The tomboy at work

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

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III 31

Chapter I

"Men must work and women must weep " was a line that was quoted to me every time I expressed a determination to make my ov/n living, and, incidentally, that of others. A stupid line, I thought it. Why should men have all the fun of working, while the women stayed at home and wept? The sentiment did not appeal to me at all. I had no inclination for weeping, and I had a decided inclination for working.

Even if I had not realised the necessity

of work after my father's death, I could

not have kept out of the working world.

It was not in me to stay at home and weep, while the men "went sailing out into the west." I wanted to sail out into the west, too, and to catch fish as well as they. Just what sort of fish I was going to catch I did not know, but I fully made up my mind to cast my net and see what happened. I knew then, as I know now, that there was work for the willing, if not sooner, then later; and I intended to get mine sooner.

There were not many things for women to do in those days, and fewer in Birdlington than in most places. There was a woman in the post-office — -she was the postmaster's wife, to be sure, — a kindly soul, who did not seem to take much interest in her business, possibly because she had so much else to do. She was stout, and rather scant of breath, and I noticed that it was as much as she could do to reach the top boxes even when she stood tiptoe. There I had the advantage of her. It was the lower boxes that would give me the most trouble.

Perhaps it wotdd be a relief to the good woman if I should offer to take her position. The only way to find out was to ask.

"Mrs. Farnum, do you like to sort the mail and hand out the letters?" I inquired.

"I can't say I'm over partial to it," she answered frankly.

"How would you like me to take your place?"

Mrs. Farnum was a pleasant-looking woman, with round, rosy cheeks, well screened by dancing brown ringlets. She looked through the little window, and shook her ringlets at me. "You're rather young to be sorting over letters, but you're tall for your age. You cotild get at them top boxes easier than I can. I don't mind your trying, but I guess you'll get pretty tired of the job before long."

"Not much," I exclaimed joyously. "I couldn't get tired of anything if I was earning my living."

"Earning your living!" and the ringlets stood still with surprise. "Lord save us and bless us ! Why, there ain't no money in it for me. I do it just to help Farnum."

"No money in it," I echoed dejectedly; for I had seen visions of a weekly stipend, which, if small, would at least be something to start with. "I've got to earn money, so I'm afraid that I can't take the job. Good morning."

In these days, I should no doubt have thought of going on the stage, but the only stage that I knew anything about in those days was the one that ran between Birdlington and Crosswicks, and I should as soon have thought of riding to success on a hay-wagon as on that slow-going vehicle. The subject was one of daily discussion in the family, where, I am free to confess, my ideas were looked upon as somewhat Quixotic. But I was determined.

"What do you propose?" asked Aunt Maria.

"Propose? I don't propose. This is not leap-year," I replied pertly, for there was a note of doubt in her voice.

"Don't be rude, Nell," said my mother. "It is only right that your Aunt Maria and I should know what sort of work you expect to do."

"I can go into an office."

"Go into an office! Any one could do that, but what would you do when you got there.?" This with a touch of sarcasm from Aunt Maria.

"I would sweep it out, if necessary," I answered, somewhat nettled. "I think I should like that. So many great men have begun by sweeping out an office."

"Great men, yes; but have you ever heard of a great woman who began her career by sweeping out an office.?" asked Aunt Maria.

"It does not make any difference to me what others have done; my mind is made up. I am going into an office, and I am going to write."

"You will do something. There is no doubt about that, Nell. And I dare say that I shall get used to it; but it seems a terrible thing to me for a girl scarcely fifteen to go out into the worid to earn her living," said my mother, with a little shake in her voice.

"It is not respectable," said Aunt Maria, who was more conventional than my mother, and had rigid ideas of woman's sphere.

"Not respectable," I exclaimed. "Look at Rosa Bonheur, Harriet Hosmer, and — and — and Dr. Mary Walker."

" Dr. Mary Walker! " Aunt Maria turned pale. "If that's your idea, the sooner you get rid of it the better. Not one of the women you mention proves your argument, for they one and all admit that a woman has no right to go out into the world to work, by making themselves look as much like men as possible. Please do not mention their names in my presence again." She really shuddered as she left the room.

I could not blame Aunt Maria for her point of view, as it was the only one held in those days. Girls were not supposed to occupy themselves with anything but sewing and housekeeping. Anything like independence was shocking, and to be deplored. My mother was more pained than shocked at my determination, but she realised that my brother Dixey had taken a pretty heavy burden upon his none too broad shoulders, and, in her heart, she applauded the spirit that urged me on to do my share of the work that had to be done.

To find the right thing and to do it was no easy task, but I was blessed with a sanguine disposition, and no obstacle seemed insurmountable. There was an old book in my attic book-case called, if I remember correctly, "Hazen's Book of Trades." I studied it closely for suggestions, but, as all of them were men's trades, I got few or no hints from that source. The only one that attracted me was that of the printer.

lo The Tomboy at Work

I wanted to be where I could hear the click of the type and smell the black and greasy odor of printer's ink. And then I wished to be as much like Benjamin Franklin as possible. I should have liked to walk up Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, with a loaf of bread under each arm, to make the likeness complete; but a certain sense of propriety restrained me. The next best thing was to speak to the editor, who was also the proprietor and sole reporter, of our local weekly, and ask him if he would let me do some reporting for him.

"There is nothing to report," he said. And, judging by the news columns of his paper, he spoke the truth.

At night, after I had retired to my attic room, I lay awake for hours, it seemed to me, wondering what was the best thing to do. It was quite plain that Birdlington presented no opportunities aside from farming. I thought of growing hops, but was deterred by Aunt Maria, who said

The Tomboy at Work ii

that hops were only used to make beer, which she, being of temperance principles, did not approve of. I turned to the Weekly Forum for agricultural hints, and there read of the large profits made from grapes. Again Aunt Maria disapproved. Grapes were profitable only when they were made into wine, and no wine-producing fruit should be grown at Fair View. As the place was hers, I had to obey. There were other reasons why I did not plant vineyards — one being a lack of the necessary means.

About this time, a book called "Ten Acres Enough" fell into my hands. If ten acres were enough, how much more than enough were fourteen! Fair View consisted of fourteen, the most of it tillable. There was a lovely meadow with a brook babbling through it, an orchard, a three-acre lot where we grew oats, and a vegetable garden. The meadow was given over to blackberry bushes and brambles, but it was very picturesque, with its spreading chestnut trees; a lovely place for picnics. In my mother's childhood, the only water used at the house was hauled up from this brook in barrels. A springless cart, to which an old horse was hitched, brought the barrel up the lane to the house. To sit in the cart was not a very pleasant way of getting down to the brook, but an old man working on the place thought that he would like to try it. He remarked afterward that, if it had not been for the name of riding, he would rather have walked. It was a pretty bumpy road through the lane, and it is to this day. This same old man was employed to fetch the water to the house, and at the end of the week he presented his bill to my grandmother. This is the way it read:

To the average reader, this means nothing. It might be hieroglyphics from the tomb of Rameses, or it might be a doctor's prescription. To my grandmother, it was plain enough. "Dit dut" meant "Mis' Nutt." The man had no palate, and that was the way he pronounced it. "To bringing ditto water, two bits," a bit being a shilling. For many years this unique bill was preserved at Fair View.

To return to farming: I read "Ten Acres Enough" with the greatest avidity. The place described v/as not more than ten miles down the river from Birdlington, and what could be done at Burlington could be done at Birdlington. When I realised, however, how long it would take to reap any profits from such a venture, I decided that the best thing to do was to get some work that led to immediate results. I did not let the family know that I was finding it difficult to decide upon a line of work, but kept up a bold front and thought hard. In thinking over things one night, I remembered that my father was well acquainted with the members of a famous publishing house in New York, so I decided to write to the firm and see what they could offer me.

Very promptly an answer came, written in a beautiful, clear hand. The writer, one of the brothers, spoke affectionately and admiringly of my father, and expressed a wish that he could meet my request with the offer of a position. They did not employ women outside of the bindery, and he could hardly ask my father's daughter to take a position there. If I was a boy, now, he could soon give me something to do, for there was a vacancy in the bookkeeper's department.

I was not in the least discouraged by that letter, but sat down at once and answered it. I offered to take the bookkeeper's position. "To be sure," I wrote, "I don't know anything about bookkeeping, but I think that I can learn all that is necessary inside of two weeks, and then I will be able to keep the books of your firm." I can imagine the twinkle in the eye of the kindly old gentleman when he read my letter. He answered it, however, without poking fun at me, and said that it was the rule of the house to have only men bookkeepers, and they could not break it, much as they would like to, for me. So that incident was closed.

Dixey had given up the position that he held as assistant paymaster on the railroad that ran through Birdlington, and had become a reporter on a Newark newspaper. This was much more to his taste, for he, too, loved the smell of printer's ink. He would have held on to the position of paymaster, however, as it enabled him to live at home, but he was convinced from certain things that happened that that was not his Hne of work. His mind was on other things, no matter how he tried to keep it on the business in hand. One day he went out on the road in a hand-car to pay off the men. He had thirty thousand dollars tied up in an old newspaper, to avoid attracting attention. At a wayside shanty, where he stopped to get a bite of lunch, he fell to reading a volume of poems that he carried in his pocket. When he finished the poem, he put the book back in his pocket and started out on the hand- car. He had not gone many miles down the road before he missed the parcel. Had he dropped it on the way ? or left it at the shanty ? Telling the men they would have to go back, as he had left something, he returned to the shanty. Putting on as calm an exterior as possible, he asked the old woman, "Did I leave anything here?"

"Nothin' much," she replied, "some old newspapers is all. I was going to light the fire with them, but my old man is such a reader I thought he'd kinder like to read 'em"; and she fished the parcel out from under a broken-down old sofa, where she had kicked it out of the way.

"I'm so glad that your husband is a reader," said Dixey, clasping the parcel tightly in his arms. " I had some things tied up in that parcel that I shouldn't have liked to lose. Thank you very • much. I'll send a book to your husband."

"Much obleeged," replied the woman, "but it ain't wuth it."

Dixey called upon the president of the road, told him what had happened, and offered his resignation. The president would not accept it at first, but when he found that Dixey was in earnest, he told him that he would be allowed to go only when he had found a more congenial place. This came in a short time, and was the position on the Newark paper. It was in reading this paper that I found my first work.

Among the news items was one which said that a Newark journalist, Mr. John Y. Foster, was about to write the history of the New Jersey troops in the Civil War, then just over. The paragraph proceeded to say that much of Mr. Foster's work would have to be done in Trenton, where the necessary records were kept in the archives of the Adjutant- General's office. I saw my opportunity, and immediately sat down and wrote a letter to Mr. Foster. As I had often heard Dixey speak of him, I knew that he would recognise my name. I told him who I was, and said I should like to help him write his history. I did not mention my qualifications, or lack of them, for the work, but he must have liked my confidence (not to put too harsh a name upon it), and noticed that I wrote a bold round hand. In the course of a few days, Mr. Foster's letter came. In it he said that he was looking for some one to search the records in the Adjutant- General's office for him, and, if I would call upon him at his hotel in Trenton, he would be glad to talk it over. I am not quite sure how I got home with that letter. I suppose that I ran, but those who saw me said that I flew.

Chapter II

Dashing up the stairs to my mother's room, with the letter in my hand, I shouted at the top of my voice, "Mother, I've got it." As chicken-pox was raging among the young people of Birdlington at that time, my mother naturally thought I had fallen a victim to the malady, but she was reassured before she had time to express her fears.

"I've got the position, and it's in an office, too."

Then I rushed to the window, where I saw Aunt Maria walking down the garden path. "Auntie," I shrieked, waving the letter, "I've got it."

" I should think you had got something," replied Aunt Maria, as she turned and regarded me, waiting for the next announcement.

"Come in, and I'll tell you all about it."

I had not informed the family that I had written to Mr. Foster, so their surprise was not unnatural. I now told my mother and Aunt Maria what I had done, and that I had accomplished my object.

"I don't quite see that you have accomplished your object just yet," said Aunt Maria, who was inclined to be skeptical. "Mr. Foster is good enough to say that he will see you, but when he sees you he may think you are too young. He may want some one who lives in Trenton. There are a thousand and one reasons why you may not get the position."

"There are a thousand and one why I may," I answered. "I haven't the slightest doubt about it, and I am going to Trenton at once."

"I will go with you," said my mother, "for I don't think that it would look just right for a girl of your age to be going to see a strange man alone, even on business."

"All right, mother," I answered. "I shall be glad to have you go; but, if I get the position, you know that you cannot go with me every day."

"More's the pity," said my mother, with a touch of regret in her voice.

There was a good deal of excitement in the household that evening. The children were very much interested, and seemed to agree with me that it was a foregone conclusion that I should get the position.

"It isn't the first time you have set out to seek your fortune," said Marty, referring to an incident in the past that might better have been forgotten. So I made no reply to her remark.

Trenton was about six miles by railroad from Birdlington. The track runs between the river and a creek ; the latter does not go all the way to Trenton, but the river does; and many a time I have skated on its frozen surface from Birdlington to the State capital.

The morning after the receipt of the wonderful letter, my mother and I started out for Trenton. It seemed to me that the train never went so slowly — at best it was not fast; but finally we got there, and found Mr. Foster at his hotel. He smiled benignly upon me, and addressed his conversation to my mother, explaining to her what the position was and what the hours were likely to be.

"I am afraid you will have to be here pretty early in the morning," he said, still addressing my mother.

"It is not my mother that wants the position. It is I. I wrote you the letter about it."

Mr. Foster turned toward me with surprise.

"You !" said he. " I had no idea it was so young a person."

"I hope that that will not prevent my getting the position."

"No," said he slowly, "I don't know that it will. You write a good hand, and you seem to have a lot of go in you. I think I will try you. You can begin work day after to-morrow. The pay will be ten dollars a week."

I nearly fell off my chair. Ten dollars a week! If he had said five, I should have thought myself rich.

"What time in the morning can you get here?" asked Mr. Foster. "The office opens for work at about eight."

I consulted the time-table. There was a train at six, and another at eight. The six o'clock train would get me to the State House, if I walked from the station, which I proposed doing, at about seven o'clock. The eight o'clock would not get me there until nearly nine.

"I will take the six o'clock," said I, promptly. And I did.

The fare from Birdlington to Trenton was not very much, but it was something, and I did not propose spending any of my money unnecessarily. My family needed it much more than the railroad, I thought, and I decided that I would get a pass.

The superintendent of the road, lived at Birdlington. I knew him well, and, as soon as I returned home, I called at his office.

"Mr. Van Schuyler," said I, "I want an annual pass to Trenton."

He looked down at me from his six feet two, and said, with an expression of amusement on his face, "Why should I give you an annual pass to Trenton?"

"Because I need it," said I. "I have just got a position there, and I don't want to spend any of my money on car fare. I have too much else to do with it."

Mr. Van Schuyler knew the situation of my affairs pretty well, and he knew that passes were dealt out liberally in those days. "I think I shall have to let yau have one," he said; and he sat down at his desk and wrote it out for me.

Armed with a pass and a prospective ten dollars a week, I would not have asked odds of a Rothschild. Why, Dixey, who was several years older than I was, only got that much, and he had to pay his board out of it. His board (he Hved with the business manager of the paper) was onlyfive dollars a week, and he sent five home. He paid for incidentals by writing poems. One year he wrote the lettercarriers' New Year's address, and got — I don't remember just what, but I dare say it was twenty-five dollars: a tidy sum for an occasional poem by an unknown poet. My earnings were all clear gain, and after my mother had become reconciled to the situation she was very proud of me ; and even Aunt Maria agreed that ten dollars a week was not to be sneezed at, even if it was earned by a girl.

To get the six o'clock train for Trenton, I got up at four. There was never a time in my life that I could dress in fifteen or twenty minutes. I had a tub in my room that I had rigged up with a pipe leading outside, so that I had only to pull a cork to let the water run ofl. To be sure, I had to pour the water in, but that was a small item. No porcelain tub ever gave greater satisfaction than that tin tub with its cork plug gave me. It took me nearly an hour to bathe and dress ; then I had a half -hour for my breakfast, and a half -hour to get to the station, which was a little less than three-quarters of a mile from the house.

It was in September that I began work, and I did not mind getting up at four in the least ; but as the days grew shorter and colder it was different. The first of the dark mornings scared me. It was as dark as night when I started out, so that Ellen, our faithful maid-of -all -work, used to walk with me as far as the village. Good, kind Ellen! Never shall I forget the breakfasts she used to cook for me by candlelight. It did not take her quite as long as it did me to dress in the morning, so that she got up later, but she always had my breakfast on time. Nothing was a trouble to her if it made me comfortable. The only time I ever saw her out of humour was one wash-day. She had a large wash to do, but she got at it early, as she always enjoyed getting it out on the lines before her neighbours.

On this particular day, Sandy came up from the village with a huge turtle that he had ordered from Philadelphia. He told Ellen that he had invited a few friends to luncheon, and he wanted to give them turtle soup.

"Turtle soup, is it?" exclaimed Ellen. "Where are you going to get turtle soup?"

"You are going to make it," replied Sandy blandly, "and here's the turtle." With that he let the turtle loose upon the kitchen floor.

"For the love of St. Patrick!" shrieked Ellen, and sprang upon the wash-bench, overturning the tubs, and burying the turtle under the suds-soaked clothes. Only by a quick backward jump did Sandy escape the deluge. As he jumped, he made a remark about St. Patrick that Ellen did not like, and she ordered him and the turtle out of the kitchen. She was a powerful woman and a good cook, so Sandy thought it best not to provoke her too far, and he didn't.

The turtle was put under a box in the orchard, and the guests who had been bidden to the feast that did not come off were invited out to see it. Sandy turned the box over gently, but the turtle had gone. If all that Mr. Thompson Seton says about the intelligence of beasts and reptiles be true, that turtle had heard the conversation about the soup, and had escaped from under the box rather than see itself sacrificed upon the altar of Sandy's epicurean appetite.

That was Ellen's one and only outburst while she lived with us, and who shall say that she had not provocation? I am the more amazed that she got up so cheerfully in the early mornings, for she did not go to bed with the chickens. She was "keeping company" at the time, and I am sure her "steady" stayed fairly late, for I could smell kerosene oil long after the family had retired; and, as you know, kerosene only smells when the light is turned low.

One morning there was a thick fog when I started out, but otherwise it was light enough. In a little gully by the side of the road, I saw something. Before I could make out what it was, it had disappeared. I ran back to the house and told Ellen about it. She had no doubt as to what it was.

"It was a ghost."

I shivered.

"Was it, really?"

"Of course." It had come down from the cemetery, which was only a little way up the road, and it would go back again.

"I wish it would hurry and go back."

"It's gone back by this time, I guess," said Ellen, "but I'll go down the road with you because you're scared."

"No, I'm not. I don't believe in ghosts, but I don't want to meet another, and you may go with me if you like."

It was getting late, and we hurried down the road. A neighbour was driving a cow in front of us.

"Good mornin'," said he; "I've just found my old cow. She got lost in the fog down in the gully."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" He regarded me with amazement. " For, then, it was a cow and not a ghost. I told you, Ellen."

But Ellen only smiled pit3dngly upon me. She had not been born in Ireland for nothing. She knew a ghost when I saw it. That was the first and last ghost to cross my path.

The six o'clock train got me to the State House door before seven, and often I had to wait in the cold for the janitor to open the doors. But do you think I minded that? Not a bit of it. It was part of the fun of working.

Chapter III

The Adjutant-General's office was in the State House, as I have said. It was a large room, with windows overlooking the Delaware River. The Adjutant-General's desk was by one of the windows. Mine was farther back in the room. The Adjutant- General himself was a young man, and a very handsome young man at that. He had dark-brown curling hair, a long brown mustache, dark -blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. He usually wore a frock coat — Prince Alberts, we called them in those days, — and he crowned his curling hair with a widerimmed soft felt hat such as was worn in the army during the war. There were three other men in the office: an old man with a gray beard, a young man with a blond mustache, and a still younger man with no mustache or beard of any sort. 31

The blond man was a fireman as well as a government clerk, and he killed two birds with one stone by wearing his fireman's coat as an overcoat. I admired it very much, for it was lined with scarlet and ornamented with brass buttons.

There was still another man, but he was not there very long, if I remember rightly. He made a strong impression upon my mind, for I heard him say, one day, that he could place his hand upon his heart and say that he owed nothing to any man. The graybeard sighed, and said that he could place his hand upon his heart and say that he owed every man something. I fancy he had a good deal of use for his money, and that he did not get very high pay. He wore the same clothes, as long as I was in the office, and I dare say that he wore them even longer than that. His collars and ties were fearfully and wonderfully made. Instead of wearing the sort of ties that most men wore, he had a piece of velvet ribbon tied under his collar. He confided to me one day that he was verymuch put to it to know what to wear for a necktie, and he asked me what I could suggest.