The Portion of Labor Part 45

"Are you sick?" whispered Abby, catching her arm.

"No," said Ellen. "No, don't worry me, Abby. I think I shall like it."

"I declare you make me mad," said Abby, but she looked at her adoringly. "Here's Ed Flynn," she added. "He'll look out for you.

Good-bye, I'll see you at noon." Abby went away to her machine. She was st.i.tching vamps by the piece, and earning a considerable amount.

The Atkinses were not so distressed as they had been, and Abby was paying off a mortgage.

When the foreman came towards Ellen she experienced a shock. His gay, admiring eyes on her face seemed to dispel all her exaltation.

She felt as if her feet touched earth, and yet the young man was entirely respectful, and even thoughtful. He bade her "Good-morning," and conducted her to the scene of her labor. One other girl was already there at work. She gave a sidewise glance at Ellen, and went on, making her fingers fly. Mr. Flynn showed Ellen what to do. She had to tie the shoes together with bits of twine, laced through eyelet holes. Ellen took a piece of twine and tied it in as Flynn watched her. He laughed pleasantly.

"You'll do," he said, approvingly. "I've been in here five years, and you are the first girl I ever saw who tied a square knot at the first trial. Here's Mamie Brady here, she worked a solid month before she got the hang of the square knot."

"You go along," admonished the girl spoken of as "Mamie Brady." Her words were flippant, even impudent, but her tone was both dejected and childish. She continued to work without a glance at either of them. Her fingers flew, tying the knots with swift jerks.

"Well, you help Miss Brewster, if she needs any help," said Flynn, as he went away.

"We don't have any misses in this shop," said the girl to Ellen, with sarcastic emphasis.

"I don't care anything about being called miss," replied Ellen, picking up another piece of string.

"What's your first name?"

"Ellen."

"Oh, land! I know who you be. You read that essay at the high-school graduation. I was there. Well, I shouldn't think you would want to be called miss if you feel the way you said you did in that."

"I don't want to," said Ellen.

The girl gave a swift, comprehensive glance at her as her fingers manipulated the knots.

"You won't earn twenty cents a week at the rate you're workin'," she said; "look at me."

"I don't believe you worked any faster than I do when you hadn't been here any longer," retorted Ellen.

"I did, too; you can't depend on a thing Ed Flynn says. You're awful slow. He praises you because you are good-lookin'."

Ellen turned and faced her. "Look here," said she.

The other girl looked at her with unspeakable impudence, and yet under it was that shadow of dejection and that irresponsible childishness.

"Well, I am lookin'," said she, "what is it?"

"You need not speak to me again in that way," said Ellen, "and I want you to understand it. I will not have it."

"My, ain't you awful smart," said the other girl, sneeringly, but she went on with her work without another word. Presently she said to Ellen, kindly enough: "If you lay the shoes the way I do, so, you can get them faster. You'll find it pays. Every little saving of time counts when you are workin' by the piece."

"Thank you," said Ellen, and did as she was instructed. She began to work with exceeding swiftness for a beginner. Her fingers were supple, her nervous energy great. Flynn came and stood beside her, watching her.

"If you work at that rate, you'll make it pretty profitable," he said.

"Thank you," said Ellen.

"And a square knot every time," he added, with almost a caressing inflection. Mamie Brady tied in the twine with compressed lips.

Granville Joy pa.s.sed them, pus.h.i.+ng a rack full of shoes to another department, and he glanced at them jealously. Still he was not seriously alarmed as to Flynn, who, although he was good-looking, was a Catholic. Mrs. Zelotes seemed an effectual barrier to that.

"Ed Flynn talks that way to everybody," Mamie Brady said to Ellen, after the foreman had pa.s.sed on. She said it this time quite inoffensively. Ellen laughed.

"If I _do_ tie the knots square, that is the main thing," she said.

"Then you don't like him?"

"I never spoke two words to him before the day I applied for work,"

Ellen replied, haughtily. She was beginning to feel that perhaps the worst feature of her going to work in a factory would be this girl.

"I've known girls who would be willing to go down on their knees and tie his shoes when they hadn't seen more of him than that," said the girl. "Ed Flynn is an awful masher."

Ellen went on with her work. The girl, after a side glance at her, went on with hers.

Gradually Ellen's work began to seem mechanical. At first she had felt as if she were tying all her problems of life in square knots.

She had to use all her brain upon it; after a while her brain had so informed her fingers that they had learned their lesson well enough to leave her free to think, if only the girl at her side would let her alone. The girl had a certain harsh beauty, coa.r.s.ely curling red hair, a great ma.s.s of it, gathered in an untidy knot, and a brilliant complexion. Her hands were large and red. Ellen's contrasted with them looked like a baby's.

"You 'ain't got hands for workin' in a shoe-shop," said Mamie Brady, presently, and it was impossible to tell from her tone whether she envied or admired Ellen's hands, or was proud of the superior strength of her own.

"Well, they've got to work in a shoe-shop," said Ellen, with a short laugh.

"You won't find it so easy to work with such little mites of hands when it comes to some things," said the girl.

It began to be clear that she exulted in her large, coa.r.s.e hands as being fitted for her work.

"Maybe mine will grow larger," said Ellen.

"No, they won't. They'll grow all bony and knotty, but they won't grow any bigger."

"Well, I shall have to get along with them the best way I can,"

replied Ellen, rather impatiently. This girl was irritating to a degree, and yet there was all the time that vague dejection about her, and withal a certain childishness, which seemed to insist upon patience. The girl was really older than Ellen, but she was curiously unformed. Some of the other girls said openly that she was "lacking."

"You act stuck up. Are you stuck up?" asked Mamie Brady, suddenly, after another pause.

Ellen laughed in spite of herself. "No," said she, "I am not. I know of no reason that I have for being stuck up."

"Well, I don't know of any either," said the other girl, "but I didn't know. You sort of acted as if you felt stuck up."

"Well, I don't."

"You talk stuck up. Why don't you talk the way the rest of us do?

Why do you say 'am not,' and 'ar'n't'; why don't you say 'ain't'?"

The girl mimicked Ellen's voice impishly.