A Proper Pursuit

by Lynn Austin

  “What’s a sweatshop?”

  “Any place besides a regular factory where work is done,” Louis explained. “It’s usually in a basement or a garage or a vacant tenement. Employers cram in a bunch of workers and treat them like slaves. Of course those places have very unsafe working conditions, and the workers have to put in long hours for very little pay.”

  “See that little boy?” Grandmother nodded toward a lad who couldn’t have been more than eight years old staggering beneath an enormous bundle of fabric. “He’s delivering piecework, probably to his mother and sisters. Those look like men’s trousers. The family will finish all of the hand sewing at home, often after working all day at some other job. They’ll get paid by the piece. Can you imagine little girls only seven or eight years old, sewing men’s trousers day and night for seven cents a dozen?”

  “That’s all? Why so little?”

  “Because there are hundreds of other destitute immigrants who are willing to work for those wages if they don’t.”

  We turned down a crowded alleyway, and I had to pinch my nose closed again to block out the smell. I hadn’t wanted to reveal my squeamishness in front of Louis Decker, but the entire lane reeked like an overflowing outhouse. I’d never seen so many flies in my life.

  “Here, this is clean,” Louis said, handing me his handkerchief. “The heavy rain we had the other night made all of the outhouses overflow. Is it any wonder that these neighborhoods have cholera and typhoid epidemics?”

  “We’re trying to educate people about the need for cleanliness,” Grandmother added, “but there are just so many people. And, of course, language is a problem. That’s why Miss Addams has added English lessons… . Well, here we are. This is where Irina and her family live.”

  The door to the tenement stood open, and I braced myself as we went inside, dreading how this dilapidated building might smell. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark, narrow foyer after the bright afternoon sunshine. I heard water running and identified the first odor as mildew.

  A young boy stood at the base of the steps, filling an enamel basin with water from a sputtering faucet. He had spread a collection of cans, pots, and bowls on the floor, and he was slowly filling them, one by one.

  “That’s the only running water in the building,” Grandmother said. “All of the people in these apartments have to share the same faucet—and they have to haul the water upstairs, of course.”

  “The tenants are probably thankful to have any water at all,” Louis said. “Careful! Watch your step, Violet… .”

  He took my arm to guide me across the slippery floorboards and around the boy’s scattered containers. As I followed my grandmother up the rickety wooden stairs to the third floor, the odors changed from damp and moldy to the fragrant aroma of cooking food. I began to breathe more freely. I identified onions and boiled potatoes, but also the mysterious, spicy aromas of foreign foods. The air in the stairwell smelled delicious.

  We climbed to the third floor and my grandmother knocked on one of the apartment doors. It opened a crack and a tousled boy with a dirt-smudged face peered out.

  “It’s me, Yuri—Mrs. Hayes,” my grandmother told him. “I’ve brought your mother some soup.”

  “Yes, yes, let her come in, Yuri,” Irina called from inside. He opened the door for us.

  Irina was the thinnest woman I had ever met and also the palest. She sat propped up on one of the beds, her right leg immobilized by a bandage and wooden splint. She might have been a pretty woman, but the accident that had broken her leg had marred her face with purplish bruises. One eye was blackened and swollen shut, and her lips looked puffy and split. I wondered how she had been injured but knew enough about proper manners not to ask. She was top-stitching a man’s suit coat; a pile of unfinished coats lay heaped on the bed beside her.

  I counted three small children in the dismal room along with Yuri, and a fifth one asleep in a cradle that seemed much too short for her. I tried not to gape at the bare wooden floors, the lumpy beds, the chipped plates on the tilting table, knowing that it was just as rude to stare at the furnishings here as it had been in the mansions I’d visited.

  “Irina, this is my granddaughter, Violet Rose. We brought you some soup.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” she said, pronouncing it tank you. She set aside her sewing as one of the smaller children climbed onto the bed beside her. “How can I ever tank you? You would like to stay and visit? Yuri can make tea.”

  “No, we can’t stay. Maybe next time, Irina.”

  “We’re praying for you down at the church,” Louis added. “I hope you’ll soon be well again.” He took the bread from me and set it on the table.

  “Yes. Tank you.”

  “We miss you down at the kitchen,” Grandmother said. “No one makes borscht as good as you do.”

  “Tank you.” I saw Irina wipe away a tear as Grandmother closed the apartment door behind us.

  “What happened to her?” I asked when we reached the stairwell. “How did she break her leg?”

  “Her husband did that to her,” Grandmother said.

  I couldn’t utter another word until we reached the foyer. The young boy was still standing at the water faucet, slowly filling a blackened teakettle.

  “But—why would he do such a terrible thing?”

  “He becomes violent whenever he has too much to drink. Irina would rather take the abuse herself than let him harm one of the children. I didn’t want to stay and visit today for fear he would come home.”

  “Why in the world doesn’t she leave him?”

  “She has no way to support her children or pay the rent.”

  “Everyone at church is praying for her,” Louis said. “And for her husband.”

  “Yes, Irina is such a dear woman.”

  Louis walked with us to our streetcar stop on a main thoroughfare. Finally, I dared to breathe deeply again. The smell of horse manure, factory fumes, and the ever-present stockyards seemed tame after visiting the slums.

  “It was wonderful to see you again, Violet,” Louis said as he waited with us for our car. “I enjoyed working with you.”

  “Yes. I hope we meet again.”

  “Well, now that you mention it …” He paused, removing his spectacles to polish them. “I don’t want you to feel pressured, Violet. I mean, your participation should be absolutely voluntary … but if you are able to play the piano for us next Thursday, we really could use your help.” He wrapped the wires around his ears and gazed at me with his dark, intense eyes.

  “All right. I’ll come.” I needed to shrug off more of the guilt that was blanketing me. Playing the piano sounded much easier than cutting up vegetables. And it wasn’t likely to ruin my hands either.

  “Wonderful,” he said. “We’ll meet in front of the school at one o’clock. I’ll see you then.” Our streetcar arrived, and Grandmother and I climbed aboard, waving good-bye. She sank onto the seat with a sigh.

  “So. What did you think of the settlement house?”

  “I never realized what a hard life those immigrant women have.”

  “My sister Matt has her way of helping women, and I have mine.

  But our work overlaps in places too. We’re both working to change the laws so that women can earn higher wages and work shorter hours. We’d both like to improve working conditions so factories are cleaner and safer. And we’re both trying to get new child labor laws passed—and enforced—so that children can get out of the factories and sweatshops and into schools.”

  “Their living conditions are terrible.”

  “Yes. And you can see why so many of the ramshackle wooden tenements like the one we visited today burned up like matchsticks in the Great Fire. Afterward, the poor people who’d lived in them had no place to go. They didn’t have much to begin with, and then they lost it all. Many, many of the people who died in the fire were poor.”

  “Did my mother live in a tenement before the fire?”

  Onc
e again, my grandmother hesitated—as she always did when I asked a question about my mother.

  “I honestly don’t know where she lived, Violet Rose. I only know that wherever it was, her home burned to the ground. She lost everything— clothing, personal items, heirlooms—everything.”

  “Did she—”

  “That’s really all I can say about her, Violet.”

  I huffed in frustration. “Why won’t you ever talk about her?”

  Grandmother took my hand in both of hers and squeezed it gently. She had beautiful hands—strong and work worn and scented with flour and yeast. A week ago I would have described them as chapped and reddened from too much work. Today they looked beautiful to me.

  “I can’t talk about your mother because I promised your father that I wouldn’t.” She quickly changed the subject. “Since most immigrants work very hard for very little pay, it’s an even greater tragedy when some of them waste it all on alcohol. That’s why my work with the Temperance Union is so important. It goes hand-in-hand with the work we did today. I’ll take you with me to the Union another day.”

  “I still don’t understand why women like Irina don’t leave their husbands if they beat them and spend all their money in saloons.”

  “Because they have no place to go. And if they did leave their husbands, who would care for their children while they worked? One of the needs that Miss Addams hopes to address is low-cost housing and day care for the children of working mothers.”

  It occurred to me that perhaps my mother had wanted to take me with her when she left home, but she’d had no place to live and no one to take care of me. I wished I could find her and ask her about it, but how could I find her if no one would talk about her?

  Chapter

  12

  Grandmother and I returned home from our day at the settlement house to find Aunt Agnes sitting at our dining room table, drinking tea with Matt and Birdie.

  “Sit down and join us, Florence,” Aunt Matt commanded. “You never have time to visit with your own family anymore. You sit too, Violet.”

  “I believe I will,” Grandmother said with a sigh. I could tell how weary she was by the way she lowered herself onto her chair. I sat down beside her as Aunt Birdie fetched each of us a clean teacup. It was the first time all four sisters and I had been together since I had arrived in Chicago nearly two weeks ago.

  “I do hope you didn’t wear Violet out this morning,” Aunt Agnes said. “She has an important party to attend tomorrow night.”

  “There’s no such thing as an important party, Agnes,” Grandmother said.

  “There certainly is! Isn’t her future important to you? Marriage occupies the biggest portion of every woman’s future.”

  “Who says?” Matt asked. No one answered her.

  “Violet should have been making social calls with me this afternoon instead of running all around those appalling neighborhoods you visit.” Aunt Agnes gestured broadly when she spoke, as if conscious of her many rings. She had elegant hands, in spite of the wrinkles, and her jewels glittered in the afternoon sunlight.

  “Violet helped me work today. Didn’t you, dear?” Grandmother said, patting my shoulder. I nodded lamely, feeling like a hypocrite. I knew how little I actually had accomplished. My tea was turning cold but I was afraid to reach for the cup, afraid that Aunt Agnes would notice my stained fingers.

  “I could have used an extra pair of hands down at the Suffrage Association,” Aunt Matt said. “The forty-fifth anniversary of the first Women’s Rights Convention is coming up next month, and we need to get the information mailed out to our members. That convention has the potential to greatly improve Violet’s future—and the future of all women.”

  “Nonsense!” Aunt Agnes said with a wave. “I happen to know that several very important young men are interested in our Violet. Marriage to one of them will make her future secure.”

  “Humph!” Aunt Matt grunted. “Her marriage is going to do more for you than it ever will for her—poor thing.”

  I wondered if Aunt Matt was right. Did I really want to be used as a prize to help increase my aunt’s social standing? Meanwhile, I was supposed to be searching for my mother. That was the reason I had come to Chicago in the first place, yet I was no closer to my goal than the day I’d left Lockport.

  “Poor thing indeed,” Agnes sniffed. “She looks very peaked, Florence. I do hope she isn’t getting ill. Heaven knows what sorts of diseases she might catch in that wretched neighborhood.”

  “She isn’t ill,” Grandmother said calmly. “She got up early this morning to go with me—that’s all.”

  “And see how tired she looks? I do hope those bags beneath her eyes go away by tomorrow night.”

  “Oh, I do too,” Aunt Matt added. “Get some rest, Violet. Otherwise you might fall asleep from boredom while discussing Mrs. Pullman’s new spring hat.”

  “Don’t be mean-spirited, Matilda. But speaking of fashion, Violet, I brought your new gown with me. Mrs. Riggs finished it. Be a dear and go try it on, will you? So I can see it? The Kents only invited young people to the party tomorrow night, so I won’t be there to see you.”

  “Yes, I’d be happy to. Where is the dress, Aunt Agnes?”

  “I believe Birdie hung it in your wardrobe.”

  I hurried upstairs, grateful to flee their discussion. But I wondered how the gown would look on top of the guilt overcoat I still wore. Irina’s family probably could eat for a month on the money Agnes had spent. And while Mrs. Riggs had been sewing my new ivory brocade gown, frail eight-year-old girls had been forced to stitch men’s trousers in dreary sweatshops for seven cents a dozen. How could I possibly enjoy myself in that dress, knowing the true cost?

  Nevertheless, I slipped the gown over my head. The brocade felt like cool water against my skin. It swished magnificently when I walked. I never wanted to take it off.

  “Lovely!” Agnes applauded when I descended the stairs. “You look beautiful, darling!”

  “Oh, how nice,” Aunt Birdie said.

  “It’s quite … revealing, isn’t it?” Grandmother asked. She spread her hands across her own chest, forgetting that her dress buttoned clear to her neck. “What in the world will her father say?”

  “Why don’t you just put the poor girl on the auction block and sell her to the highest bidder?” Matt asked before huffing out to the kitchen with the empty teapot.

  “Thank you for modeling it for me, dear,” Agnes said, “but I’m afraid I have to run along now.What time shall I have my driver pick you up tomorrow night?”

  “Um … that won’t be necessary, Aunt Agnes. Nelson Kent has offered to escort me.”

  “Oh, Violet! You didn’t accept his offer? The point of the party was to give you another opportunity to play the field.”

  “Yes, Violet. Why settle for rich when there might be someone even richer?” Aunt Matt asked as she returned for the remaining teacups.

  “There’s no call for sarcasm, Mattie,” Grandmother said. “Violet knows there is more to life than material riches. Don’t you, dear?”

  “There’s love,” Birdie said in her dreamy voice.

  “I’m disappointed that you accepted Nelson Kent’s offer so soon,” Agnes said. Her ability to ignore all of her sisters and stick to the subject impressed me.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Agnes. Nelson caught me off guard, and I agreed to let him escort me before I had a chance to think it through.”

  “Apology accepted. Besides, he would be an excellent match. You could do much worse. And you are getting up in years …”

  “Fiddlesticks,” Grandmother said. “Violet is only twenty.”

  “That means she’ll soon be twenty-one, and you know what that means.” Agnes’ voice dropped to a whisper. “You wouldn’t want her to become an old maid, would you?”

  “I really don’t think Nelson intends to propose on Saturday night,” I told my aunt. “But if he does, I’ll tell him I have to think about it.”

&
nbsp; “Good girl.” She grabbed my hands and squeezed them. Then her mouth dropped open in horror. “My stars, Violet! What in the world have you done to your hands?”

  “It’s beet juice. I helped peel some of them today at the settlement house.” I was afraid she would be furious with me, but she directed all of her wrath at my grandmother.

  “Florence Howell Hayes! Don’t you care at all if your granddaughter marries well? How could you make her slave all morning like a common servant? She should be commanding a household full of servants!”

  “I didn’t make her do anything, Agnes. She volunteered.” Grandmother caressed Agnes’ arm as if smoothing her ruffled feathers. “You should be praising her for doing something useful to help others. Besides, it gave Violet a chance to meet some wonderful young people her age who volunteer there. They’re students at the Chicago Evangelistic Society.”

  Aunt Matt stopped stacking teacups and planted her hands on her hips. “Don’t tell me, Florence! Are you trying to match Violet with one of those radical young ministers?”

  “Those students are fine young men.”

  “Shame on both of you! After all of the things the pair of you have suffered, why would you want Violet to follow either of your examples? Agnes, do you really want that girl to have a life like yours? And you, Florence—you, of all people, should have the blinders off when it comes to marrying a minister!”

  Her words made my skin tingle. I knew what she was referring to in Aunt Agnes’ marriage, but what about my grandmother’s? I held my breath, waiting for more information, but for a long moment no one spoke.

  “It’s true, I’ve had my share of sorrows,” Grandmother finally said. “But my blessings have far outweighed them. I would be proud to have Violet follow my example when it comes to helping others.”

  “Not by peeling vegetables!” Agnes said. “My stars! The women to whom I’ve introduced Violet are very active in charity work. Potter Palmer and his wife are two of Mr. Moody’s biggest supporters. So are Marshall Field and Gustavus Swift and the banker Lyman Gage … They’ve all given money to Mr. Moody’s campaigns.”