Making Both Ends Meet | Page 8

restaurant cost 25 to 35 cents a day. She was often
entertained at dinner, by friends.
She usually rode to work, and walked home, eight blocks, spending
thus 30 cents a week carfare. All living expenses for the week came to
about $6. She paid for six years $24 a year on an insurance policy
which promised her $15 a week in case of illness, and was cumulative,
making a return during the life of the holder; $290 would be due from it
in about a year.
Zetta said that she was extravagant in her expense for clothing, but she
considered that her social position depended upon her appearance. She
was very attractive looking. Her manner had quiet and grace, and there
was something touching, even moving, in the dignity of her pure, clear
English, acquired in the teeth of a fortune that forced her to be a little
scullion and cook at the age of eleven. She was dressed with taste and
care at the time of the interview. Through watching sales and through
information obtained from heads of departments, she contrived to buy

clothing of excellent quality, silk stockings, and well-cut suits
comparatively cheaply. By waiting until the end of the season, she had
paid $35, the winter before, for a suit originally costing $70; $35 was
more than she had intended to spend, but the suit was becoming and
she could not resist the purchase. She managed to have pretty and
well-designed hats for from $2 to $5, because a friend trimmed them.
She spent her vacation with relatives on a farm in the country. Railroad
fares and the occasional purchase of a magazine were her only
expenditures for pleasure. But she had many "good times" going to the
beaches in the summer with friends who paid her way.
She considered that with careful planning a girl could live in fair
comfort for $10 a week. But she saved nothing.
The drawback she mentioned in her own arrangements--the best she
could obtain for her present wage--was not the cold of her hall bedroom,
warmed only by the gas-jet, but that she had no suitable place for
receiving men friends. She was obliged to turn to trolley rides and
walks and various kinds of excursions,--literally to the streets,--for
hospitality, when she received a man's visit. She spoke frequently of
one man with whom she had many "good times." She could not take
him to her room. Trolley rides, and walks in winter, would pall. She
hated park benches as a resort for quiet conversation. Where, then, was
she to see him? Although she disapproved of it, she and another girl
who had a larger and more attractive room than her own had received
men there.
Zetta's income for the year had been $520. She had spent $130 for rent;
$105 for dinners; $55 for breakfasts, luncheons, and washing; $195 for
clothing, summer railway fares, and incidentals; $15 for carfare; and
$20 for insurance.
IV
Zetta's interest in her daily occupation is somewhat unusual in the trade
chronicles of the shop-girls. One frequently hears complaint of the
inefficiency and inattention of New York saleswomen and their

rudeness to plainly dressed customers. While this criticism contains a
certain truth, it is, of course, unreasonable to expect excellence from
service frequently ill paid, often unevenly and unfairly promoted, and,
except with respect to dress, quite unstandardized.
Further, it must be remembered that the world in which the shop-girl
follows her occupation is a world of externals. The fortunes, talents,
tastes, eager human effort spent in shop-window displays on Fifth
Avenue, the shimmer and sparkle of beautiful silks and jewels, the
prestige of "carriage trade," the distinction of presence of some of the
customers and their wealth and their freedom in buying--all the
worldliness of the most moneyed city of the United States here
perpetually passes before the eyes of Zettas in their $1.20 muslin waists
so carefully scrubbed the midnight before, and of Alices who have had
breakfasts for 10 cents. Is it surprising that they should adopt the New
York shop-window-display ideal of life manifested everywhere around
them?
The saleswomen themselves are the worst victims of their
unstandardized employment; and the fact that they spend long years of
youth in work involving a serious outlay of their strength, without
training them in concentration or individual responsibility or
resourcefulness, but apparently dissipating these powers, seems one of
the gravest aspects of their occupation.
A proud and very pretty pink-cheeked little English shop-girl, with
clear hazel eyes, laid special stress upon unevenness of promotion, in
telling of her fortunes in this country.
She was sitting, as she spoke, in the parlor of a Christian "home,"
which, like that of many others where shop-girls live, was light and
clean, but had that unmistakably excellent and