The Hearth and Eagle (28 page)

But no hurry, he thought, with a twinge of inner alarm. If she won’t wait till I get ready, I’ll find somebody else. Lots of pretty, well-bred girls in the world.

Charity, dimpling and cooing, unfolded her fancy work and laid it out for his inspection, at the same time shaking her lilac-scented curls almost in his face. He admired the fancy work, and compliantly touched the glossy hair—murmuring “Beautiful—”

She’s a mite obvious, he thought, as Charity jumped away in blushing confusion, but I’ll soon change all this flutter after the thing’s settled. At least she’s no ill-tempered redheaded gawk.

He left right after tea, and Charity watched him through the window as he swung down the hill headed for State Street, and that queer Leah Cubby’s where he boarded. She felt very hopeful. Of course he wasn’t just the husband she and her mother had dreamed of. But I’m twenty-two—she thought, suddenly frightened. So many beaux, always, and yet the years were passing, and somehow the right one hadn’t shown up. I don’t care if he is a “foreigner,” and a lot of people don’t like him. I’ll make him take Ma and me traveling, Boston, New York....I’d have a sealskin coat, and keep my own carriage. At the Rechabite Bazaar, she squared her chin, turning from the window—I’ll make him commit himself. I can do it.

But Amos did not go to the Rechabite Bazaar, though he had promised to. He spent that night of the Bazaar back in Danvers, negotiating the sale of his tannery, a highly profitable transaction. And he forgot all about the Bazaar.

T
HERE NOW BEGAN
for Hesper a period of plodding and vacuous existence, undignified by anguish, unrelieved by expectancy.

Amos Porterman kept his word, and at some inconvenience to himself. He consulted with his foreman, Mr. Johnson, and arranged that the kid uppers for a certain fancy line of young girl’s slippers should be cut at the factory as usual, then reserved for hand-stitching and binding at the Honeywoods.

Johnson naturally protested. “The new machines’ll do ’em in half the time and better, sir.”

Amos shrugged. “I know, but I’ve made the arrangements. And I want you to pay well—say a dollar a dozen.”

Sam Johnson had come from Danvers with Amos, and he was devoted to his chief, but he protested vehemently. “That’s terrible high pay—crazy I call it—grumblin’ enough in the makin’ room as it is—if the other hands learn—”

“They won’t,” Amos interrupted. “The Honeywoods are not the type to gab. Anyway I expect to get it back. Boscombe’s on Tremont Street ’11 take the stuff, I’m sure. We’ll point out the advantages. Special jobs, custom made just like the old days. Their Beacon Hill clientele’ll fall for that; we’ll charge more and so can Boscombe’s.”

Johnson’s face cleared a trifle. “I see, sir. But are these women skilled? Suppose they make a botch out of the work?”

Amos shrugged again, pulled a mass of orders to the front of his desk. “They maybe will at first. You’ll have to show ’em. I’ll leave it all to you, don’t bother me about it.” He picked up his pen and dipped it. “How’s Nat Cubby getting on?”

Johnson frowned. “Well enough—” he said grudgingly. “Startin’ to learn cuttin’ now. But I don’t know how it is, because I never see him open his trap, yet the men near him ’re ever the worst grumblers. Old Schmitty, our master cutter, sassed me back t’other day. Never done such a thing in all these years. I docked his pay, o’ course.”

Amos was not interested. He nodded and signed another order. “Schmidt’s maybe getting a mite old for his job, I wouldn’t blame it on Nat. By the way, the Honeywood girl’s to report Monday. Have the uppers ready.”

The foreman grunted and went out muttering dolefully. More green hands, and Marbleheaders to boot. Mr. Porterman don’t rightly appreciate how much trouble I got all the time here, he thought with sour pride. Wish we was back in Danvers, despite we’re making money hand over fist.

When Hesper reported Monday morning Johnson duly gave out thirty-six pairs of uppers, and in the ensuing weeks found his worst fears justified. Half the work came back botched. The stitches were uneven, the tape bindings wavered and bulged. He had to scrap several pairs, send others back. To his angry, disgusted comments, each Monday morning when he inspected completed work and gave out new, the redheaded Honeywood girl answered almost nothing. She always stood just inside the door of the foreman’s little office, holding the wicker basket full of uppers stiff-armed straight out in front of her until he took it and placed it on his desk. Her face flushed a dull red, while he pointed out mistakes; each time she said “I’m sorry—I’ll do it over—” and nothing else. It was always her work that was criticized, Susan’s hands obeyed her will. She had tried to help her daughter, but this Hesper, forcing her swollen pricked fingers to a task they abhorred, was ashamed to allow. Ma had more than plenty to do as it was, besides the house management and feeding them on three dollars a week, and home sewing too, turning and ripping and making their old clothes do. Even Roger was working now that they couldn’t afford to feed “Looney.” He had, as Susan expected, been bewildered and horrified at the idea of his women folk taking in piecework. Susan had shaken him out of his dim, enchanted country into the reality of their destitution by means of a bitter and violent scene, suggested he help out for once and outlined his duties.

Roger was moved, not by Susan’s diatribe, but by an uneasy sense of guilt at the spectacle of Hesper, pale and silent, struggling with tough limp shoe leather. So he complied with his wife’s orders, took over the care of the pig and the garden. The pig he frequently forgot, and his wife or daughter supplemented his spasmodic memory, but he discovered satisfaction in the raising of vegetables. The plot was small, but since it was part of his land and his kingdom he became attached to it, and was not unhappy.

Nor was Susan unhappy for she had plans and a definite goal. The war couldn’t last forever. When it was over she would reopen the Inn, and to finance this she would request a loan from Mr. Porterman. Why not? she thought, she’d made a go of the Inn before and she could again, it would be a good investment for him, and having once asked a favor of him, it’d be easier.

But for Hesper’s soul there was no nourishment more sustaining than pride and a mounting, hopeless longing for escape.

On the fourth Monday after the arrangement started, she delivered the completed batch of uppers to Mr. Johnson, and waited silently, as usual, for his verdict. He breathed hard as he sorted out twenty-one pairs and piled them in a box, then flung the remaining fifteen pairs in front of him on the desk. She fastened her eyes on a sign above his head that said in large black letters, “Employees are expected to be punctual. Those taking more than half an hour at noon will have their pay docked accordingly. A. Porterman.”

“My dear young woman—” cried Johnson, slapping the fifteen pairs with the flat of his hand—“d’you really think I can send these off to Boscombe’s with the others?”

Hesper dragged her eyes down from the sign. “Aren’t they any better?” she said dully. “I tried.”

The foreman shook his head. Time for plain speaking. Lord knows he’d been patient, like the chief said—but Mr. Porterman had also said, “I’ll leave it up to you.”

“These uppers ain’t good for nothin’ but to sell as seconds to the peddlers. They ain’t worth two bits a dozen, that’s what. Yore ma’s ’re okay, I guess, but I wouldn’t be doin’ my duty as overseer if I didn’t point out these here uppers’re a dead loss for Mr. Porterman.”

The girl looked kind of white and puny, standing there leaning against the door, opening her mouth and then shutting it. Of course the chief could afford to lose a dollar or so a week, but it wasn’t business and he hadn’t said anything about charity. Ruining good goat skin, and the price of hides sky-high since the war.

“Look, young woman—you need
honest
money, don’t you?”

Hesper shut her eyes. Failure, humiliation, beholden to that Porterman. Wny can’t I go away? Find a job somewhere—anywhere—send money home. Run away—there must be something I can do.

“There’s only one thing to do—” continued Johnson. “You can’t get the hang of handwork, that’s sure. Come into the factory. Any idiot can run the stitchin’ machine.”

Her face flushed geranium-red, and he saw that his choice of words had not been tactful. “You’d make more too—” he added. “Maybe fifty cents a day. That’d help out at home, now wouldn’t it?”

He felt a trifle sorry for her. Sort of a fish out of water she was. Poor as dirt, obviously, but not like the few other Marblehead girls who’d come to the factory. More of a lady, and she didn’t talk that thick hot-potato lingo. On the other hand she was worse-dressed than any of them, he thought, studying her. Same old brown knitted shawl she’d worn every time, not a ribbon or gew-gaw anywhere.

“Well?” he said impatiently, for she just stood there, staring down at a fine litter of leather shavings on the dusty floor. “You want to try the stitchin’ room? There’s a vacancy.”

Hesper stirred and raised her head. “I might as well—” she said.

Susan received the news with approval, and quelled Roger’s objections. Of course a Honeywood had never done such a thing, but no Honeywood had ever been so poor either. The girl was strong, could earn good money, and even Hes ought to be able to step on a treadle and slide a piece of leather around. Beside it wouldn’t be forever, and it should liven her up—keep her from mooning around alone, reading and scribbling every chance she got.

The next morning at six, Hesper went into the factory. Through the uncertain dawn she walked the mile and a half from home and the waterfront to the new part of town and found herself one of a crowd of men and a few women, none of whom she recognized. In the business district which clustered around the depot, there were a dozen shoe factories and the hurrying stream of workers divided into rivulets at each door. Hesper joined the branch that trickled into Porterman’s.

It was dark inside the narrow corridor, and Mr. Johnson stood beneath the flicker of a kerosene lamp, watching the hands sign the time sheet. He motioned Hesper aside while a hundred and twenty-four employees filed by, and disappeared down the dark hallway. Then he greeted Hesper without enthusiasm. “So you’re here. I’ll take you to your forelady. Mind you do exactly like she tells you and obey the rules.”

“Yes,” said Hesper.

“Stock room’s in the basement—” explained Johnson hurriedly, “shippin’ and soles on this floor, through that door. Cuttin’, lastin’, and finishin’ upstairs. You go in here.” He opened a door at the extreme end of the ill-lit hall and shoved Hesper ahead of him into a rectangular room furnished with a long table, ten sewing machines, and ten stools and one high three-legged chair. This was for the forelady, who rustled toward them.

The forelady had a quantity of brassy yellow hair, skewered to the back of her head with rhinestone-tipped hairpins. She wore paper arm cuffs, and a black taffeta apron. Her chilly smile disclosed a dazzle of bluish china teeth, and her gimlet eyes were puckered at the corners by sharp crows-feet.

“Here’s the new hand, Miss Simpkins—” said Johnson. “Name’s Honeywood. Green as grass.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Miss Simpkins in refined accents. She came from Boston where she had made a precarious living as a seamstress, until driven by near starvation to the disgraceful plunge into factory work. “We’ll soon, soon alter that, won’t we, dear?” The china teeth flashed, and Hesper’s heart sank. Inexperienced as she was, she saw that Miss Simpkins would be petty and tyrannical.

The nine other stitchers had raised their heads to watch the new arrival. Their ages ranged from fourteen to thirty and they all looked apathetic. As the door closed on Johnson and Miss Simpkins turned, the heads were all lowered again. The treadles rattled and hissed, the needles went plop, plop, plop as they plunged through the leather. The stitching room had two small north windows which looked out across School Street to the depot. The light was poor, and the women kept their heads bent close to the machines.

“Hang your shawl there—” snapped Miss Simpkins pointing to a wooden knob behind the door. “That apron won’t do. You’ll wear black bombazine like the others. Get one. Now read the rules out loud to me, I wish to be quite sure you understand them.” She pointed to a placard between the windows, and stood behind Hesper, jerking the pyramid of brassy hair as the girl finished each sentence.

1. No talking except to forelady.
   
2. No loitering anywhere on the premises.
   
3. The female employees may not hold converse anywhere at any time with the male employees.
   
4. You may not absent yourself for more than five minutes.
   
5. You may not leave the stitching room at night until the day’s quota has been checked out by the forelady.
   

“That clear?” said Miss Simpkins sharply.

“Yes,” said Hesper with no particular interest.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the forelady, scowling.

“Yes, ma’am.” Hesper sat down on the vacant stool between an undersized girl who looked about fifteen and a stout woman of thirty.

She bent all her concentration to understanding the forelady’s grudging and curt instructions. The process was not difficult, once you learned how to thread the needle, for the thread had a tendency to keep breaking. You stitched the tape binding along the inside of the top on the piece of leather, snipped the thread, turned it over and stitched the outside. The forelady walked back and forth behind the stools, pouncing and criticizing. Sometimes she sat in her own chair and sucked peppermint lozenges in an alert and disagreeable manner.

The hours wore by. Hesper’s shoulders ached from hunching over the machine; she was too tall for the height of her stool. Her eyes blurred from constant watching of the needle in the dim light.

At twelve o’clock, the nooning bells jangled through all the factories. Amos had not put steam in yet, though he was planning to.

The women got off their stools and fetched brown paper parcels from a row on the floor under the shawls. Hesper had two codfish sandwiches in her pocket. She pulled them out and began to eat them. “Can’t we talk now?” she said to the stout woman on her right.