"I'm not good.I'm most eagerly and selfishly interested.I've taken a new lease of life since knowing you, Diantha Bell! You see my father was a business man, and his father before him--I _like it._ There Iwas, with lots of money, and not an interest in life! Now?--why, there's no end to this thing, Diantha! It's one of the biggest businesses on earth--if not _the_ biggest!""Yes--I know," the girl answered."But its slow work.I feel the weight of it more than I expected.There's every reason to succeed, but there's the combined sentiment of the whole world to lift--it's as heavy as lead.""Heavy! Of course it's heavy! The more fun to lift it! You'll do it, Diantha, I know you will, with that steady, relentless push of yours.
But the cooked food is going to be your biggest power, and you must let me start it right.Now you listen to me, and make Mrs.Thaddler eat her words!"Mrs.Thaddler's words would have proved rather poisonous, if eaten.She grew more antagonistic as the year advanced.Every fault that could be found in the undertaking she pounced upon and enlarged; every doubt that could be cast upon it she heavily piled up; and her opposition grew more rancorous as Mr.Thaddler enlarged in her hearing upon the excellence of Diantha's lunches and the wonders of her management.
"She's picked a bunch o' winners in those girls of hers," he declared to his friends."They set out in the morning looking like a flock of sweet peas--in their pinks and whites and greens and vi'lets,--and do more work in an hour than the average slavey can do in three, I'm told."It was a pretty sight to see those girls start out.They had a sort of uniform, as far as a neat gingham dress went, with elbow sleeves, white ruffled, and a Dutch collar; a sort of cross between a nurses dress and that of "La Chocolataire;" but colors were left to taste.Each carried her apron and a cap that covered the hair while cooking and sweeping;but nothing that suggested the black and white livery of the regulation servant.
"This is a new stage of labor," their leader reminded them."You are not servants--you are employees.You wear a cap as an English carpenter does--or a French cook,--and an apron because your work needs it.It is not a ruffled label,--it's a business necessity.And each one of us must do our best to make this new kind of work valued and respected."It is no easy matter to overcome prejudices many centuries old, and meet the criticism of women who have nothing to do but criticize.Those who were "mistresses," and wanted "servants,"--someone to do their will at any moment from early morning till late evening,--were not pleased with the new way if they tried it; but the women who had interests of their own to attend to; who merely wanted their homes kept clean, and the food well cooked and served, were pleased.The speed, the accuracy, the economy; the pleasant, quiet, assured manner of these skilled employees was a very different thing from the old slipshod methods of the ordinary general servant.
So the work slowly prospered, while Diantha began to put in execution the new plan she had been forced into.
While it matured, Mrs.Thaddler matured hers.With steady dropping she had let fall far and wide her suspicions as to the character of Union House.
"It looks pretty queer to me!" she would say, confidentially, "All those girls together, and no person to have any authority over them! Not a married woman in the house but that washerwoman,--and her husband's a fool!""And again; You don't see how she does it? Neither do I! The expenses must be tremendous--those girls pay next to nothing,--and all that broth and brown bread flying about town! Pretty queer doings, I think!""The men seem to like that caffeteria, don't they?" urged one caller, perhaps not unwilling to nestle Mrs.Thaddler, who flushed darkly as she replied."Yes, they do.Men usually like that sort of place.""They like good food at low prices, if that's what you mean," her visitor answered.
"That's not all I mean--by a long way," said Mrs.Thaddler.She said so much, and said it so ingeniously, that a dark rumor arose from nowhere, and grew rapidly.Several families discharged their Union House girls.
Several girls complained that they were insultingly spoken to on the street.Even the lunch patronage began to fall off.
Diantha was puzzled--a little alarmed.Her slow, steady lifting of the prejudice against her was checked.She could not put her finger on the enemy, yet felt one distinctly, and had her own suspicions.But she also had her new move well arranged by this time.
Then a maliciously insinuating story of the place came out in a San Francisco paper, and a flock of local reporters buzzed in to sample the victim.They helped themselves to the luncheon, and liked it.but that did not soften their pens.They talked with such of the girls as they could get in touch with, and wrote such versions of these talks as suited them.
They called repeatedly at Union House, but Diantha refused to see them.
Finally she was visited by the Episcopalian clergyman.He had heard her talk at the Club, was favorably impressed by the girl herself, and honestly distressed by the dark stories he now heard about Union House.
"My dear young lady," he said, "I have called to see you in your own interests.I do not, as you perhaps know, approve of your schemes.Iconsider them--ah--subversive of the best interests of the home! But Ithink you mean well, though mistakenly.Now I fear you are not aware that this-ah--ill-considered undertaking of yours, is giving rise to considerable adverse comment in the community.There is--ah--there is a great deal being said about this business of yours which I am sure you would regret if you knew it.Do you think it is wise; do you think it is--ah--right, my dear Miss Bell, to attempt to carry on a--a place of this sort, without the presence of a--of a Matron of assured standing?"Diantha smiled rather coldly.
