, that good angel keeps a little off, and I know I've troubled her, and feel ever so sorry. By and by she comes round again, and she forgives me, and says sweet things to me, and I say to her, I say it down here, putting her hand on her heart. I say, how sorry I am, and how I'm going to try, next time the pains on me, to be more patient, and more kind and thoughtful for poor Mabel. You're a sweet, dear little angel yourself, cried Hilda, affectionately kissing her, and the wonder is, I can be so bad with such good people about me as you and Mabel. There's a black sheep in every flock, they say, Mabel. She added, with a forced laugh, and I'm the black sheep in the Ross flock. You and Minnie and dear little Lily are as white and pure as the good shepherd wants, but I'm black, black and ugly and ill-contrived. There was no one of the sisters could compare in beauty with Hilda, as she looked that moment, her dark eyes flashing from under her hat, and her lips and cheeks flushed with her recent weeping. Mabel appreciated all this, and looked affectionately and proudly upon her. Don't talk of ugliness, without or within Hilda, she said, as the latter approached to give her a parting kiss. God has blessed you with a good heart, and made the heart speak in your face. Nor is there a black sheep in that good shepherd's fold, all he claims as his own are white and pure. Hilda stayed on her errand considerably longer than her sister expected, so long indeed that the latter began to be quite anxious about her. At length she returned. Every step she took, from first entering the house, was clearly audible to Mabel and Lily through the firm tramp made by what was, beyond doubt, a new pair of boots on her feet. In fact, so unquestionable was the sound that both her sisters doubted whether the person approaching was indeed the Hilda who, almost bootless, had left them some hour and a half before, and these doubts were only entirely put to rest by the actual appearance in the room of the young girl herself. She didn't hurry joyfully to their presence, however, but walked leisurely in, a look of depression very discernible about her. Dear Hilda, a new pair of boots! cried little Lily, dropping her doll and clapping her hands together. A good angel has given them to you, I'm sure. Hilda did not reply. She was slowly putting from her the little packages she had procured for Mabel. She then took off her hat and shawl and threw herself in the armchair by the window, her eyes, all the time, fixed upon Mabel. A glance of the latter at the feet of her sister had assured her that the boots Hilda wore were not only new, but such as she had had no thought of purchasing, being of quite a superior finish and, of course, of a higher price. How is it, Hilda? she asked. Mabel's cheek was pale, and she had brought her sewing machine to sudden silence. How, my sister, have you got your boots? Lily says it was a good angel gave them to me, replied the odd girl, and I think she's right. I trust so, Hilda, but tell me, my dear sister, put me out of anxiety if you can? Hilda regarded Mabel in silence. The former looked sad indeed, and on her cheek were traces of recent tears. But there was no appearance of emotion about her now. She was plainly in one of those quiet, unimpassioned moods which, with her, generally followed on a period of unusual agitation. In these it always happened that her mind was the clearest and her reason most positively asserted itself. If I can—she repeated—I have got at your thought, Mabel, and no wonder you look so pale and strange. I, too, have heard of these things, of poor girls being persuaded to take something for decent covering from, well, from no good angels, and by and by having a dear price to pay for them. But it was from none such as these I got my boots. Look, ain't they good and pretty ones? But from a kind, good soul, who really deserves to be called the angel Lily says. But you mustn't expect to hear of further success than my boots, she added with a sigh, for there is the end of all the good which has happened to me this morning. She then proceeded to relate that she had gone to see Debbie Curtis, hoping she might have done something toward finding work for her. Debbie had unlooked for misfortunes of her own to relate. Her elder brother had volunteered, and the younger one been drafted. Thus she was about to be parted from both, the regiments to which they were severally attached, being expected to leave Chicago in a very few days. During their stay with the army, Debbie was to live with an aunt, who had been keeping house for them all, and she was to endeavor to make her wages cover a portion of the housekeeping expenses. I was busy all yesterday afternoon looking for work, Debbie continued, having gotten through with her story. For I was determined to do my best to keep things going at home, now the boys will be off. They'll have money to send us while they live, but then they may be killed or wounded, or they may come home crippled or sick and be in need of all they can save and all I can make. Joe gave me twenty dollars of his bounty money, and I'm going to lay it by for a rainy day. All, that is, but a few dollars I have spent for a poor girl that needs them more than I do. She then related her experiences of the previous afternoon, which had ended in her engaging a place for herself in Lyne's sale loft, and another conditionally for Hilda, that is, it was open to the latter if she chose to take it. The pay, Debbie said, was about what they got at Steens, but the work harder, she feared, than any they had yet done. But as there was no choice of work just now, she had thought it well to secure these places rather than nothing. She proposed they should go together the next morning to the sale loft, to which Hilda agreed, provided Lily was well enough for her to be spared from home. Debbie next produced a pair of new boots, and proposed to Hilda that she should try them on. This was done, and the boots proved to be an excellent fit. They're not exactly the sort you were going to buy with your first pay from Steens. Debbie then remarked, but they will answer you better. I got them for you, Hilda, and you must keep them. Great indeed was Hilda's surprise, but delighted as she was with the boots, she unhesitantly declined accepting them, until they were so pressed upon her by the generous Debbie that she sought to refuse longer would be to give offence. No words can say how much I'm obliged to that good Debbie, said Hilda to Mabel in conclusion, but say, Mabel, was I right to take them? Mabel was deeply touched at this proof of kindness from a stranger. I cannot say you were wrong, she replied, but should the time come, Hilda, and pray God it may. When you may make return to this good girl for her gift, you must be as determined of her acceptance as she was of yours. That's the way I've settled it to myself, rejoined Hilda, and the thing I shall be happy to do. But Mabel, the taking of these boots has made me feel as I never did before. Debbie is a poor girl herself, and is going to begin tomorrow on the hardest sort of sewing she has ever done. Yet when I saw her so determined to have me take her present, I couldn't be half so determined not to take it. I did so want the boots. Tell me, Mabel, did it look mean and selfish? Will she think less of me than if I had stood firmly to refusing them? You wanted them, Hilda, wanted them badly, and Debbie knew it and felt for you. If you know in your own heart you could do as much for her or for another, rest satisfied to enjoy the gift, and hope for the time to come when you can make a fitting return. Tears were running down Mabel's cheeks, and she was obliged to stop and brush them away as she worked. I wouldn't feel badly about taking anything from a good angel. Now put in little Lily, who had listened with strict attention to what passed between her sisters. And I think this good sewing girl is a good angel, and was sent by God, like other good angels are. I don't see why you look so sorry, Hilda, and why Mabel cries so. There, her tears drop right down on the sewing machine. I should think Hilda would just make much of her pretty boots, that'll let no more stones and water into her feet, and be happy as can be. Mabel and Hilda looked at each other, and the look was presently followed by a smile from each. Dear simple child, said Hilda, she can rebuke even you, Mabel, wise and good as you are. These words were said Sorovoce to the elder sister, having then changed her new boots for the old slippers she wore at home, Hilda carried the former to Lily, and laid them on the bed beside her for the little girl's inspection. My beautiful new boots, Lily dear, that as you say, God has kindly sent me by a good angel. She said, and that I'm going to think twice as much of as anything else I ever had to put on. See what pretty neat ones they are, and what good, thick souls they have. I am as grateful and happy, dear Lily, as you were this morning over little dolly shoes, and I want you to know that I am. Oh, the good angels, the good angels' child, what would we be on earth without them?