A Cry in the WildernessWaller, Mary E. (Mary Ella)
General
A Cry in the Wilderness
Waller, Mary E. (Mary Ella)
New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Québec (Province) -- Fiction
Nov. 4, 1902. My first day in New York. I took a hack from the
station to this house in the old "Chelsea district" they call it. My
first hack-ride; it was pretty grand for me, but I was afraid to try
the street cars after a horrid woman had tried her best to get me to go
with her after I left the station--oh, it was awful! I never knew
there could be such women before--not that kind. I shall look for work
to-morrow.
Nov. 5. I have to pay a dollar and a half for this room in the attic.
There isn't any heat, and there is no gas in it. I have to furnish it
myself. My landlady is a queer little old woman, Mrs. Turtelot, who
has kept lodgers here for thirty years. She has her house filled with
the students from the Theological Seminary near by. It's lucky I have
this place to come to. I wondered to-day how girls ever get on in this
city, without having someone to go to they know is all right. She
seems like a Frenchwoman, perhaps a French Canadian. I think she must
be, for her mother used to work at Seth White's tavern up home; it was
through his neighbors I got her address. She says the students have to
furnish their own bed clothes and towels. I 'm glad I brought mine
with me. It's awfully cold here to-night, but Mrs. Turtelot has given
me a lamp, till I can get one, and that warms up some. Anyway, I feel
safe here from that other kind. I 'll soon earn enough to fix up a
little.
Nov. 6. I 've been tramping about all day answering advertisements.
Mrs. Turtelot told me not to go into any strange place, like up stairs,
and not to go over a door sill. I have n't found that so easy.
I 've been afraid all day of getting lost, but she told me to-night to
ask every time for West Twenty-third Street and follow it to the river;
then I could always find my way here.
I slept in her room on the sofa the first night; she says I can sleep
with her for a few nights till I can get a cot. A student is leaving
here in a few days and he will sell his second hand. But I don't want
to sleep with her, and I asked her as a favor to let me have two
pillows. She didn't have any extra ones, but let me have hers; so I
have a good bed on the floor. Could n't find work.
Nov. 8. Mrs. T. told me to-day that it is a bad time of year to find
work. It is late in the season and help is being turned off, and,
besides, it is going to be a hard winter, so everybody says. What do
the turned-off ones do, then, for a living?-- No job yet! But I won't
go out to service in a private family unless I have to. I 've had
enough of that in the past.
Nov. 9. Since I came here I have answered fifty-two advertisements. I
get the same answer every time: "You have n't been trained and you have
n't had any experience." How am I to get training and experience if I
don't have the chance? That's what I want to know.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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