Sister Carrie | Page 9

the daring, the activity of a
metropolis of a million. Its streets and houses were already scattered

over an area of seventy-five square miles. Its population was not so
much thriving upon established commerce as upon the industries which
prepared for the arrival of others. The sound of the hammer engaged
upon the erection of new structures was everywhere heard. Great
industries were moving in. The huge railroad corporations which had
long before recognised the prospects of the place had seized upon vast
tracts of land for transfer and shipping purposes. Street-car lines had
been extended far out into the open country in anticipation of rapid
growth. The city had laid miles and miles of streets and sewers through
regions where, perhaps, one solitary house stood out alone--a pioneer
of the populous ways to be. There were regions open to the sweeping
winds and rain, which were yet lighted throughout the night with long,
blinking lines of gas-lamps, fluttering in the wind. Narrow board walks
extended out, passing here a house, and there a store, at far intervals,
eventually ending on the open prairie.
In the central portion was the vast wholesale and shopping district, to
which the uninformed seeker for work usually drifted. It was a
characteristic of Chicago then, and one not generally shared by other
cities, that individual firms of any pretension occupied individual
buildings. The presence of ample ground made this possible. It gave an
imposing appearance to most of the wholesale houses, whose offices
were upon the ground floor and in plain view of the street. The large
plates of window glass, now so common, were then rapidly coming
into use, and gave to the ground floor offices a distinguished and
prosperous look. The casual wanderer could see as he passed a polished
array of office fixtures, much frosted glass, clerks hard at work, and
genteel businessmen in "nobby" suits and clean linen lounging about or
sitting in groups. Polished brass or nickel signs at the square stone
entrances announced the firm and the nature of the business in rather
neat and reserved terms. The entire metropolitan centre possessed a
high and mighty air calculated to overawe and abash the common
applicant, and to make the gulf between poverty and success seem both
wide and deep.
Into this important commercial region the timid Carrie went. She
walked east along Van Buren Street through a region of lessening

importance, until it deteriorated into a mass of shanties and coal-yards,
and finally verged upon the river. She walked bravely forward, led by
an honest desire to find employment and delayed at every step by the
interest of the unfolding scene, and a sense of helplessness amid so
much evidence of power and force which she did not understand. These
vast buildings, what were they? These strange energies and huge
interests, for what purposes were they there? She could have
understood the meaning of a little stone-cutter's yard at Columbia City,
carving little pieces of marble for individual use, but when the yards of
some huge stone corporation came into view, filled with spur tracks
and flat cars, transpierced by docks from the river and traversed
overhead by immense trundling cranes of wood and steel, it lost all
significance in her little world.
It was so with the vast railroad yards, with the crowded array of vessels
she saw at the river, and the huge factories over the way, lining the
water's edge. Through the open windows she could see the figures of
men and women in working aprons, moving busily about. The great
streets were wall-lined mysteries to her; the vast offices, strange mazes
which concerned far-off individuals of importance. She could only
think of people connected with them as counting money, dressing
magnificently, and riding in carriages. What they dealt in, how they
laboured, to what end it all came, she had only the vaguest conception.
It was all wonderful, all vast, all far removed, and she sank in spirit
inwardly and fluttered feebly at the heart as she thought of entering any
one of these mighty concerns and asking for something to
do--something that she could do--anything.



Chapter III
WEE QUESTION OF FORTUNE--FOUR-FIFTY A WEEK

Once across the river and into the wholesale district, she glanced about
her for some likely door at which to apply. As she contemplated the
wide windows and imposing signs, she became conscious of being
gazed upon and understood for what she was--a wage-seeker. She had
never done this thing before, and lacked courage. To avoid a certain
indefinable shame she felt at being caught spying about for a position,
she quickened her steps and assumed an air of indifference supposedly
common to one upon an errand. In this way she passed many
manufacturing and wholesale houses without once glancing