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
Friday. Now I have just four dollars left; for I bought it to-day and
set it up myself. A little second hand one with one hole on top--and
no coals to put in it! I don't dare use the last four dollars, for the
rent is due soon and I have to pay in advance. I suppose it's all
right to secure herself, but it's hard on me.
Nov. 30. I believe I 'm hungry, and I don't remember to have been
hungry before in all my life, without having enough ready to fill my
stomach. But I don't dare to spend another cent till I get work. It
must come, _it must_--
I 've lived three days on a half a pound of walnuts, half a pound of
cheese and a loaf of bread--and walked my feet sore looking for a
place. I know I could have had two places, but I dared not engage to
the women. That woman in the Grand Central Station haunts me; these
two women had a look of her! One wanted me in private manicure rooms
to learn the trade; she said I had the right kind of fingers after the
rough had worn off. The other wanted me to show rooms to rent in a
queer looking house. Mrs. T. told me to keep away from it and all like
it.
Dec. 1. I 'm not only hungry, I 'm cold too. I bought two pails of
coals, and paid high for them so Mrs. T. says. They say there is going
to be a coal famine from the great strike. It makes me mad that it
should all pile up on me in this way! Why can't I have work? Why,
when I am willing, can't I find a place?
An awful feeling comes over me sometimes, when I am turned down at a
place I 've applied for: I want to throttle the first well-dressed man
or woman I meet and say, "Give me work or I 'll make it the worse for
you!" Then I turn all dizzy and sick after that feeling, and hate
myself for the thought; it's so unjust.
Dec. 10. I asked Mrs. T. if I might n't pay by the week and at the end
of each week. I think she knew what the trouble was. She hesitated
for a minute, and that was enough for me.
"Oh, I _can_ pay you," I said, "only it's a little more convenient."
"Then I 'd like you to," she said in her queer dry voice.
I hated her at that moment. I went up stairs to my bare room and took
off the knit woollen petticoat I made for myself at home, just before
coming down; I took that and a set of gold beads, that were my
grandmother's, and went out with them to a pawnbroker's just around the
corner on the avenue. I got eight dollars for the two of them, and
made the time in which to redeem them one month. Then I went back to
the house and paid her. She looked surprised, but her skinny hand
closed upon the money as if she, too, had no more for the morrow. I
don't know that she has. The students come and go.
Dec. 14. I stood on Twentieth Street near Broadway to-day, watching
the teamsters unload the heavy drays at the back of a department store.
I found myself envying them--they had work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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