Chapter 14

Kelly went with a peach of a girl in the years gone by--swellest little kid--gee! he respected that girl--never laid hands on her. She wanted to go back to the old country for a visit, so he paid her way there and back--one hundred and sixty-five dollars it had cost him. Coming home from a ball where Kelly had been manager--this at 4 A.M.--a remark of the girl's led Kelly to suspect she was not the stainless bit of perfection his love had pictured. So after three years of constant devotion Kelly felt that he had been sold out. He turned around and said then and there to his fair one, "You go to hell!" He never laid eyes on her again.

A few years later Kelly met an American girl. He went with her three years, was making seventy-five dollars a month, had saved eight hundred and seventy-six dollars, and in addition possessed one hundred and ten dollars in life insurance. So he asked the lady to marry him. Y' know w'at she said to Kelly? Kelly leaned his shaggy mop of hair my way. She said, "I won't marry nobody on seventy-five dollars a month!" Again Kelly's manhood asserted itself. Do you know w'at Kelly said to her? He says, says he, once more, "You go to hell!" He quit.

Whereupon Kelly drew out every cent he possessed and sailed for Europe. When he landed again in New York City, d' y'know how much money Kelly had in his pocket? Thirty-five cents. Then he went West for seven or eight years, and tore up the country considerable, Kelly did. He came back to New York again, again minus cash. A few days after his return the girl of eight years before met him by appointment at the Grand Central Station. What d' y'know? She asked Kelly to marry her--just like that. Heck! by that time Kelly didn't give a darn one way or the other. She bought the ring, she hired the minister, she did the whole business. Kelly married her--that's the wife he's got right now.

One of Kelly's steady, dependable waiters approached about 5 P.M. "Say, girl, I like you!" Of course, the comeback for that now, as always, was, "Aw go-an!"

"Sure, I like you. Say, how about goin' out this evening with me? We'll sure do the old town!"

"I say, you sound like as if you got all of twenty-five cents in your pocket!"

He leaned way over my counter.

"I got twenty-five dollars, and it's yours any time you say the word!"

It's words like that which sometimes don't get said.

For supper that night I sat at a table with a housekeeper, a parlor maid, and a seamstress, and listened to much talk. Mainly, it was a discussion of where the most desirable jobs were to be had in their respective lines. There was complete unanimity of opinion. Clubs headed the list, and the cream of cream were men's clubs. The housekeeper and parlor maid together painted a picture which would lead one to conclude that the happiest women in all New York City were the housekeepers in men's clubs. The work was light, they were well treated--it was a job for anyone to strive for. The type of men or women in clubs, they remarked, was ahead of what you'd draw in any hotel.

The parlor maid, an attractive, gray-haired woman--indeed, all three were gray-haired--was very pleased with her job at our hotel. She slept there and loved it. The rooms were so clean--your towels were changed daily just as for the guests. Sure she was very contented. If her mother were only alive--she died two years ago--she'd be the happiest woman in the world, she just knew it. But every single morning she woke up with an empty feeling in her heart for the longings after her mother.

* * * * *

My diary of Thursday of that first week starts: "The best day since I've been trying jobs--Glory be, it was rich!" And pages follow as to the wonders of that one day--wonders to me, who was after what the workers themselves think about the universe in general.

When I found how hard the Spanish woman I relieved at 1.30 had to work, how much more rushed she was from 6 to 1.30 than ever I was from 1.30 to 9, and when I learned, in addition, that she received no more pay for all her extra labors, I told her I would come early every day and help her during the rush. This is all good psychology and I give it for what it is worth. The first few days, this Thursday being one of them, she was very grateful--spoke often of how much it helped to have me there early. My last morning during my two weeks of the hotel job I was so rushed with final errands to do before leaving New York that it was impossible for me to arrive at work before 1.30, my regular and appointed time. The Spanish woman knew it was my last day. But she was so put out to think I had not arrived early that she whisked out of that compartment the second I arrived, only taking time to give me one fearful and unmistakable glare. Kelly caught the remnants of it as she swung by him. He sauntered over to my counter. "Say, the nerve of some people!"

That Thursday noon, I ate with the workers in the help's kitchen. So much talk! First there was a row on fit to rend the rafters. One of the Irish girls plumped herself down to eat and raved on about Lizzie, an Armenian girl, and something or other Lizzie had done or hadn't done with the silverware. Everyone was frank as to what each thought about Lizzie. Armenian stock was very low that day. Just then Lizzie appeared, a very attractive, neat girl who had been friendly and kind to me. I had no idea it was she about whose character such blusterous words were being spoken. With Lizzie and the Irish girl face to face--Heaven help us! I expected to see them at each other's throats. Such talk! Finally another Irish girl turned to the Armenian. "Why t'hell do you get so mad over it all, now?" Lizzie stopped, gave the second Irish girl a quizzical look. Slowly a smile spread over her face. She gave a little chuckle. "Ho! Why t'hell?" We all laughed and laughed, and the fight was off.

It seems Lizzie was known far and wide for her temper. She had been fired from waiting on the chefs because she let it loose in their dining room one night. Now they were trying her out up at our end of the service floor. Minnie, the oldest Irish woman at our table and in a decidedly ruffled mood that day, claimed it was the Armenian in her. "They're all like that. Shure, I got a Armenian helper--that kid over there. Wait till he says one word more to me. I'll bust a plate on his head and kick his prostrate form into the gutter. It'll be a happy day in my life!"

They all asked me about my work and how I liked it. Evidently mine was a job high in favor. "Shure you're left alone and no one to be under your feet or botherin' with y' every minute of the day. You're yo'r own boss."

The talk got around to the strike at the Hotel McAlpin of a few years ago. It was for more pay. The strike was lost. I asked why. "Shure, they deserved to lose it. Nobody hung together."

We discussed domestic service. Every day at that hotel I wondered why any girl took work in a private home if she could possibly get a hotel job. Here was what could be considered by comparison with other jobs, good pay, plus three nourishing meals a day, decent hours, and before and after those hours freedom. In many cases, also, it meant a place to sleep. There was a chance for talk and companionship with one's kind during the day. Every chance I got I asked a girl if she liked working in a private home, or would change her hotel job if she got a chance. The only person who was not loud in decrying private service was Minnie during this special Thursday lunch. But Minnie was so sore on the world that day. I do believe she would have objected to the Virgin Mary, had the subject come up. Minnie had worked years in private families and only six years in hotels. She wished she'd never seen the inside of a hotel.

That same night at the supper table the subject came up again before an entirely different crowd. Three at the table had tried domestic service. Never again! Why? Always the answer was the same. "Aw, it's the feeling of freedom ya never get there, and ya do get it in a hotel." One sweet gray-haired woman told of how she had worked some years as cook in a swell family where they kept lots of servants. She got grand wages, and naïvely she added, you get a chance to make lots on the side, o' course. I asked her if she meant tips from guests. Oh no! She meant what you made off tradespeople. Don't you see, if you got the butcher bill up so high, you got so much off the butcher, and the same with the grocer and the rest. She had a sister not cooking long who made over one hundred dollars a month, counting what she got off tradespeople. It is a perfectly accepted way of doing, mentioned with no concern.

But on the whole, that supper table agreed that domestic service was a good deal like matrimony. If you got a good family, all right; but how many good families were there in the world? One woman spoke of working where they'd made a door mat of her. Barely did she have food enough to eat. There were four in the family. When they had chops the lady of the house ordered just four, which meant she who cooked the chops got none.

After lunch this full Thursday I rushed to assist Mary. I loved going down the stairs into our hot scurry of excitement. Indeed, it was seeing behind the scenes. And always the friendly nods from everyone, even though the waiters especially looked ready to expire in pools of perspiration. At Monsieur Le Bon Chef's counter some sticky waiter had ordered a roast-beef sandwich. The heat had made him skeptical. "Call that beef?" The waiter next him glared at him with a chuckle. "An' must we then always lead in the cow for you to see?" A large Irishman breezed up to my Bon Chef. "Two beef à la modes. Make it snappy, chief. Party's in a hurry. Has to catch the five-thirty train"--this at one o'clock. Everyone good-natured, and the perspiration literally rolling off them.

Most of the waiters were Irish. One of them was a regular dude--such immaculateness never was. He was the funny man of the place, and showed off for my special benefit, for I made no bones of the fact that he amused me highly. He was a very chippy-looking waiter--pug nose, long upper lip. When he ordered ice coffee he sneaked up on the Greek à la Bill Hart, ready to pull a gun on him. He had two names at his disposal and used one or the other with every order, no matter who the chef was. In a very deep tone of voice, it was either, "James, custard pie!" or, "Dinsmore, one veal cutlet." But to me it was always: "Ah there, little one! Toast, I say _toast_. Dry, little one. Ah yes! There be them who out of force of habit inflicted upon them take even their toast dry. You get me, little one?"

He was especially immaculate this Thursday. I guessed he must be taking at least three ladies out that evening. He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. "_Three_, little one, this hot night? Winter time, yes, a man can stand a crowd about him, but not to-night. No. To-night, little one, I take but one lady. It allows for more circulation of air. And you will be that One?"

The Greek this hot Thursday became especially friendly. He twirled his heavy black mustache and carried on an animated broken-English conversation most of the afternoon. Incidentally, he sent over one ice coffee with thick cream and two frosted chocolates.

The little Spaniard next to him, he who served pies and ice cream and more amazing desserts--he, too, became very friendly. There was nothing the least fresh about the little Spaniard. He mostly leaned on his counter, in moments of lull in trade, and when I so much as looked his way, he sighed heavily. Finally he made bold to converse. I learned that he had been two years in this country, eight months at his present job. When I asked him how he spent his off time, he replied in his very broken English that he knew nobody and went nowhere. "It is no pleasure to go alone." He rooms with an American family on the East Side. They are very nice. For some years he had been in the printing trade in South America; there was something to a job like that. But in New York he did not know enough English to be a printer, and so, somehow, he found himself dishing pies and ice cream at our hotel.

Later on that day he asked me, "Why are you so happy?"

Indeed I was very cheerful and made no secret of it. I had sung every song I knew and then whistled them all as I worked. But Schmitz, who surely had never smiled in all his life, could stand it no longer. "You better not make so much noise," he said. "You see, it's dis vay--" Poor Schmitz, he had a miserable time of it that afternoon. For my expressions of contentment with the world had spread. Unconsciously a chef would whistle a bit here as he mixed his gravy ingredients, another there as he minced chicken, yet another in still another direction as he arranged a bowl of vegetables. Schmitz's head swirled first in one direction, then in another. Aching he was to reduce the universe to his perpetual state of gloom. But chefs he stood in awe of. He dared silence only me, and every so often I forgot.

So the Spaniard asked me why I was so happy. I had no reason. Only a great multitude of reasons why there was no excuse to be anything else, but I did not go into that. He would know, though.

"What did you do last night?"

"Ho!" I laughed at him, "rode home on the top of a bus!"

A bit later a piece of folded paper landed almost in my French dressing. It was a note from the Spaniard: "Will you go riding with me to-night?" I wrote on the bottom of the paper: "Not to-night. Perhaps next week, yes?" A few moments later a folded menu landed on the floor. On the back was written: "I will be very pleased whenever you can or wish. Could it be Sunday? I hope you wouldn't take it amiss my asking you this. Frank."

I really wanted to take that bus ride with Frank. It still worries me that I did not. He was such a lonesome person.

Then there was the tall, lean, dark Irish waiter I called Mr. O'Sullivan. He was a continual joy to my heart and gave me cause for many a chuckle. A rebel, was Mr. O'Sullivan. I heard Kelly call him down twice for growling at what he considered inexcusable desires in the matter of food or service on the part of patrons by telling Mr. O'Sullivan it was none of his ---- business. But I loved to listen to Mr. O'Sullivan's growlings, and once he realized that, he used to stop at my counter, take extra long to collect three slices of lemon, and tell me his latest grievance. To-night, this Thursday, he was sputtering.

"Shure and de y'know what now? I've two parties out there want finger bowls. _Finger bowls!_" sputtered Mr. O'Sullivan.

"Shure an' it's a long ways from the sight of finger bowls them two was born. It had better be a pail apiece they'd be askin' for. Finger bowls indeed!" Mr. O'Sullivan had gotten down to a mumble. "Shure an' they make me _sick_!"

Mr. O'Sullivan knew that I gave ear to his sentiments upon such matters as old parties, male or female, who must needs order special kinds of extra digestible bread, and usually that bread must in addition be toasted. While it was toasting, Mr. O'Sullivan voiced his views on Old Maids with Indigestion. Much of it does not bear repeating. When the toast was done, Mr. O'Sullivan would hold out his plate with the napkin folded ready for the toast. "Shure an yo'r the sweetest child my eyes ever looked upon" (Mr. O'Sullivan would say just the same thing in the same way to a toothless old hag of ninety). "Mind you spare yo'rself now from both bein' an old maid and sufferin' to the point where y' can't eat plain white bread!"

This particular Thursday I had even found some one to talk to in the recreation room when I sneaked up at three o'clock. There came a time when Schmitz's patience was strained over my regular disappearance from about 3 to 3.30. There was absolutely nothing for me to do just then in my own line, so I embraced that opportunity daily to take my way to the recreation room and see what pickings I could gather up. But one afternoon Schmitz's face bore an extra-heavy frown. "Say, what you do every day that keeps you from your work all this time? Don't you know that ain't no way to do? Don't you understand hotel work is just like a factory? Everybody must be in his place all day and not go wandering off!"

"Ever work in a factory?" I asked Schmitz.

He deigned no answer.

"Well, then, I'm telling _you_ I have, and hotel work ain't like a factory at _all_."

"Vell, you see it's dis vay--naturally--"

This Thursday up in the recreation room I found an ancient scrubwoman, patched and darned to pieces, with stringy thin hair, and the fat, jovial Irishwoman from the help's pantry. The three of us had as giddy a half hour as anyone in all New York. We laughed at one another's jokes till we almost wept, and forgot all about the thermometer. The fat Irishwoman had worked at the hotel two years, the scrubwoman almost that long. Both "lived out." They, too, informed me I had one of the best jobs in the hotel--nobody messin' in with what you're doin'--they leave y'alone. The fat one had worked some time in the linen room, but preferred pantry work. The linen room was too much responsibility--had to count out aprons and towels and things in piles of ten and tie them, and things like that--made a body's head swim.

Realizing Schmitz's growing discomfort, I finally had to tear myself away. The fat Irishwoman called after me, "Good-by, dear, and God bless y'."

Upstairs at supper that night I had the luck to land again at a talkative table. We discussed many things--Ireland, for one. One girl was she who had come two years ago from Ireland and did salads in the main kitchen. Such a brogue! An Irish parlor maid had been long years in this country. The two asked many questions of each other about their life in the Old Country. "Shure," sighed one, "I love every stick and every stone and tree and blade of grass in Ireland!" "Shure," sighed the other, "an' that's just the way I feel about it, too!"

Everyone at the table liked working at our hotel. According to them, the hotel was nice, the girls nice, hours nice.

The subject of matrimony, as ever, came up. Not a soul at the table but what was ag'in' it. Why should a woman get married when she can support herself? All she'd get out of it would be a pack of kids to clean up after, and work that never ended. Of course, the concession was eventually made, if you were sure you were gettin' a good man-- But how many good men were there in the world? And look at the divorces nowadays! Why try it at all? One girl reported as statistically accurate that there was one divorce in the United States to every four marriages. "You don't say!" was the chorus.

The subject changed to summer hotels. One woman had worked last summer as a waitress at one of the beaches. That was the swellest job ever--just like a vacation! All summer she had two tables only to wait on, two persons at a table. Each table had tipped her five dollars a week. Next summer we all must try it.

The minutes flew by too fast that supper. Before I knew it, 5.30 had come around, and by the time I was downstairs again it was five minutes past my appointed half hour. Poor, poor Schmitz! And yet lucky Schmitz. It must have caused his soul much inner satisfaction to have a real honest-to-goodness grievance to complain about. (You see, he could not go up for his supper until I came down from mine.) Schmitz upbraided me, patiently, with explanations. Every single night from then on, when at five he would tell me I could go upstairs, he always added, "And be sure you're back at half past five!" In natural depravity of spirit, it was my delight one night to be able to sneak down at about 5.25 without being seen by Schmitz. Then I shrank into a corner of my compartment, out of his line of vision, and worked busily on my evening chores. At 5.30, Schmitz began his anxious scanning of our large clock. By 5.40 he was a wreck and the clock had nearly been glared off its hinges. Then it was a waiter called out to me the first evening order. With the crucified steps of a martyr, a ten-minute-hungry martyr at that, Schmitz made his way over to fill that order. And there I was, busily filling it myself! Of course, I hope I have made it clear that Schmitz was the kind who would say, "I knew she was there all along."

The rush of this particular Thursday night! More lettuce had to be sent for in the middle of the evening, more tomatoes, more blackberries, more cantaloupes, more bread for toast. There was no stopping for breath. In the midst of the final scrubbings and cleanings came an order of "One combination salad, Sweetheart!" That done and removed and there sounded down the way, "One cantaloupe, Honey!" Back the waiter came in a moment. "The old party says it's too ripe." There were only two left to choose from. "Knock his slats in if he don't like that, the old fossil." In another moment the waiter was back again with the second half. "He says he don't want no cantaloupe, anyhow. Says he meant an order of Philadelphia cream cheese."

But nine o'clock came round and somehow the chores were all done and Schmitz nodded his regal head ever so little--his sign for, "Madam, you may take your departure," and up I flew through the almost deserted main kitchen, up the three flights to the service floor, down four flights to the time-clock floor (elevators weren't always handy), to be greeted by my friend the time-clock man with his broad grin and his, "Well, if here ain't my little bunch o' love!"

If he and Schmitz could only have gotten mixed a bit in the original kneading....

By Saturday of that week I began my diary: "Goodness! I couldn't stand this pace long--waiters are too affectionate." I mention such a matter and go into some detail over their affection here and there, because it was in no sense personal. I mean that any girl working at my job, provided she was not too ancient and too toothless and too ignorant of the English language, would have been treated with equal enthusiasm. True, a good-looking Irishman did say to me one evening, "I keep thinkin' to myself durin' the day, what is there about you that's different. I shure like it a lot what it is, but I just can't put my finger on it." I used as bad grammar as the next; I appeared, I hoped, as ignorant as the next. Yet another Irishman remarked, "I don't know who you are or where you came from or where you got your education, but you shure have got us all on the run!" But any girl with the least wits about her would have had them on the run. She was the only girl these men got a chance to talk to the greater part of the day.

But what if a girl had a couple of years of that sort of thing? Or does she get this attention only the first couple of weeks of the couple of years, anyhow? Does a waiter grow tired of expressing his affection before or after the girl grows tired of hearing it? I could not help but feel that most of it was due to the fact that perhaps among those waiters and such girls as they knew a purely friendly relationship was practically unknown. Sex seemed to enter in the first ten minutes. Girls are not for friends--they're to flirt with. It was for the girl to set the limits; the man had none.