Working With the Working WomanParker, Cornelia Stratton
History
Working With the Working Woman
Parker, Cornelia Stratton
United States -- Social conditions; Women -- Employment -- United States; Working class -- United States
The minutes flew by too fast that supper. Before I knew it, 5.30 had
come around, and by the time I was downstairs again it was five
minutes past my appointed half hour. Poor, poor Schmitz! And yet lucky
Schmitz. It must have caused his soul much inner satisfaction to have
a real honest-to-goodness grievance to complain about. (You see, he
could not go up for his supper until I came down from mine.) Schmitz
upbraided me, patiently, with explanations. Every single night from
then on, when at five he would tell me I could go upstairs, he always
added, “And be sure you're back at half past five!” In natural
depravity of spirit, it was my delight one night to be able to sneak
down at about 5.25 without being seen by Schmitz. Then I shrank into a
corner of my compartment, out of his line of vision, and worked busily
on my evening chores. At 5.30, Schmitz began his anxious scanning of
our large clock. By 5.40 he was a wreck and the clock had nearly been
glared off its hinges. Then it was a waiter called out to me the first
evening order. With the crucified steps of a martyr, a ten-minute-hungry
martyr at that, Schmitz made his way over to fill that order. And
there I was, busily filling it myself! Of course, I hope I have made
it clear that Schmitz was the kind who would say, “I knew she was
there all along.”
The rush of this particular Thursday night! More lettuce had to be
sent for in the middle of the evening, more tomatoes, more
blackberries, more cantaloupes, more bread for toast. There was no
stopping for breath. In the midst of the final scrubbings and
cleanings came an order of “One combination salad, Sweetheart!” That
done and removed and there sounded down the way, “One cantaloupe,
Honey!” Back the waiter came in a moment. “The old party says it's too
ripe.” There were only two left to choose from. “Knock his slats in
if he don't like that, the old fossil.” In another moment the waiter
was back again with the second half. “He says he don't want no
cantaloupe, anyhow. Says he meant an order of Philadelphia cream
cheese.”
But nine o'clock came round and somehow the chores were all done and
Schmitz nodded his regal head ever so little—his sign for, “Madam,
you may take your departure,” and up I flew through the almost
deserted main kitchen, up the three flights to the service floor, down
four flights to the time-clock floor (elevators weren't always handy),
to be greeted by my friend the time-clock man with his broad grin and
his, “Well, if here ain't my little bunch o' love!”
If he and Schmitz could only have gotten mixed a bit in the original
kneading....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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