Of course there are two sides to the question. Let us look at the other. We often hear shop-girls spoken of. No such persons exist. There are girls who work in shops. They make their living that way. But why turn their occupation into an adjective? Let us be fair. We do not refer to the girls who live on Fifth Avenue as marriage-girls.
Lou and Nancy were chums. They came to the big city to find work because there was not enough to eat at their homes to go around. Nancy was nineteen; Lou was twenty. Both were pretty, active, country girls who had no ambition to go on the stage.
The little cherub that sits up aloft guided them to a cheap and respectable boarding-house. Both found positions and became wage-earners. They remained chums. It is at the end of six months that I would beg you to step forward and be introduced to them. Meddlesome Reader: My Lady Friends, Miss Nancy and Miss Lou. While you are shaking hands please take noticecautiouslyof their attire. Yes, cautiously; for they are as quick to resent a stare as a lady in a box at the horse show is.
Lou is a piece-work ironer in a hand laundry. She is clothed in a badly-fitting purple dress, and her hat plume is four inches too long; but her ermine muff and scarf cost $25, and its fellow beasts will be ticketed in the windows at $7.98 before the season is over. Her cheeks are pink, and her light-blue eyes bright. Contentment radiates from her.
Nancy you would call a shop-girlbecause you have the habit. There is no type; but a perverse generation is always seeking a type; so this is what the type should be. She has the high-ratted pompadour, and the exaggerated straight-front. Her skirt is shoddy, but has the correct flair. No furs protect her against the bitter spring air, but she wears her short broadcloth jacket as jauntily as though it were Persian lamb! On her face and in her eyes, remorseless type-seeker, is the typical shop-girl expression. It is a look of silent but contemptuous revolt against cheated womanhood; of sad prophecy of the vengeance to come. When she laughs her loudest the look is still there. The same look can be seen in the eyes of Russian peasants; and those of us left will see it some day on Gabriels face when he comes to blow us up. It is a look that should wither and abash man; but he has been known to smirk at it and offer flowerswith a string tied to them.
Now lift your hat and come away, while you receive Lous cheery See you again, and the sardonic, sweet smile of Nancy that seems, somehow, to miss you and go fluttering like a white moth up over the house-tops to the stars.
The two waited on the corner for Dan. Dan was Lous steady company? Faithful? Well he was on hand when Mary would have had to hire a dozen subpna servers to find her lamb.
Aint you cold, Nance? said Lou. Say, what a chump you are for working in that old store for $8 a week! I made $18.50 last week. Of course ironing aint as swell work as selling lace behind a counter, but it pays. None of us ironers make less than $10. And I dont know that its any less respectful work, either.
You can have it, said Nancy, with uplifted nose. Ill take my eight a week and hall bedroom. I like to be among nice things and swell people. And look what a chance Ive got! Why, one of our glove girls married a Pittsburgsteel maker, or blacksmith, or somethingthe other day worth a million dollars. Ill catch a swell myself some time. I aint bragging on my looks or anything; but Ill take my chances where theres big prizes offered. What show would a girl have in a laundry?
Why, thats where I met Dan, said Lou triumphantly. He came in for his Sunday shirt and collars and saw me at the first board, ironing. We all try to get to work at the first board. Ella Maginnis was sick that day, and I had her place. He said he noticed my arms first, how round and white they was. I had my sleeves rolled up. Some nice fellows come into laundries. You can tell em by their bringing their clothes in suit-cases, and turning in the door sharp and sudden.
How can you wear a waist like that, Lou? said Nancy, gazing down at the offending article with sweet scorn in her heavy-lidded eyes. It shows fierce taste.
This waist? cried Lou, with wide-eyed indignation. Why, I paid $16 for this waist. Its worth twenty-five. A woman left it to be laundered, and never called for it. The boss sold it to me. Its got yards and yards of hand embroidery on it. Better talk about that ugly, plain thing youve got on.
This ugly, plain thing, said Nancy calmly, was copied from one that Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher was wearing. The girls say her bill in the store last year was $12,000. I made mine myself. It cost me $1.50. Ten feet away you couldnt tell it from hers.
Oh, well, said Lou good-naturedly, if you want to starve and put on airs, go ahead. But Ill take my job and good wages; and after hours give me something as fancy and attractive to wear as I am able to buy.
But just then Dan camea serious young man with a ready-made necktie, who had escaped the citys brand of frivolityan electrician earning $30 per week who looked upon Lou with the sad eyes of Romeo, and thought her embroidered waist a web in which any fly should delight to be caught.
My friend, Mr. Owensshakehands with Miss Danforth, said Lou.
Im mighty glad to know you, Miss Danforth, said Dan, with outstretched hand. Ive heard Lou speak of you so often.
Thanks, said Nancy, touching his fingers with the tips of her cool ones, Ive heard her mention youa few times.
Lou giggled.
Did you get that handshake from Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher, Nance? she asked.
If I did, you can feel safe in copying it, said Nancy.
Oh, I couldnt use it at all. Its too stylish for me. Its intended to set off diamond rings, that high shake is. Wait till I get a few and then Ill try it.
Learn it first, said Nancy wisely, and youll be more likely to get the rings.
Now, to settle this argument, said Dan with his ready, cheerful smile, let me make a proposition. As I cant take both of you up to Tiffanys and do the right thing, what do you say to a little vaudeville? Ive got the tickets. How about looking at stage diamonds since we cant shake hands with the real sparklers?
The faithful squire took his place close to the curb; Lou next, a little peacocky in her bright and pretty clothes; Nancy on the inside, slender, and soberly clothed as the sparrow, but with the true Van Alstyne Fisher walkthus they set out for their evenings moderate diversion.
I do not suppose that many look upon a great department store as an educational institution. But the one in which Nancy worked was something like that to her. She was surrounded by beautiful things that breathed of taste and refinement. If you live in an atmosphere of luxury, luxury is yours whether your money pays for it, or anothers.
The people she served were mostly women whose dress, manners, and position in the social world were quoted as criterions. From them Nancy began to take tollthe best from each according to her view.
From one she would copy and practise a gesture, from another an eloquent lifting of an eyebrow, from others, a manner of walking, of carrying a purse, of smiling, of greeting a friend, of addressing inferiors in station. From her best beloved model, Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher, she made requisition for that excellent thing, a soft, low voice as clear as silver and as perfect in articulation as the notes of a thrush. Suffused in the aura of this high social refinement and good breeding, it was impossible for her to escape a deeper effect of it. As good habits are said to be better than good principles, so, perhaps, good manners are better than good habits. The teachings of your parents may not keep alive your New England conscience; but if you sit on a straight-back chair and repeat the words prisms and pilgrims forty times the devil will flee from you. And when Nancy spoke in the Van Alstyne Fisher tones she felt the thrill of noblesse oblige to her very bones.
There was another source of learning in the great departmental school. Whenever you see three or four shop-girls gather in a bunch and jingle their wire bracelets as an accompaniment to apparently frivolous conversation, do not think that they are there for the purpose of criticising the way Ethel does her back hair. The meeting may lack the dignity of the deliberate bodies of man; but it has all the importance of the occasion on which Eve and her first daughter first put their heads together to make Adam understand his proper place in the household. It is Womans Conference for Common Defence and Exchange of Strategical Theories of Attack and Repulse upon and against the World, which is a Stage, and Man, its Audience who Persists in Throwing Bouquets Thereupon. Woman, the most helpless of the young of any animalwith the fawns grace but without its fleetness; with the birds beauty but without its power of flight; with the honey bees burden of sweetness but without itsOh, lets drop that similesome of us may have been stung.
During this council of war they pass weapons one to another, and exchange stratagems that each has devised and formulated out of the tactics of life.
I says to im, says Sadie, aint you the fresh thing! Who do you suppose I am, to be addressing such a remark to me? And what do you think he says back to me?
The heads, brown, black, flaxen, red, and yellow bob together; the answer is given; and the parry to the thrust is decided upon, to be used by each thereafter in passages-at-arms with the common enemy, man.
Thus Nancy learned the art of defence; and to women successful defence means victory.
The curriculum of a department store is a wide one. Perhaps no other college could have fitted her as well for her lifes ambitionthe drawing of a matrimonial prize.
Her station in the store was a favoured one. The music-room was near enough for her to hear and become familiar with the works of the best composersat least to acquire the familiarity that passed for appreciation in the social world in which she was vaguely trying to set a tentative and aspiring foot. She absorbed the educating influence of art wares, of costly and dainty fabrics, of adornments that are almost culture to women.
The other girls soon became aware of Nancys ambition. Here comes your millionaire, Nance, they would call to her whenever any man who looked the rôle approached her counter. It got to be a habit of men, who were hanging about while their women-folk were shopping, to stroll over to the handkerchief counter and dawdle over the cambric squares. Nancys imitation high-bred air and genuine dainty beauty was what attracted. Many men thus came to display their graces before her. Some of them may have been millionaires; others were certainly no more than their sedulous apes. Nancy learned to discriminate. There was a window at the end of the handkerchief counter; and she could see the rows of vehicles waiting for the shoppers in the street below. She looked, and perceived that automobiles differ as well as do their owners.
Once a fascinating gentleman bought four dozen handkerchiefs, and wooed her across the counter with a King Cophetua air. When he had gone, one of the girls said:
Whats wrong, Nance, that you didnt warm up to that fellow? He looks the swell article, all right, to me.
Him? said Nancy, with her coolest, sweetest, most impersonal, Van Alstyne Fisher smile; not for mine. I saw him drive up outside. A 12 H.P. machine and an Irish chauffeur! And you saw what kind of handkerchiefs he boughtsilk! And hes got dactylis on him. Give me the real thing or nothing, if you please.
Two of the most refined women in the storea forelady and a cashierhad a few swell gentlemen friends with whom they now and then dined. Once they included Nancy in an invitation. The dinner took place in a spectacular café whose tables are engaged for New Years Eve a year in advance. There were two gentlemen friendsone without any hair on his headhigh living ungrew it; and we can prove itthe other a young man whose worth and sophistication he impressed upon you in two convincing wayshe swore that all the wine was corked; and he wore diamond cuff buttons. This young man perceived irresistible excellences in Nancy. His taste ran to shop-girls; and here was one that added the voice and manner of his high social world to the franker charms of her own caste. So, on the following day, he appeared in the store and made her a serious proposal of marriage over a box of hemstitched, grass-bleached Irish linens. Nancy declined. A brown pompadour ten feet away had been using her eyes and ears. When the rejected suitor had gone she heaped carboys of upbraidings and horror upon Nancys head.
What a terrible little fool you are! That fellows a millionairehes a nephew of old Van Skittles himself. And he was talking on the level, too. Have you gone crazy, Nance?
Have I? said Nancy. I didnt take him, did I? He isnt a millionaire so hard that you could notice it, anyhow. His family only allows him $20,000 a year to spend. That bald-headed fellow was guying him about it the other night at supper.
The brown pompadour came nearer and narrowed her eyes.
Say, what do you want? she inquired, in a voice hoarse for lack of chewing-gum. Aint that enough for you? Do you want to be a Mormon, and marry Rockefeller and Gladstone Dowie and the King of Spain and the whole bunch? Aint $20,000 a year good enough for you?
Nancy flushed a little under the level gaze of the black, shallow eyes.
It wasnt altogether the money, Carrie, she explained. His friend caught him in a rank lie the other night at dinner. It was about some girl he said he hadnt been to the theatre with. Well, I cant stand a liar. Put everything togetherI dont like him; and that settles it. When I sell out its not going to be on any bargain day. Ive got to have something that sits up in a chair like a man, anyhow. Yes, Im looking out for a catch; but its got to be able to do something more than make a noise like a toy bank.
The physiopathic ward for yours! said the brown pompadour, walking away.
These high ideas, if not idealsNancy continued to cultivate on $8 per week. She bivouacked on the trail of the great unknown catch, eating her dry bread and tightening her belt day by day. On her face was the faint, soldierly, sweet grim smile of the preordained man-hunter. The store was her forest; and many times she raised her rifle at game that seemed broad-antlered and big; but always some deep unerring instinctperhaps of the hunteress, perhaps of the womanmade her hold her fire and take up the trail again.
Lou flourished in the laundry. Out of her $18.50 per week she paid $6 for her room and board. The rest went mainly for clothes. Her opportunities for bettering her taste and manners were few compared with Nancys. In the steaming laundry there was nothing but work, work and her thoughts of the evening pleasures to come. Many costly and showy fabrics passed under her iron; and it may be that her growing fondness for dress was thus transmitted to her through the conducting metal.
When the days work was over Dan awaited her outside, her faithful shadow in whatever light she stood.
Sometimes he cast an honest and troubled glance at Lous clothes that increased in conspicuity rather than in style; but this was no disloyalty; he deprecated the attention they called to her in the streets.
And Lou was no less faithful to her chum. There was a law that Nancy should go with them on whatsoever outings they might take. Dan bore the extra burden heartily and in good cheer. It might be said that Lou furnished the colour, Nancy the tone, and Dan the weight of the distraction-seeking trio. The escort, in his neat but obviously ready-made suit, his ready-made tie and unfailing, genial, ready-made wit never startled or clashed. He was of that good kind that you are likely to forget while they are present, but remember distinctly after they are gone.
To Nancys superior taste the flavour of these ready-made pleasures was sometimes a little bitter: but she was young; and youth is a gourmand, when it cannot be a gourmet.
Dan is always wanting me to marry him right away, Lou told her once. But why should I? Im independent. I can do as I please with the money I earn; and he never would agree for me to keep on working afterward. And say, Nance, what do you want to stick to that old store for, and half starve and half dress yourself? I could get you a place in the laundry right now if youd come. It seems to me that you could afford to be a little less stuck-up if you could make a good deal more money.
I dont think Im stuck up, Lou, said Nancy, but Id rather live on half-rations and stay where I am. I suppose Ive got the habit. Its the chance that I want. I dont expect to be always behind the counter. Im learning something new every day. Im right up against refined and rich people all the timeeven if I do only wait on them; and Im not missing any pointers that I see passing around.
Caught your millionaire yet? asked Lou, with her teasing laugh.
I havent selected one yet, answered Nancy. Ive been looking them over.
Goodness! the idea of picking over em! Dont you ever let one get by you, Nanceeven if hes a few dollars shy. But of course youre jokingmillionaires dont think about working girls like us.
It might be better for them if they did, said Nancy, with cool wisdom. Some of us could teach them how to take care of their money.
If one was to speak to me, laughed Lou, I know Id have a duck-fit.
Thats because you dont know any. The only difference between swells and other people is you have to watch em closer. Dont you think that red silk lining is just a little bit too bright for that coat, Lou?
Lou looked at the plain, dull olive jacket of her friend.
Well, no, I dontbut it may seem so beside that faded-looking thing youve got on.
This jacket, said Nancy complacently, has exactly the cut and fit of one that Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher was wearing the other day. The material cost me $3.98. I suppose hers cost about $100 more.
Oh, well, said Lou lightly, it dont strike me as millionaire bait. Shouldnt wonder if I catch one before you do, anyway.
Truly it would have taken a philosopher to decide upon the values of the theories held by the two friends. Lou, lacking that certain pride and fastidiousness that keeps stores and desks filled with girls working for the barest living, thumped away gaily with her iron in the noisy and stifling laundry. Her wages supported her even beyond the point of comfort; so that her dress profited until sometimes she cast a sidelong glance of impatience at the neat but inelegant apparel of DanDan the constant, the immutable, the undeviating.
As for Nancy, her case was one of tens of thousands. Silk and jewels and laces and ornaments and the perfume and music of the fine world of good-breeding and tastethese were made for women; they are her equitable portion. Let her keep near them if they are a part of life to her, and if she will. She is no traitor to herself, as Esau was; for she keeps her birthright, and the pottage she earns is often very scant.
In this atmosphere Nancy belonged; and she throve in it and ate her frugal meals and schemed over her cheap dresses with a determined and contented mind. She already knew woman; and she was studying man, the animal, both as to his habits and eligibility. Some day she would bring down the game that she wanted; but she promised herself it would be what seemed to her the biggest and the best, and nothing smaller.
Thus she kept her lamp trimmed and burning to receive the bridegroom when he should come.
But, another lesson she learned, perhaps unconsciously. Her standard of values began to shift and change. Sometimes the dollarmark grew blurred in her minds eye, and shaped itself into letters that spelled such words as truth and honour and now and then just kindness. Let us make a likeness of one who hunts the moose or elk in some mighty wood. He sees a little dell, mossy and embowered, where a rill trickles, babbling to him of rest and comfort. At these times the spear of Nimrod himself grows blunt.
So Nancy wondered sometimes if Persian lamb was always quoted at its market value by the hearts that it covered.
One Thursday evening Nancy left the store and turned across Sixth Avenue westward to the laundry. She was expected to go with Lou and Dan to a musical comedy.
Dan was just coming out of the laundry when she arrived. There was a queer strained look on his face.
I thought I would drop around to see if they had heard from her, he said.
Heard from who? asked Nancy. Isnt Lou there?
I thought you knew, said Dan. She hasnt been here or at the house where she lived since Monday. She moved all her things from there. She told one of the girls in the laundry she might be going to Europe.
Hasnt anybody seen her anywhere? asked Nancy.
Dan looked at her with his jaws set grimly and a steely gleam in his steady grey eyes.
They told me in the laundry, he said harshly, that they saw her pass yesterdayin an automobile. With one of the millionaires, I suppose, that you and Lou were for ever busying your brains about.
For the first time Nancy quailed before a man. She laid her hand, that trembled slightly, on Dans sleeve.
Youve no right to say such a thing to me, Danas if I had anything to do with it!
I didnt mean it that way, said Dan, softening. He fumbled in his vest pocket.
Ive got the tickets for the show to-night, he said, with a gallant show of lightness. If you
Nancy admired pluck whenever she saw it.
Ill go with you, Dan, she said.
Three months went by before Nancy saw Lou again.
At twilight one evening the shop-girl was hurrying home along the border of a little quiet park. She heard her name called, and wheeled about in time to catch Lou rushing into her arms.
After the first embrace they drew their heads back as serpents do, ready to attack or to charm, with a thousand questions trembling on their swift tongues. And then Nancy noticed that prosperity had descended upon Lou, manifesting itself in costly furs, flashing gems, and creations of the tailors art.
You little fool! cried Lou, loudly and affectionately. I see you are still working in that store, and as shabby as ever. And how about that big catch you were going to makenothing doing yet, I suppose?
And then Lou looked, and saw that something better than prosperity had descended upon Nancysomething that shone brighter than gems in her eyes and redder than a rose in her cheeks, and that danced like electricity anxious to be loosed from the tip of her tongue.
Yes, Im still in the store, said Nancy, but Im going to leave it next week. Ive made my catchthe biggest catch in the world. You wont mind now, Lou, will you?Im going to be married to Danto Dan!hes my Dan nowwhy, Lou!
Around the corner of the park strolled one of those new-crop, smooth-faced young policemen that are making the force more endurableat least to the eye. He saw a woman with an expensive fur coat and diamond-ringed hands crouching down against the iron fence of the park, sobbing turbulently, while a slender, plainly dressed working girl leaned close, trying to console her. But the Gibsonian cop, being of the new order, passed on, pretending not to notice, for he was wise enough to know that these matters are beyond help, so far as the power he represents is concerned, though he rap the pavement with his nightstick till the sound goes up to the furthermost stars.