Though Waters Roar

by Lynn Austin

  “Then help me catch the real criminals.”

  “If I do that, if we catch the bigger crooks, will you let me and the others go free?”

  “I’ll do my best, Harriet.”

  “How do I know I can trust you to keep your word?”

  He looked hurt. “People can change, you know. I’m not the same bully I was when we were in school. Besides, I think you can trust me more than some federal agent you’ve never met before, can’t you?”

  “I guess so . . . I’m in a whole pile of trouble, aren’t I?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  He had become so solemn that I began wringing my hands like the heroine in a melodrama. “Oh no! Please save me, Tommy! I’ll go insane if I have to remain behind bars! The meat was so rubbery that I bent the knife, and the tapioca pudding came out of the bowl in one huge, gummy lump and—”

  “I wish you would be serious.”

  “I’m sorry.” And I was. “I’m sorry I became involved in this mess in the first place. If I could do it all over again, I would do everything differently.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “I’m still not exactly sure. . . .”

  But after thinking about it for the past twenty-four hours, I was beginning to figure it out. The waitress brought us more coffee, and Tommy sat back and listened patiently while I told him.

  In April of 1917, two months before I graduated from high school, America went to war. I thought I had drawn a nice, neat map for my life, but the war turned out to be one of those unexpected changes Grandma Bebe had warned me about. I had every intention of steering a course straight toward college in the fall, but the rudder slipped from my grasp and I drifted, instead, into a job at my father’s department store.

  My change of course started where so many other events in my life have started—at the breakfast table. It was a beautiful morning in May and my father had just read an article in the newspaper about the new Selective Service Act that required all men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one to register for the draft. His newspaper rustled like a forest fire as he refolded it angrily and voiced his frustration.

  “I don’t know how I’m expected to run a business without employees. According to this article, nearly all of my department managers, buyers, and bookkeepers are about to be drafted. I’ve had several good men enlist already, and it’s impossible to find anyone to replace them.”

  “I could do it,” I said. “I could work for you.” The prospect of a long, boring summer loomed ahead of me now that both my mother and grandmother were occupied with their causes. Neither one of them would allow me to come with them and get involved—licking stamps didn’t count, in my opinion. “Why don’t you hire me to work in your store, Father?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” He waved me away without even considering the idea.

  “I’m serious!” I banged my fist on the table to get his attention, rattling his coffee cup. He looked up, startled. “I’m graduating from school in two weeks and I have nothing else to do. I’m very smart, according to all my teachers. Twice as smart as any boy. Why won’t you hire me?”

  “Because these aren’t jobs for women.”

  “Why not? What difference does my gender make? Your male employees just sit behind desks all day anyway, don’t they?”

  “The only women I hire are all salesclerks. My department managers, buyers, and bookkeepers are men.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the way it’s done.”

  “Well, you might have to change the way it’s done now that we’re at war. Grandma Bebe had to take over for her brothers when they went to war, and she ended up doing all their farm chores— plowing and baling hay and everything. And then she helped run her husband’s factory when he was . . . unwell.”

  “Your grandmother’s example is hardly one that I want my daughters to follow,” he said, shaking his head. “Women have no business running a factory or a department store. And besides, aren’t you supposed to be going to college soon?”

  “Not until the fall. I have all summer free. And if you give me a job, it might help me decide what I want to study in college. Won’t you at least think about it?”

  “Women work fine as salesclerks, but I don’t need any more clerks at the moment. I need managers—men.”

  I huffed in frustration. “The United States government is hiring women in Washington to fill men’s positions because of the shortage. I just read about it in the paper the other day. If the government thinks women are capable of doing men’s work, why not hire them for your store? All I’m asking for is a tiny little department to manage.”

  “My department managers are all men. You’re a woman.” My father was repeating himself. Either he had run out of arguments or he wasn’t listening to me.

  “Your managers were all men,” I told him. “You just said yourself that they were all leaving to enlist or were about to be drafted—and that there aren’t any men to replace them. I would say you’re out of options.” When Father didn’t reply, I added, “I could dress up in a man’s suit and tie, if you think it would help.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Look, you need employees, right? What’s so hard about a manager’s job that a woman couldn’t do it?”

  “It’s a question of respect. The salesclerks are mostly young women your age. Managers need to be mature. They need to be men.”

  “But I’m the store owner’s daughter. That should win me some respect. And believe me, I can be very bossy—the boys at school tell me I’m bossy all the time. ”

  The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of working in the department store, but my father looked as though he wasn’t even going to consider it. I was wondering how I could convince him when, much to my surprise, my mother rose to my defense—and she did so without resorting to tears.

  “Why don’t you let her try it, John? What could it hurt? If you need help as badly as you say you do, it seems you should give Harriet a chance. She is very quick to learn things, you know.”

  “Yes, Father. Why not let me try it? Let’s say . . . for two weeks? If you’re not completely happy with the work I’m doing by then, I’ll agree to come home again.”

  I don’t think anyone was as surprised as I was when my father finally agreed. It showed how truly desperate he was for help. I would have gone to the store with him that very morning, but he made me wait until after graduation. “I need to shuffle people around and find a suitable department for you to manage,” he explained.

  He didn’t want me to run Ladies’ Fashions or the Millinery Department, because I wasn’t the least bit fashionable. I couldn’t tell a Gainesboro hat from a Shepherdess style. Likewise, I was the wrong person to run the Jewelry, Perfume, and Shoe departments. All of the men’s departments were off the list because the middle-aged male clerks—not to mention the customers—would never take me seriously. “The Children’s Department is much too important,” Father said, “to be managed by a woman with a strong aversion to marriage and children”—and I had been outspoken about both. In the end, Father ranked all of the departments in order of importance and gave me the most unimportant one he could find: China, Glassware, and Silver Goods.

  “What an excellent choice for me, Father,” I said, pretending to be overjoyed. “As you know, I’ll bring a great deal of experience to my work. Mother has trained me quite well in understanding the differences between a salad plate and a dessert plate, between a tablespoon and a dessert spoon, between a—”

  “That’s quite enough, Harriet.”

  “But I was just explaining about the differences—”

  “The most important difference you need to know is that male managers don’t aggravate me with their excessive talking.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I had never even seen the China, Glassware, and Silver Goods Department in my father’s store until my first day of work. It was in such an out-of-the-way location in t
he basement of his vast emporium that I was going to need a map to find it again tomorrow. Mine was a small department with only three salesclerks, Bertha, Claudia, and Maude. They weren’t much older than I was. Their shifts were staggered so that no more than two of them were on duty at one time, and only Bertha and Claudia were there to greet me on my first day. They stood at attention in my father’s presence, gracing me with a small curtsy after he introduced me as Miss Sherwood, their new department manager. Next, Father showed me my desk—piled high with sample catalogs, invoices, and order forms—behind a curtain in the back room. I shared the space with three other department managers and shelves full of inventory.

  “You can ask Mr. Foster from Linens, Pillows, and Bedding to show you how we do things,” Father said. He nodded toward an elderly gentleman at the neighboring desk, who looked as though he had been selling pillows and bedding since the War Between the States.

  The first thing I did after my father returned to his office was to peruse my new domain on the showroom floor. It consisted of a tall shelf of glassware on the back wall and four long display counters— one for ridiculously elaborate silver serving pieces, another for silver tableware in silk-lined boxes, and two for porcelain dishware. My two salesclerks were busy trying to look industrious. Bertha twirled a feather duster over the glassware while Claudia rubbed tarnish off a silver pickle castor as if she expected a genie to pop out and grant her three wishes.

  “Tell me how my predecessor used to run this department,” I said after gathering them into a huddle. They looked at each other, then at me.

  “Mr. Osgood had his rules,” Claudia said, “and as long as we remembered them, he left us alone.”

  “What kind of rules? Can you give me some examples?”

  Claudia gazed at the ceiling as if she had pinned a crib sheet up there. “Um . . . we had to say, ‘May I help you, ma’am?’ right away whenever a customer came. And when there weren’t any customers we had to keep busy. No sitting allowed.”

  “And we can’t chew gum,” Bertha added—although I thought I spotted a wad of it tucked in her cheek. “Our clothes have to be pressed and neat, our hair clean and tidy, and our shoes shined.

  And if we get married, we lose our jobs.”

  The last rule seemed arbitrary and unfair to me, but I kept my thoughts to myself. “Do you like working here?” I asked.

  Not surprisingly, they both replied, “Yes, ma’am.”

  I spent the entire day familiarizing myself with all of the paper work I would be required to do and listening as Mr. Linens, Pillows, and Bedding droned on and on about ledger books and accounting practices. My eyes started to glaze over, and if I hadn’t pleaded so fervently for this job in the first place, I might have decided to enlist in the army myself. When I emerged from my underground kingdom at the end of the day, I was glad to see sunlight again.

  “How was your first day?” Mother asked.

  “Wonderful! I learned so much! I never knew they made sterling silver mustard pots.” I didn’t mention that we hadn’t had a single customer. At least reordering new stock would be simple.

  By the end of my first week as manager of China, Glassware, and Silver Goods, I knew I had to do something differently in my department or die of boredom. I decided to go on a spying mission to our competitors’ stores, comparing their selection and services to ours. I returned to give Bertha, Claudia, and Maude my report.

  “The clerks in the other stores acted so haughty and superior, they made me feel like I was trespassing. I was afraid to peruse the shelves or ask them any questions. I don’t want you to be that stuffy. Smile and be friendly to our customers. Ask about the occasion for the gift and whom they are buying it for. Show some interest in our customers.”

  I got the standard reply of “Yes, ma’am.” But as I turned to leave, I thought I heard Bertha whisper, “What customers?”

  Yes, something would have to be done about the customer problem.

  During my second week of work, I marched into Father’s office on the top floor and asked, “What’s my budget for newspaper advertisements?” He stared at me as if he’d forgotten my name. “I’m great at writing ads,” I told him. “I used to help Grandma Bebe write them all the time.”

  “Budget?” he finally replied. “You don’t have a budget. Our advertising department handles everything. That’s their job. Your job is to sell china, glassware, and silver goods.”

  “How am I supposed to do that if nobody can even find my department?”

  “Well, it’s your job as manager to figure that out. Now go away and stop bothering me, Harriet. I’m busy.”

  I spent a week pacing the floor of my department, desperately searching for an idea. “How would you describe our typical customer?” I asked my salesclerks one day. Claudia began to giggle as if the notion of having actual customers was hilarious.

  Bertha pushed her gum aside with her tongue and said, “They’re mostly girls who are about to get married. They come in to pick out their wedding presents.”

  I sat at my desk in the back room beside Mr. Linens—whom I suspected was asleep most of the time—and thought about it some more.

  I came up with a brilliant idea.

  I ran up the stairs from the basement two at a time—the elevator was much too slow—and hurried outside to the nearest newsstand, where I bought all three of our town’s daily papers. When I got back to my department, breathless, I gave one to Bertha, one to Maude, and kept the third. “Open it to the social pages,” I told them, “and find the engagement announcements for me.” They did as they were told, but they were eyeing me warily. “Now, add up the engagements. How many are there?” Bertha counted four, Maude had three, and I struck gold with seven.

  “Here’s my idea: Sherwood’s Department Store is going to offer the happy bride-to-be a free sterling silver serving spoon in her choice of four different patterns as our way of congratulating her.”

  “Free?” Bertha echoed, nearly swallowing her gum.

  “Yes, free. Once she has that first spoon, you see, it will be your job to convince her that she needs the rest of the set, as well. That means service for at least twelve with all of the accessories to go with it—gravy ladles, carving knives, pickle forks, jelly knives, salad sets. And why not add a beautiful set of berry spoons and shrimp forks?”

  My staff appeared dubious, but they set to work cutting out the engagement announcements for me while I got out order forms for Rogers Brothers Silver and boldly ordered six sets of serving spoons in four of our most popular patterns. Then I went upstairs—taking the elevator this time—and borrowed several sheets of Sherwood’s Department Store stationery from my father’s office. That evening I typed up letters of congratulations on Grandma Bebe’s typewriter to all fourteen prospective brides. I mailed them on my way to work the next day.

  “Now, this is the most important part,” I told my clerks. “The free spoons are going to be in a box on my desk, but don’t run into the back room and bring it out to the customer right away. Make her wait a few minutes so she has time to wander past our display counters and examine the dishes and the sterling silver tea sets while she’s waiting. Suggest that she sign up for our wedding registry. The free spoon will draw new customers in, and before you know it, every bride in town will have registered their silverware selections at our store.”

  My gamble worked. All fourteen brides-to-be hurried into the store for their free spoon. I sent out more letters. Business boomed. Then my father heard about my scheme.

  “What’s this I hear about you giving away my stock for free?” he asked at the dinner table one evening.

  I quickly explained my idea to him and finished by saying, “It’s just a serving spoon. And dozens of new customers have come in already to get theirs.”

  “Can’t you give away teaspoons? They’re cheaper.”

  “I know, but a teaspoon is too small. The bride will toss it into her hope chest and forget about it. But a serving spoon ca
rries a lot more weight. It’s big and shiny and elegant, and she’ll put it on her bureau top and dream about serving mashed potatoes to her new husband every evening.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “You won’t think I’m ridiculous when you see our sales figures in a couple of months. I’ve sent out thirty-five letters so far. And do you know how many brides came in for their free spoon? Every single one of them. We counted them. And every single one of them signed up for our gift registry. You can bet they’ll be back for the rest of their silverware in the pattern of their choice.”

  “Well . . . I suppose you can continue.”

  “You won’t be sorry. But listen, Father. I’m going to need some help typing letters. I can’t keep doing them all myself. Grandma’s typewriter ribbon is about worn out and my salesclerks need me on the floor.”

  “I suppose my secretary can do them.”

  By the time summer ended, China, Glassware, and Silver Goods was thriving down in the basement of Sherwood’s Department Store.

  And I loved my job.

  CHAPTER

  26

  I was supposed to start college in the fall of 1917, but I no longer wanted to go. “You need me at the store,” I told my father. “The war is far from over, and besides, the college campus is like a ghost town with all the young men overseas.” From my desk in the back room I could hear Bertha, Claudia, and Maude bemoaning the shortage of men, too, as they kept our stock shiny in between customers. But they complained about the shortage for an entirely different reason than my father did. All three of my clerks desperately wanted to get married and live happily ever after, but only Bertha had a steady boyfriend. His name was Lyle, and she worried about him constantly.

  “He’s going to get called up, I just know it!”

  He did.

  “He’s going away for training, and I’m going to miss him so much!”

  She did.

  “I’m going to worry myself sick if he gets sent overseas.”