And Miss Cross. In face, form, neatness, and manners Miss Cross could have held her own socially anywhere. But according to orthodox standards Miss Cross's grammar was faulty. She had worked always in our laundry, beginning as a hand ironer. She knew the days when hours were longer than nine and pay lower than fourteen dollars a week. She remembered when the family floor had to iron Saturdays until 10 and 11 at night, instead of getting off at 12.45, as we did now. They stood it in those days; but how? As it was now, not a girl on our floor but whose feet ached more or less by 4 or 4.30. Ordinarily we stopped at 5.30. Everyone knew how everyone else felt that last half hour. During a week with any holiday the girls had to work till 6.15 every night, and Saturday afternoon. They all said—we discussed it early one morning—that in such weeks they could iron scarcely anything that last hour, their feet burned so.
The candy factory was hard—one stood nine hours, but the work was very light.
The brassworks was hard—one sat, but the foot exercise was wearying and the seat fearfully uncomfortable.
Ironing was hardest—one stood all day and used the feet for hard pressure besides. Yet I was sorry to leave the laundry!
Perhaps it was just as well for me that Lucia could not talk English. She might have used it on me, and already the left ear was talked off by Irma. Miss Cross stood for just so much conversation, according to her mood. Even if she were feeling very spry, our sixth-floor talk could become only so general and lively before Miss Cross would call: “Girls! girls! not so much noise!” If it were late in the afternoon that would quiet us for the day—no one had enough energy to start up again.
The first half hour Irma confided in me that she had cravings. “Cravings? Cravings for what?” I asked her.
“Yes, papers. I want to read papers on the lecture platform.”
Whereat I heard all Irma's spiritual longings—cravings. She began in school to do papers. That was two years ago. Since then she has often been asked to read the papers she wrote in school before church audiences. Just last Sunday she read one at her church in New York, and four people asked her afterward for copies.
It was about the True Woman. When she wrote it, she began, “Dear Teacher, Pupils, and Friends.” But when she read it in churches she skipped the Teacher and Pupils and began: “Dear Friends, ... now we are met together on this memorable occasion to consider the subject of the True Woman. First we must ask” (here Irma bangs down on a helpless nightshirt and dries it out well beyond its time into a nice bunch of wrinkles) “What is woman? Woman was created by God because Dear Friends God saw how lonely man was and how lonesome and so out of man's ribs God created woman to be man's company and helpmate....”