Katie

by Michael McDowell

  “Of course,” said Philo, “please come.” Philo reflected with wonder how easy it was to make acquaintance in the city, when she had heard for so many years what a cold, unfriendly place it was.

  Philo was pulling on her gloves when she noticed that Ida’s mouth was twitching. “I’ll give a little slice of advice, Philo,” she said. “Keep your mourning in your heart.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you won’t get nowhere in New York if you go round like a fashion plate of moping. Won’t get hired, won’t even hardly get looked at. Maybe some folks like a widow or a orphan, but you’ll do much better being just regular.”

  “Ida is right,” said Gertrude softly. “Dear Philo.”

  To Philo this seemed good advice, and it accorded with her own wishes in the matter. She went back upstairs, changed out of her black clothes into a blue dress, and, to assuage her con­science, attached black mourning bands around her arms, but invisibly, beneath the sleeves.

  Ida wanted to go to the Bowery, but Gertrude suggested that since Philo had never been in the city before, a better impression would be given her if they went instead up Fifth Avenue to Mad­ison Square and then down Fourth Avenue to Union Square – and arm in arm, this was the route the three young women took. The casual journey was filled with wonder for Philo: so many buildings, persons, carriages, horses, noises, odors, lights, and di­versions. Gertrude and Ida talked incessantly, telling Philo of the buildings they passed, commenting on the clothing of other young women they encountered, and recounting romantic tales of other young women, just like themselves, who had married wealthily, happily, and with honor.

  “You’ll want some kind of work, I suppose,” remarked Ger­trude when the young women had stopped for rest on one of the benches on Madison Square directly across from the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

  “Oh, yes, if I can find it,” said Philo quickly. “Have you a job?”

  “I work in a dollar store on Eighth Avenue,” said Gertrude.

  “I hope this is not a rude question,” said Philo after a moment’s hesitation, “but do you make enough to support yourself at Mrs. Classon’s?”

  Gertrude hesitated before answering, and on the other side of her Ida snickered.

  And it was Ida who answered: “Gertrude does all right for herself.”

  “I will ask tomorrow,” said Gertrude, “and see if there is a place for you.”

  Philo was joyed at the prospect of finding employment so soon, but Ida warned her: “Oh, Philo, you may not find the place to your liking . . .”

  Chapter 25

  THE DOLLAR STORE

  At breakfast, Philo regretted aloud that her mother had always discouraged her from learning the seamstress’s trade, for then, she said, she would have had no trouble in finding employment. At this, all the other young women laughed, and replied that there was no surer road to poverty and degradation than that taken by young women who armed themselves with a needle and bodkin.

  “I don’t understand,” said Philo.

  “Do you know how much a girl who sews can make in this city?” asked one young woman whose name Philo had forgot.

  “She makes thirty cents a day – if she’s fortunate,” exclaimed another. “And that’s for going at it twelve, thirteen hours. Her fingers go raw, and her eyes go out, and then there’s not even thirty cents a day . . .”

  “My mother supported us on her sewing,” Philo pointed out. “For many years.”

  “Ah,” said Ella, with a jerk of her head, “that’s in the country.”

  “Life is different in the country,” said Ida.

  “This is the city,” said Gertrude.

  All the young women of the house were employed, it seemed, in shops, and printing houses, and stands, and in ways Philo didn’t at first discover. At any rate, nearly all of them had disappeared by eight o’clock. Philo sat alone in the front parlor and read the advertisements in the morning Tribune. She found countless notices for the employment of young women, but none of the offers­ was either to her taste or her capabilities:

  WANTED – A kitchen girl to work in an oyster saloon, one who understands plain cooking. Apply 39 Green St

  WANTED – One good machine operator on coats on Wheeler & Wilson machine; one good pocket maker. Apply 255 W 19th St

  WANTED – 150 Protestant girls for private families; first-class help furnished for beach, mountains, houses; cooks, table, chamber, store, room, kitchen, laundry girls. Apply Cole Agency, 223 Broadway

  WANTED – A lady compositor acquainted with job work, and who can also feed a steam press. Mercantile Printing House, 32 Canal St

  WANTED – A good dining room waiter and chamber girl; also a good barber. Phoenix Hotel, close by Union Square

  Philo had no desire to go into service. Her one day under the Slapes was too painful a memory to allow her to do that. How­ever, before she had picked up the Sun to go through its advertisements, a little ragged girl came to the door with a note for Philo. It was from Gertrude and begged that she come immediately to No. 173 Eighth Avenue, that a position was open in her store, and that if she passed muster with the manager she would be hired.

  Philo hurriedly put on her bonnet, received explicit directions from Mrs. Classon to find the address, and set out. Philo could scarcely believe that the streets were more crowded during the day than they had been the evening before, when she had con­sidered them almost impassable. But now the traffic was inestimably greater, dust and dirt filled the air to such an extent that she could not always see across the street, and the noise of Eighth Avenue was deafening – the squawling of newsboys, the hammering on new buildings, the neighing of horses, the loudness of the passersby in conversation – all was bewildering to Philo.

  The establishment to which she had been directed did not have a prepossessing exterior: merely two large windows which displayed a number of handkerchiefs, cravats, and scarves on the one side and combs, stockings, mantillas, and embroidered slippers on the other. Aachen’s Dollar Emporium was a single room thirty feet wide by seventy deep, lined to a height of almost twenty feet with shelves stocked with just such goods and many others as well, and with long tables spaced out over the floor like pews in a church. Nearly two dozen young women were employed, either presiding over the counters and tables or standing on ladders that moved laterally down the length of the shelving. In addition, there were two fourteen-year-old boys who ran constantly back and forth from the young women to the cashier at the back of the store who gave change and stamped bills PAID. The cashier was also the manager, and it was to him that Gertrude brought Philo.

  His name was Charles Litchman. He had slick black hair and a slick black suit. He looked at Philo with a cold eye and nodded to Gertrude. “She’ll do. Four dollars a week.”

  Philo was dismayed. Four dollars a week was less than what she paid to stay at Mrs. Classon’s. She would lose three dollars a week, plus whatever she must expend on clothing, entertain­ment, and sundries. She was about to protest that she could not accept a position that paid so little when Gertrude gently pulled her away.

  “I know what you think,” said Gertrude in a whisper. “Take the job, and I’ll speak to you of the business later.”

  “But—”

  “I get along, don’t I?” said Gertrude.

  “Perhaps you’ve been here longer,” said Philo.

  “I’m paid five dollars a week,” replied Gertrude. “Now come stand by me here at my counter. I handle gentlemen’s gloves. I will show you what’s to be done. Hours are eight in the morning until seven, with half an hour to take your dinner.”

  The work was not difficult. It consisted simply of standing behind the counter, awaiting the approach of a gentleman who wished to purchase a pair of gloves, discovering his size either by questioning him or by experiment, showing him the different styles, and, when he paid, handing the gloves and the money to the cash boy, occupying the waiting gentleman with a little con­versation while the cash boy was ab
sent, and handing over the change and the gloves when the cash boy returned.

  Despite the great crowds of gentlemen and ladies who thronged the place, Philo had no difficulty in making this much out.

  And she made out much more. The gentlemen who came to buy were more numerous than the ladies, and they were much more disposed to linger and try on more than one pair of gloves. Sometimes they tried on as many as seven or eight, talking clev­erly and flirtingly with Gertrude all the while they did so. Some of the gentlemen who came in were evidently quite well known to Gertrude, for they called her familiarly by her given name and asked who Philo was and when she had come to town and where she lived; and then they turned directly to Philo and asked how she liked the city and whether she had visited the Bowery Theater yet, and when she replied no, demanded, “But wouldn’t you like to?”

  “Yes,” replied Philo truthfully, “I would.”

  “Shall I accompany you tonight?” one man asked with shining eyes.

  “No,” said Philo quickly, “I meant that I should like to go alone.”

  The man laughed. “Unaccompanied ladies are not allowed in theaters in New York. You must have an escort . . .”

  Philo blushed. “I didn’t know, I—”

  “Philo is quite new in town,” said Gertrude, and no more was said.

  At dinnertime, two o’clock, Philo and Gertrude adjourned to a little eating place on the other side of Eighth Avenue, where for fifteen cents Philo obtained a plate of meat with a potato and a small budget of bread and butter.

  As they sat together, Philo had a sudden darkling suspicion. She looked up at Gertrude and said, “Tell me, please, how do you manage to live on the five dollars a week you get at the store? Your dress is very fine.” She hastened to add, “I don’t mean to appear inquisitive – only I’m so ignorant of New York life that I want to be certain I’m going about things in the correct manner.”

  Gertrude paused before answering. She said at last, “The gentlemen who come in the store?”

  “Yes.”

  “They are – what shall I say? – generous.”

  “Generous?”

  “Generous to young women,” Gertrude explained. “Like our­selves.”

  “I see,” said Philo.

  “Many of them are young men, unable as yet to support wives, or unable to find a wife who is entirely to their liking. But they desire companionship, just as young women sometimes desire companionship.”

  Philo said nothing at all.

  “One of them may wish,” said Gertrude carefully, “some­times to accompany you to the Bowery Theater and to supper afterward. On Sunday morning he may invite you to an English breakfast on Staten Island. And as you may not possess the where­withal to purchase clothing which is appropriate for such diversions, appropriate clothing is sometimes purchased for you. Philo,” said Gertrude, turning her head a little aside, “do you understand me?”

  Philo understood only too well, and blushed for her compre­hension.

  Chapter 26

  ANYTHING YOU WANT FOR A QUARTER

  When she returned to the dollar store that afternoon, Philo was set in charge of the “Anything-you-want-for-a-quarter” table. Since it involved goods already slightly damaged, of odd sizes, or soiled, this place required the least experience. It would have been pleasant to spend these hours in the presence of so many bustling strangers – this included her fellow workers and the shoppers alike – if she had not been constantly apprehensive about the possibility that she would be approached with a compromising offer.

  And approached she was – by half a dozen men of various description, a parade of fine moustaches and coattails, offering her theater tickets, oyster suppers, and jaunts up the North River on The Young Widow steamboat. Philo invariably blushed, stammered, and declined.

  A gentleman might pay for a pair of kid gloves with split seams, give her a five-dollar note, and when she gave him his change again, maintain it had been only a one and would she meet him at the corner of Nineteenth Street when she got off work?

  By seven o’clock she was exhausted, not only from standing all day but from the strain of so much polite refusing. She realized that the job quickest and most easily got was perhaps not the job most to be desired and determined then to look out for something better. This resolution she did not relate to Gertrude, who had suddenly conceived a desire to see George Fox in Humpty Dumpty, and parted from her just outside the door of the shop. Philo wondered if she were headed for the corner of Nineteenth Street.

  Philo was glad that the way back to Mrs. Classon’s was so simple: down Eighth Avenue and turn left on Thirteenth Street. She hurried along, scrutinizing the street indicators on the corners of buildings and paying little attention to the crowds that passed her by. But she stopped suddenly when a hand was laid on her arm.

  “Miss Philo?” a man’s voice said in surprise.

  Philo looked up into the face of a man she did not immediately recognize. She had seen so many hundreds of strange masculine faces that day that she was now hard put to believe they each maintained an exclusive identity.

  “Miss Philo,” said Henry Maitland, “why are you in New York?”

  As soon as Philo realized the identity of this man who had accosted her, she recalled the humiliating scene before the Pres­byterian Church. Then a moment later she remembered seeing Mr. Maitland speaking to the marshal who had come to arrest her in New Egypt. She blushed deeply and looked away.

  “Philo,” he said, dropping the Miss, “I was very distressed to hear about your mother. She was a good-hearted woman, and I know that you loved her very much.”

  Philo thanked him for his solicitude. “I’m here in New York because there was no reason for me to remain in New Egypt,” she said. “There was no work for me there. There was no one to keep me there. Now that Mother’s dead, I’m completely alone.” She shrugged and added with a brave smile, “Besides, in New Jersey, I am wanted for murder.”

  He smiled at this. “I for one am tolerably sure of your innocence.”

  “I wonder if your cousin Jewel is?”

  To this, Henry made no reply.

  The pedestrian traffic along Eighth Avenue was still heavy at a quarter past seven, and Henry Maitland had actually to hold onto Philo’s arm to keep them from being separated by the hurrying throng. They had to speak very loudly to be heard by one another at all.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  She nodded automatically and was about to add that she was expected at supper in a quarter of an hour. But before she could do so, Henry had hailed a cab and assisted her inside. He called a destination to the driver, climbed in after her, shut the door, and they were off.

  He took her to a restaurant on Twenty-third Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues, not the best he could afford by any means, but one in which her plain attire would not show her off to disadvantage. The food was simple by fashionable New York standards, but Philo was in amazement at the bill of fare, which contained so great a variety of dishes, each priced separately. A simple dinner might cost one as much as a dollar and a half. Henry insisted that she order whatever she wanted.

  When the first course was brought – it surprised Philo that not all the dishes were put onto the table at once – Henry Maitland said, “I was in Philadelphia the day your mother died, and did not return to New Egypt before Jewel’s come-out party. A marshal from Trenton, I believe, came round that evening looking to arrest you – but fortunately you had already left.”

  “Mrs. Libby took me away in her wagon. Mr. Maitland, I want to assure you: I did not kill my grandfather.”

  “Miss Philo, I never believed it – and neither did anyone else in New Egypt.”

  “No one?”

  “A few,” Henry Maitland admitted. “The few who prefer inter­esting gossip to mundane truth.”

  “What did the Varleys say?” Philo asked curiously.

  Henry hesitated, then only asked, “Why did you come to New York?”


  “I don’t know,” she said, tasting her meat and realizing sud­denly how very hungry she was. “Everyone comes to New York, I suppose.”

  “Have you a place to live?”

  Philo described Mrs. Classon’s.

  “Excuse me, Philo, but I am not prying to no purpose. How much do you pay for your room and board?”

  “Seven dollars,” she answered readily. Already she was be­coming used to the fact that in New York, amounts of money, large, small, or middling, seemed the focus of much of casual conversation.

  “That is reasonable,” said Henry, nodding. “Have you found work?”

  Philo described the dollar store.

  Henry Maitland beat a tattoo on the table, rattling the silver. “Philo,” he said after a moment, “I know that store.”

  “I was there only today,” said Philo, blushing. “I don’t intend to go back.”

  “Good. And you know why, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “This can be a dangerous city, Philo. Especially for an un­protected young woman.”

  Philo made no reply.

  “Do you think you will be able to secure other employment?”

  “I hope so.”

  They continued to eat, and nothing more was said for several minutes, Henry Maitland giving the appearance of being in deep thought.

  “Philo,” he brought out at last, “I would like you to accept something from me.”

  Philo looked up but said nothing.

  “I want you to accept a draught on my banker for a certain sum.”

  “No, Mr. Maitland!”

  “You must, Philo. Listen to me. You have said yourself that you are alone. The city is dangerous, and you must quit your work at that store until you can find something that is totally respectable. I’m sorry to say, however, that total respectability in employment is usually a synonym for poverty. But by persev­erance, I am certain you will come across something that is both to your liking and your financial advantage. I have no real fear of your future – but I do have fear for your present. I would like to lend you a sum of money that will keep you until you have found a situation.”