One bitter December morning in 1901 I left Boston for Lynn, Ma.s.s. The route of my train ran close to marshes; frozen hard ice many feet thick covered the rocks and hillocks of earth, and on the dazzling winter scene the sun shone brilliantly.
No sooner had I taken my place in my plain attire than my former personality slipped from me as absolutely as did the garments I had discarded. I was Bell Ballard. People from whose contact I had hitherto pulled my skirts away became my companions as I took my place shoulder to shoulder with the crowd of breadwinners.
Lynn in winter is ugly. The very town itself seemed numbed and blue in the intense cold well below zero. Even the Christmas-time greens in the streets and holly in the store windows could not impart festivity to this city of workers. The thoroughfares are trolley lined, of course, and a little beyond the town"s centre is a common, a white wooden church stamping the place New England.
Lynn is made up of factories--great ma.s.ses of ugliness, red brick, many-windowed buildings. The General Electric has a concern in this town, but the industry is chiefly the making of shoes. The shoe trade in our country is one of the highest paying manufactures, and in it there are more women employed than in any other trade. Lynn"s population is 70,000; of these 10,000 work in shoe-shops.
The night must not find me homeless, houseless. I went first to a directory and found the address of the Young Women"s Christian a.s.sociation: a room upstairs in a building on one of the princ.i.p.al streets. Here two women faced me as I made my appeal, and I saw at once displayed the sentiments of kindness thenceforth to greet me throughout my first experience--qualities of exquisite sympathy, rare hospitality and human interest.
"I am looking for work. I want to get a room in a safe place for the night."
I had not for a moment supposed that anything in my attire of simple decorous work-clothes could awaken pity. Yet pity it was and nothing less in the older woman"s face.
"Work in the shops?"
"Yes, ma"am."
The simple fact that I was undoubtedly to make my own living and my own way in the hard hand-to-hand struggle in the shops aroused her sympathy.
She said earnestly: "You must not go anywhere to sleep that you don"t know about, child."
She wrote an address for me on a slip of paper.
"Go there; I know the woman. If she can"t take you, why, come back here.
I"ll take you to my own house. I won"t have you sleep in a strange town just _anywheres_! You might get into trouble."
She was not a matron; she was not even one of the staff of managers or directors. She was only a woman who had come in to ask some question, receive some information; and thus in marvelous friendliness she turned and outstretched her hand--I was a stranger and this was her welcome.
I had proved a point at the first step; help had been extended. If I myself failed to find shelter I could go to her for protection. I intended to find my lodging place if possible without any reference or any aid.
Out of the town proper in a quiet side street I saw a little wooden tenement set back from the road.
"Furnished Room to Rent," read the sign in the window. A sweet-faced woman responded to the bell I had rung. One glance at me and she said:
"Ve only got a "sheep" room."
At the compliment I was ill-pleased and told her I was looking for a _cheap_ room: I had come to Lynn to work. Oh! that was all right. That was the kind of people she received.
I followed her into the house. I must excuse her broken English. She was French. Ah! was she? That made my way easier. I told her I was from Paris and a stranger in this part of the country, and thenceforth our understanding was complete. In 28 Viger Street we spoke French always.
My room in the attic was blue-and-white papered; a little, clean, agreeable room.
Madam begged that I would pardon the fact that my bed had no sheets. She would try to arrange later. She also insinuated that the "young ladies"
who boarded with her spoiled all her floor and her furniture by slopping the water around. I a.s.sured her that she should not have to complain of me--I would take care.
The room was $1.25 a week. Could I pay her in advance? I did so, of course. I would have to carry up my water for washing from the first floor morning and night and care for my room. On the landing below I made arrangements with the tenant for board at ten cents a meal. Madame Courier was also a French Canadian, a mammoth creature with engaging manners.
"Mademoiselle Ballard has work?"
"Not yet."
"Well, if you don"t get a job my husband will speak for you. I have here three other young ladies who work in the shops; they"ll speak for you!"
Before the door of the first factory I failed miserably. I could have slunk down the street and gladly taken the first train away from Lynn!
My garments were heavy; my skirt, lined with a sagging cotton goods, weighed a ton; the woolen gloves irritated.
The shop fronted the street, and the very sight through the window of the individuals representing power, the men whom I saw behind the desks, frightened me. I could not go in. I fairly ran through the streets, but stopped finally before a humbler shop--where a sign swung at the door: "Hands Wanted." I went in here and opened a door on the third floor into a small office.
I was before a lank Yankee manufacturer. Leaning against his desk, twisting from side to side in his mouth a toothpick, he nodded to me as I entered. His wife, a grim, spectacled New Englander, sat in the revolving desk-chair.
"I want work. Got any?"
"Waal, thet"s jist what we hev got! Ain"t we, Mary?"
(I felt a flashing sensation of triumph.)
"Take your tippet off, set right down, ef you"re in earnest."
"Oh, I am in earnest; but what sort of work is it?"
"It"s gluein" suspender straps."
"Suspenders! I want to work in a shoe-shop!"
He smiled, indulgent of this whim.
"They all does! Don"t they, Mary?" (She acquiesced.)
"Then they get sick of the shop, and they come back to me. You will!"
"Let me try the shoe-shop first; then if I can"t get a job I"ll come back."
He was anxious to close with me, however, and took up a pile of the suspender straps, tempting me with them.
"What you ever done?"
"Nothing. I"m green!"
"That don"t make no difference; they"re all green, ain"t they, Mary?"
"Yes," Mary said; "I have to learn them all."
"Now, to Preston"s you can get in all right, but you won"t make over four dollars a week, and here if you"re smart you"ll make six dollars in no time." ...
Preston"s!
That was the first name I had heard, and to Preston"s I was asking my way, stimulated by the fact, though I had been in Lynn not an hour and a half, a job was mine did I care to glue suspender straps!
I afterward learned that Preston"s, a little factory on the town"s outskirts, is a model shoe-shop in its way. I did not work there, and neither of the factories in which I was employed was "model" to my judgment.