第98章

IN the office of the factory Susan found the man Etta described.

He was seated, or, rather, was sprawled before an open and overflowing rolltop desk, his collar and cuffs off, and his coat and waistcoat also.His feet--broad, thick feet with knots at the great toe joints bulging his shoes--were hoisted upon the leaf of the desk.Susan's charms of person and manners so wrought upon him that, during the exchange of preliminary questions and answers, he slowly took down first one foot then the other, and readjusted his once muscular but now loose and pudgy body into a less loaferish posture.He was as unconscious as she of the cause and meaning of these movements.Had he awakened to what he was doing he would probably have been angered against himself and against her; and the direction of Susan Lenox's life would certainly have been changed.Those who fancy the human animal is in the custody of some conscious and predetermining destiny think with their vanity rather than with their intelligence.A careful look at any day or even hour of any life reveals the inevitable influence of sheer accidents, most of them trivial.And these accidents, often the most trivial, most powerfully determine not only the direction but also the degree and kind of force--what characteristics shall develop and what shall dwindle.

"You seem to have a nut on you," said the box manufacturer at the end of the examination."I'll start you at three."Susan, thus suddenly "placed" in the world and ticketed with a real value, was so profoundly excited that she could not even make a stammering attempt at expressing gratitude.

"Do your work well," continued Matson, "and you'll have a good steady job with me till you get some nice young fellow to support you.Stand the boys off.Don't let 'em touch you till you're engaged--and not much then till the preacher's said the word.""Thank you," said Susan, trying to look grave.She was fascinated by his curious habit of scratching himself as he talked--head, ribs, arm, legs, the backs of his red hairy hands.

"Stand 'em off," pursued the box-maker, scratching his ribs and nodding his huge head vigorously."That's the way my wife got me.It's pull Dick pull devil with the gals and the boys.And the gal that's stiff with the men gets a home, while her that ain't goes to the streets.I always gives my gals a word of good advice.And many a one I've saved.There's mighty few preachers does as much good as me.When can you go to work?"Susan reflected.With heightened color and a slight stammer she said, "I've got something to do this afternoon, if you'll let me.Can I come in the morning?""Seven sharp.We take off a cent a minute up to a quarter of an hour.If you're later than that, you get docked for the day.And no excuses.I didn't climb to the top from spittoon cleaner in a saloon fifteen years ago by being an easy mark for my hands.""I'll come at seven in the morning," said Susan.

"Do you live far?"

"I'm going to live just up the street."

"That's right.It adds ten cents a day to your wages--the ten you'll save in carfare.Sixty cents a week!" And Matson beamed and scratched as if he felt he had done a generous act."Who are you livin' with? Respectable, I hope.""With Miss Brashear--I think."

"Oh, yes--Tom Brashear's gal.They're nice people.Tom's an honest fellow--used to make good money till he had his hard luck.Him and me used to work together.But he never could seem to learn that it ain't workin' for yourself but makin' others work for you that climbs a man up.I never was much as a worker.

I was always thinkin' out ways of makin' people work for me.And here I am at the top.And where's Tom? Well--run along now--what's your name?""Lorna Sackville."

"Lorny." He burst into a loud guffaw."Lord, what a name! Sounds like a theayter.Seven sharp, Lorny.So long."Susan nodded with laughing eyes, thanked him and departed.She glanced up the street, saw Etta standing in the door of the restaurant.Etta did not move from her own doorway, though she was showing every sign of anxiety and impatience."I can't leave even for a minute so near the dinner hour," she explained when Susan came, "or I'd, a' been outside the factory.And ma's got to stick to the kitchen.I see you got a job.How much?""Three," replied Susan.

"He must have offered it to you," said Etta, laughing."Ithought about it after you were gone and I knew you'd take whatever he said first.Oh, I've been so scared something'd happen.I do want you as my lady friend.Was he fresh?""Not a bit.He was--very nice."

"Well, he ought to be nice--as pa says, getting richer and richer, and driving the girls he robs to marry men they hate or to pick up a living in the gutter."Susan felt that she owed her benefactor a strong protest."Maybe I'm foolish," said she, "but I'm awful glad he's got that place and can give me work."Etta was neither convinced nor abashed."You don't understand things in our class," replied she."Pa says it was the kind of grateful thinking and talking you've just done that's made him poor in his old age.He says you've either got to whip or be whipped, rob or be robbed--and that the really good honest people are the fools who take the losing side.But he says, too, he'd rather be a fool and a failure than stoop to stamping on his fellow-beings and robbing them.And I guess he's right"--there Etta laughed--"though I'll admit I'd hate to be tempted with a chance to get up by stepping on somebody." She sighed."And sometimes I can't help wishing pa had done some tramping and stamping.Why not? That's all most people are fit for--to be tramped and stamped on.Now, don't look so shocked.

You don't understand.Wait till you've been at work a while."Susan changed the subject."I'm going to work at seven in the morning....I might as well have gone today.I had a kind of an engagement I thought I was going to keep, but I've about decided I won't."Etta watched with awe and delight the mysterious look in Susan's suddenly flushed face and abstracted eyes.After a time she ventured to interrupt with: