Song of the Shirt, 1941.
It was one of those extraordinarily bright days that make things look somehow bigger. The Avenue seemed to stretch wider and longer, and the buildings to leap higher into the skies. The window-box blooms were not just a ma.s.s and a blur; it was as if they had been enlarged, so that you could see the design of the blossoms and even their separate petals. Indeed you could sharply see all sorts of pleasant things that were usually too small for your notice-the lean figurines on radiator caps, and the nice round gold k.n.o.bs on flagpoles, the flowers and fruits on ladies" hats and the creamy dew applied to the eyelids beneath them. There should be more of such days.
The exceptional brightness must have had its effect upon unseen objects, too, for Mrs. Martindale, as she paused to look up the Avenue, seemed actually to feel her heart grow bigger than ever within her. The size of Mrs. Martindale"s heart was renowned among her friends, and they, as friends will, had gone around babbling about it. And so Mrs. Martindale"s name was high on the lists of all those organizations that send out appeals to buy tickets and she was frequently obliged to be photographed seated at a table, listening eagerly to her neighbor, at some function for the good of charity. Her big heart did not, as is so sadly often the case, inhabit a big bosom. Mrs. Martindale"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s were admirable, delicate yet firm, pointing one to the right, one to the left; angry at each other, as the Russians have it.
Her heart was the warmer, now, for the fine sight of the Avenue. All the flags looked brand-new. The red and the white and the blue were so vivid they fairly vibrated, and the crisp stars seemed to dance on their points. Mrs. Martindale had a flag, too, clipped to the lapel of her jacket. She had had quant.i.ties of rubies and diamonds and sapphires just knocking about, set in floral designs on evening bags and vanity boxes and cigarette-cases; she had taken the lot of them to her jeweller, and he had a.s.sembled them into a charming little Old Glory. There had been enough of them for him to devise a rippled flag, and that was fortunate, for those flat flags looked sharp and stiff. There were numbers of emeralds, formerly figuring as leaves and stems in the floral designs, which were of course of no use to the present scheme and so were left over, in an embossed leather case. Some day, perhaps, Mrs. Martindale would confer with her jeweller about an arrangement to employ them. But there was no time for such matters now.
There were many men in uniform walking along the Avenue under the bright banners. The soldiers strode quickly and surely, each on to a destination. The sailors, two by two, ambled, paused at a corner and looked down a street, gave it up and went slower along their unknown way. Mrs. Martindale"s heart grew again as she looked at them. She had a friend who made a practice of stopping uniformed men on the street and thanking them, individually, for what they were doing for her. Mrs. Martindale felt that this was going unnecessarily far. Still, she did see, a little bit, what her friend meant.
And surely no soldier or sailor would have objected to being addressed by Mrs. Martindale. For she was lovely, and no other woman was lovely like her. She was tall, and her body streamed like a sonnet. Her face was formed all of triangles, as a cat"s is, and her eyes and her hair were blue-gray. Her hair did not taper in its growth about her forehead and temples; it sprang suddenly, in great thick waves, from a straight line across her brow. Its blue-gray was not premature. Mrs. Martindale lingered in her fragrant forties. Has not afternoon been adjudged the fairest time of the day?
To see her, so delicately done, so finely finished, so softly sheltered by her very loveliness, you might have laughed to hear that she was a working-woman. "Go on!" you might have said, had such been your unfortunate manner of expressing disbelief. But you would have been worse than coa.r.s.e; you would have been wrong. Mrs. Martindale worked, and worked hard. She worked doubly hard, for she was unskilled at what she did, and she disliked the doing of it. But for two months she had worked every afternoon five afternoons of every week, and had shirked no moment. She received no remuneration for her steady services. She gave them because she felt she should do so. She felt that you should do what you could, hard and humbly. She practiced what she felt.
The special office of the war-relief organization where Mrs. Martindale served was known to her and her coworkers as Headquarters; some of them had come to call it H.Q. These last were of the group that kept agitating for the adoption of a uniform-the design had not been thoroughly worked out, but the idea was of something nurselike, only with a fuller skirt and a long blue cape and white gauntlets. Mrs. Martindale was not in agreement with this faction. It had always been hard for her to raise her voice in opposition, but she did, although softly. She said that while of course there was nothing wrong about a uniform, certainly n.o.body could possibly say there was anything wrong with the idea, still it seemed-well, it seemed not quite right to make the work an excuse, well, for fancy dress, if they didn"t mind her saying so. Naturally, they wore their coifs at Headquarters, and if anybody wanted to take your photograph in your coif, you should go through with it, because it was good for the organization and publicized its work. But please, not whole uniforms, said Mrs. Martindale. Really, please, Mrs. Martindale said.
Headquarters was, many said, the stiffest office of all the offices of all the war-relief organizations in the city. It was not a place where you dropped in and knitted. Knitting, once you have caught the hang of it, is agreeable work, a relaxation from what strains life may be putting upon you. When you knit, save when you are at those bits where you must count st.i.tches, there is enough of your mind left over for you to take part in conversations, and for you to be receptive of news and generous with it. But at Headquarters they sewed. They did a particularly difficult and tedious form of sewing. They made those short, shirt-like coats, fastened in back with tapes, that are put on patients in hospitals. Each garment must have two sleeves, and all the edges must be securely bound. The material was harsh to the touch and the smell, and impatient of the needle of the novice. Mrs. Martindale had made three and had another almost half done. She had thought that after the first one the others would be easier and quicker of manufacture. They had not been.
There were sewing machines at Headquarters, but few of the workers understood the running of them. Mrs. Martindale herself was secretly afraid of a machine; there had been a nasty story, never traced to its source, of somebody who put her thumb in the wrong place, and down came the needle, right through nail and all. Besides, there was something-you didn"t know quite how to say it-something more of sacrifice, of service, in making things by hand. She kept on at the task that never grew lighter. It was wished that there were more of her caliber.
For many of the workers had given up the whole thing long before their first garment was finished. And many others, pledged to daily attendance, came only now and then. There was but a handful like Mrs. Martindale.
All gave their services, although there were certain doubts about Mrs. Corning, who managed Headquarters. It was she who oversaw the work, who cut out the garments, and explained to the workers what pieces went next to what other pieces. (It did not always come out as intended. One amateur seamstress toiled all the way to the completion of a coat that had one sleeve depending from the middle of the front. It was impossible to keep from laughing; and a sharp tongue suggested that it might be sent in as it was, in case an elephant was brought to bed. Mrs. Martindale was the first to say "Ah, don"t! She worked so hard over it.") Mrs. Corning was a cross woman, hated by all. The high standards of Headquarters were important to the feelings of the workers, but it was agreed that there was no need for Mrs. Corning to scold so shrilly when one of them moistened the end of her thread between her lips before thrusting it into her needle.
"Well, really," one of the most spirited among the rebuked had answered her. "If a little clean spit"s the worst they"re ever going to get on them . . ."
The spirited one had returned no more to Headquarters, and there were those who felt that she was right. The episode drew new members into the school of thought that insisted Mrs. Corning was paid for what she did.
When Mrs. Martindale paused in the clear light and looked along the Avenue, it was at a moment of earned leisure. She had just left Headquarters. She was not to go back to it for many weeks, nor were any of the other workers. Somewhere the cuckoo had doubtless sung, for summer was coming in. And what with everybody leaving town, it was only sensible to shut Headquarters until autumn. Mrs. Martindale, and with no guilt about it, had looked forward to a holiday from all that sewing.
Well, she was to have none, it turned out. While the workers were gaily bidding farewells and calling out appointments for the autumn, Mrs. Corning had cleared her throat hard to induce quiet and had made a short speech. She stood beside a table piled with cut-out sections of hospital coats not yet sewn together. She was a graceless woman, and though it may be a.s.sumed that she meant to be appealing, she sounded only disagreeable. There was, she said, a desperate need, a dreadful need, for hospital garments. More were wanted right away, hundreds and thousands of them; the organization had had a cable that morning, urging and pleading. Headquarters was closing until September-that meant all work would stop. Certainly they had all earned a vacation. And yet, in the face of the terrible need, she could not help asking-she would like to call for volunteers to take coats with them, to work on at home.
There was a little silence, and then a murmur of voices, gaining in volume and in a.s.surance as the owner of each realized that it was not the only one. Most of the workers, it seemed, would have been perfectly willing, but they felt that they absolutely must give their entire time to their children, whom they had scarcely seen because of being at Headquarters so constantly. Others said they were just plain too worn out, and that was all there was to it. It must be admitted that for some moments Mrs. Martindale felt with this latter group. Then shame waved over her like a blush, and swiftly, quietly, with the blue-gray head held high, she went to Mrs. Corning.
"Mrs. Corning," she said. "I should like to take twelve, please."
Mrs. Corning was nicer than Mrs. Martindale had ever seen her. She put out her hand and grasped Mrs. Martindale"s.
"Thank you," she said, and her shrill voice was gentle.
But then she had to go and be the way she always had been before. She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand from Mrs. Martindale"s and turned to the table, starting to a.s.semble garments.
"And please, Mrs. Martindale," she said, shrilly, "kindly try and remember to keep the seams straight. Wounded people can be made terribly uncomfortable by crooked seams, you know. And if you could manage to get your st.i.tches even, the coat would look much more professional and give our organization a higher standing. And time is terribly important. They"re in an awful hurry for these. So if you could just manage to be a little quicker, it would help a lot."
Really, if Mrs. Martindale hadn"t offered to take the things, she would have . . .
The twelve coats still in sections, together with the coat that was half finished, made a formidable bundle. Mrs. Martindale had to send down for her chauffeur to come and carry it to her car for her. While she waited for him, several of the workers came up, rather slowly, and volunteered to sew at home. Four was the highest number of garments promised.
Mrs. Martindale did say good-by to Mrs. Corning, but she expressed no pleasure at the hope of seeing her again in the autumn. You do what you can, and you do it because you should. But all you can do is all you can do.
Out on the Avenue, Mrs. Martindale was herself again. She kept her eyes from the great package the chauffeur had placed in the car. After all, she might, and honorably, allow herself a recess. She need not go home and start sewing again immediately. She would send the chauffeur home with the bundle, and walk in the pretty air, and not think of unfinished coats.
But the men in uniform went along the Avenue under the snapping flags, and in the sharp, true light you could see all their faces; their clean bones and their firm skin and their eyes, the confident eyes of the soldiers and the wistful eyes of the sailors. They were so young, all of them, and all of them doing what they could, doing everything they could, doing it hard and humbly, without question and without credit. Mrs. Martindale put her hand to her heart. Some day, maybe, some day some of them might be lying on hospital cots . . .
Mrs. Martindale squared her delicate shoulders and entered her car.
"Home, please," she told her chauffeur. "And I"m in rather a hurry."
At home, Mrs. Martindale had her maid unpack the clumsy bundle and lay the contents in her up-stairs sitting-room. Mrs. Martindale took off her outdoor garments and bound her head, just back of the first great blue-gray wave, in the soft linen coif she had habitually worn at Headquarters. She entered her sitting-room, which had recently been redone in the color of her hair and her eyes; it had taken a deal of mixing and matching, but it was a success. There were touches, splashes rather, of magenta about, for Mrs. Martindale complemented brilliant colors and made them and herself glow sweeter. She looked at the ugly, high pile of unmade coats, and there was a second when her famous heart shrank. But it swelled to its norm again as she felt what she must do. There was no good thinking about those twelve d.a.m.ned new ones. Her job immediately was to get on with the coat she had half made.
She sat down on quilted blue-gray satin and set herself to her task. She was at the most hateful stretch of the garment-the binding of the rounded neck. Everything pulled out of place, and nothing came out even, and a horrid starchy smell rose from the thick material, and the st.i.tches that she struggled to put so prettily appeared all different sizes and all faintly gray. Over and over, she had to rip them out for their imperfection, and load her needle again without moistening the thread between her lips, and see them wild and straggling once more. She felt almost ill from the tussle with the hard, monotonous work.
Her maid came in, mincingly, and told her that Mrs. Wyman wished to speak to her on the telephone; Mrs. Wyman wanted to ask a favor of her. Those were two of the penalties attached to the possession of a heart the size of Mrs. Martindale"s-people were constantly telephoning to ask her favors and she was constantly granting them. She put down her sewing, with a sigh that might have been of one thing or of another, and went to the telephone.
Mrs. Wyman, too, had a big heart, but it was not well set. She was a great, hulking, stupidly dressed woman, with flapping cheeks and bee-stung eyes. She spoke with rapid diffidence, inserting apologies before she needed to make them, and so was a bore and invited avoidance.
"Oh, my dear," she said now to Mrs. Martindale, "I"m so sorry to bother you. Please do forgive me. But I do want to ask you to do me the most tremendous favor. Please do excuse me. But I want to ask you, do you possibly happen to know of anybody who could possibly use my little Mrs. Christie?"
"Your Mrs. Christie?" Mrs. Martindale asked. "Now, I don"t think -or do I?"
"You know," Mrs. Wyman said. "I wouldn"t have bothered you for the world, with all you do and all, but you know my little Mrs. Christie. She has that daughter that had infantile, and she has to support her, and I just don"t know what she"s going to do. I wouldn"t have bothered you for the world, only I"ve been sort of thinking up jobs for her to do for me right along, but next week we"re going to the ranch, and I really don"t know what will become of her. And the crippled daughter and all. They just won"t be able to live!"
Mrs. Martindale made a soft little moan. "Oh, how awful," she said. "How perfectly awful. Oh, I wish I could-tell me, what can I do?"
"Well, if you could just think of somebody that could use her," Mrs. Wyman said. "I wouldn"t have bothered you, honestly I wouldn"t, but I just didn"t know who to turn to. And Mrs. Christie"s really a wonderful little woman-she can do anything. Of course, the thing is, she has to work at home, because she wants to take care of the crippled child-well, you can"t blame her, really. But she"ll call for things and bring them back. And she"s so quick, and so good. Please do forgive me for bothering you, but if you could just think--"
"Oh, there must be somebody!" Mrs. Martindale cried. "I"ll think of somebody. I"ll rack my brains, truly I will. I"ll call you up as soon as I think."
Mrs. Martindale went back to her blue-gray quilted satin. Again she took up the unfinished coat. A shaft of the exceptionally bright sunlight shot past a vase of b.u.t.terfly orchids and settled upon the waving hair under the gracious coif. But Mrs. Martindale did not turn to meet it. Her blue-gray eyes were bent on the drudgery of her fingers. This coat, and then the twelve others beyond it. The need, the desperate, dreadful need, and the terrible importance of time. She took a st.i.tch and another st.i.tch and another st.i.tch and another st.i.tch; she looked at their wavering line, pulled the thread from her needle, ripped out three of the st.i.tches, rethreaded her needle, and st.i.tched again. And as she st.i.tched, faithful to her promise and to her heart, she racked her brains.
The New Yorker, June 28, 1941.
The Standard of Living.
Annabel and Midge came out of the tea room with the arrogant slow gait of the leisured, for their Sat.u.r.day afternoon stretched ahead of them. They had lunched, as was their wont, on sugar, starches, oils, and b.u.t.ter-fats. Usually they ate sandwiches of spongy new white bread greased with b.u.t.ter and mayonnaise; they ate thick wedges of cake lying wet beneath ice cream and whipped cream and melted chocolate gritty with nuts. As alternates, they ate patties, sweating beads of inferior oil, containing bits of bland meat bogged in pale, stiffening sauce; they ate pastries, limber under rigid icing, filled with an indeterminate yellow sweet stuff, not still solid, not yet liquid, like salve that has been left in the sun. They chose no other sort of food, nor did they consider it. And their skin was like the petals of wood anemones, and their bellies were as flat and their flanks as lean as those of young Indian braves.
Annabel and Midge had been best friends almost from the day that Midge had found a job as stenographer with the firm that employed Annabel. By now, Annabel, two years longer in the stenographic department, had worked up to the wages of eighteen dollars and fifty cents a week; Midge was still at sixteen dollars. Each girl lived at home with her family and paid half her salary to its support.
The girls sat side by side at their desks, they lunched together every noon, together they set out for home at the end of the day"s work. Many of their evenings and most of their Sundays were pa.s.sed in each other"s company. Often they were joined by two young men, but there was no steadiness to any such quartet; the two young men would give place, unlamented, to two other young men, and lament would have been inappropriate, really, since the newcomers were scarcely distinguishable from their predecessors. Invariably the girls spent the fine idle hours of their hot-weather Sat.u.r.day afternoons together. Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship.
They looked alike, though the resemblance did not lie in their features. It was in the shape of their bodies, their movements, their style, and their adornments. Annabel and Midge did, and completely, all that young office workers are besought not to do. They painted their lips and their nails, they darkened their lashes and lightened their hair, and scent seemed to shimmer from them. They wore thin, bright dresses, tight over their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and high on their legs, and tilted slippers, fan cifully strapped. They looked conspicuous and cheap and charming.
Now, as they walked across to Fifth Avenue with their skirts swirled by the hot wind, they received audible admiration. Young men grouped lethargically about newsstands awarded them murmurs, exclamations, even-the ultimate tribute-whistles. Annabel and Midge pa.s.sed without the condescension of hurrying their pace; they held their heads higher and set their feet with exquisite precision, as if they stepped over the necks of peasants.
Always the girls went to walk on Fifth Avenue on their free afternoons, for it was the ideal ground for their favorite game. The game could be played anywhere, and, indeed, was, but the great shop windows stimulated the two players to their best form.
Annabel had invented the game; or rather she had evolved it from an old one. Basically, it was no more than the ancient sport of what-would-you-do-if-you-had-a-million dollars? But Annabel had drawn a new set of rules for it, had narrowed it, pointed it, made it stricter. Like all games, it was the more absorbing for being more difficult.
Annabel"s version went like this: You must suppose that somebody dies and leaves you a million dollars, cool. But there is a condition to the bequest. It is stated in the will that you must spend every nickel of the money on yourself.
There lay the hazard of the game. If, when playing it, you forgot, and listed among your expenditures the rental of a new apartment for your family, for example, you lost your turn to the other player. It was astonishing how many-and some of them among the experts, too-would forfeit all their innings by such slips.
It was essential, of course, that it be played in pa.s.sionate seriousness. Each purchase must be carefully considered and, if necessary, supported by argument. There was no zest to playing wildly. Once Annabel had introduced the game to Sylvia, another girl who worked in the office. She explained the rules to Sylvia and then offered her the gambit "What would be the first thing you"d do?" Sylvia had not shown the decency of even a second of hesitation. "Well," she said, "the first thing I"d do, I"d go out and hire somebody to shoot Mrs. Gary Cooper, and then . . ." So it is to be seen that she was no fun.
But Annabel and Midge were surely born to be comrades, for Midge played the game like a master from the moment she learned it. It was she who added the touches that made the whole thing cozier. According to Midge"s innovations, the eccentric who died and left you the money was not anybody you loved, or, for the matter of that, anybody you even knew. It was somebody who had seen you somewhere and had thought, "That girl ought to have lots of nice things. I"m going to leave her a million dollars when I die." And the death was to be neither untimely nor painful. Your benefactor, full of years and comfortably ready to depart, was to slip softly away during sleep and go right to heaven. These embroideries permitted Annabel and Midge to play their game in the luxury of peaceful consciences.
Midge played with a seriousness that was not only proper but extreme. The single strain on the girls" friendship had followed an announcement once made by Annabel that the first thing she would buy with her million dollars would be a silver-fox coat. It was as if she had struck Midge across the mouth. When Midge recovered her breath, she cried that she couldn"t imagine how Annabel could do such a thing-silver-fox coats were common! Annabel defended her taste with the retort that they were not common, either. Midge then said that they were so. She added that everybody had a silver-fox coat. She went on, with perhaps a slight loss of head, to declare that she herself wouldn"t be caught dead in silver fox.
For the next few days, though the girls saw each other as constantly, their conversation was careful and infrequent, and they did not once play their game. Then one morning, as soon as Annabel entered the office, she came to Midge and said that she had changed her mind. She would not buy a silver-fox coat with any part of her million dollars. Immediately on receiving the legacy, she would select a coat of mink.
Midge smiled and her eyes shone. "I think," she said, "you"re doing absolutely the right thing."
Now, as they walked along Fifth Avenue, they played the game anew. It was one of those days with which September is repeatedly cursed; hot and glaring, with slivers of dust in the wind. People drooped and shambled, but the girls carried themselves tall and walked a straight line, as befitted young heiresses on their afternoon promenade. There was no longer need for them to start the game at its formal opening. Annabel went direct to the heart of it.
"All right," she said. "So you"ve got this million dollars. So what would be the first thing you"d do?"
"Well, the first thing I"d do," Midge said, "I"d get a mink coat." But she said it mechanically, as if she were giving the memorized answer to an expected question.
"Yes," Annabel said, "I think you ought to. The terribly dark kind of mink." But she, too, spoke as if by rote. It was too hot; fur, no matter how dark and sleek and supple, was horrid to the thoughts.
They stepped along in silence for a while. Then Midge"s eye was caught by a shop window. Cool, lovely gleamings were there set off by chaste and elegant darkness.
"No," Midge said, "I take it back. I wouldn"t get a mink coat the first thing. Know what I"d do? I"d get a string of pearls. Real pearls."
Annabel"s eyes turned to follow Midge"s.
"Yes," she said, slowly. "I think that"s kind of a good idea. And it would make sense, too. Because you can wear pearls with anything."
Together they went over to the shop window and stood pressed against it. It contained but one object-a double row of great, even pearls clasped by a deep emerald around a little pink velvet throat.
"What do you suppose they cost?" Annabel said.
"Gee, I don"t know," Midge said. "Plenty, I guess."
"Like a thousand dollars?" Annabel said.
"Oh, I guess like more," Midge said. "On account of the emerald."
"Well, like ten thousand dollars?" Annabel said.
"Gee, I wouldn"t even know," Midge said.
The devil nudged Annabel in the ribs. "Dare you to go in and price them," she said.
"Like fun!" Midge said.
"Dare you," Annabel said.
"Why, a store like this wouldn"t even be open this afternoon," Midge said.
"Yes, it is so, too," Annabel said. "People just came out. And there"s a doorman on. Dare you."
"Well," Midge said. "But you"ve got to come too."
They tendered thanks, icily, to the doorman for ushering them into the shop. It was cool and quiet, a broad, gracious room with paneled walls and soft carpet. But the girls wore expressions of bitter disdain, as if they stood in a sty.
A slim, immaculate clerk came to them and bowed. His neat face showed no astonishment at their appearance.
"Good afternoon," he said. He implied that he would never forget it if they would grant him the favor of accepting his soft-spoken greeting.
"Good afternoon," Annabel and Midge said together, and in like freezing accents.
"Is there something-?" the clerk said.
"Oh, we"re just looking," Annabel said. It was as if she flung the words down from a dais.
The clerk bowed.
"My friend and myself merely happened to be pa.s.sing," Midge said, and stopped, seeming to listen to the phrase. "My friend here and myself," she went on, "merely happened to be wondering how much are those pearls you"ve got in your window."
"Ah, yes," the clerk said. "The double rope. That is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Madam."
"I see," Midge said.
The clerk bowed. "An exceptionally beautiful necklace," he said. "Would you care to look at it?"
"No, thank you," Annabel said.
"My friend and myself merely happened to be pa.s.sing," Midge said.
They turned to go; to go, from their manner, where the tumbrel awaited them. The clerk sprang ahead and opened the door. He bowed as they swept by him.
The girls went on along the Avenue and disdain was still on their faces.
"Honestly!" Annabel said. "Can you imagine a thing like that?"
"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!" Midge said. "That"s a quarter of a million dollars right there!"