The 42nd Parallel

Janey

In the second year of the European War Mr. Carroll sold out his interest in the firm of Dreyfus and Carroll to Mr. Dreyfus and went home to Baltimore. There was a chance that the state Democratic convention would nominate him for Governor. Janey missed him in the office and followed all the reports of Maryland politics with great interest. When Mr. Carroll didn’t get the nomination Janey felt quite sorry about it. Round the office there got to be more and more foreigners and talk there took on a distinctly pro-German trend that she didn’t at all like. Mr. Dreyfus was very polite and generous with his employees but Janey kept thinking of the ruthless invasion of Belgium and the horrible atrocities and didn’t like to be working for a Hun, so she began looking round for another job. Business was slack in Washington and she knew it was foolish to leave Mr. Dreyfus but she couldn’t help it so she went to work for Smedley Richards, a realestate operator on Connecticut Avenue, at a dollar less a week. Mr. Richards was a stout man who talked a great deal about the gentleman’s code and made love to her. For a couple of weeks she kept him off, but the third week he took to drinking and kept putting his big beefy hands on her and borrowed a dollar one day and at the end of the week said he wouldn’t be able to pay her for a day or two, so she just didn’t go back and there she was out of a job.

It was scary being out of a job; she dreaded having to go back to live at her mother’s with the boarders and her sisters’ noisy ways. She read the ads in The Star and The Post every day and answered any she saw, but someone had always been there ahead of her, although she got to the address the first thing in the morning. She even put her name down at an employment agency. The woman at the desk was a stout woman with bad teeth and a mean smile, she made Janey pay two dollars as a registration fee and showed her the waiting list of expert stenographers she had and said that girls ought to marry and that trying to earn their own living was stuff and nonsense because it couldn’t be done. The bad air and the pinched faces of the girls waiting on benches made her feel quite sick so she went and sat a little while in the sun in Lafayette Square getting her courage up to tell Alice, who was still at Mrs. Robinson’s, that she hadn’t found a job yet. A young man with a red face sat down beside her and tried to start talking to her, so she had to walk on. She went into a drugstore and had a chocolate milk, but the sodajerker tried to kid her a little, and she burst out crying. The sodajerker looked scared to death and said, “Beg pardon, miss, I didn’t mean no offence.” Her eyes were still red when she met Alice coming out of the Riggs Building; Alice insisted on paying for a thirtyfive cent lunch for her at The Brown Teapot, although Janey couldn’t eat a thing. Alice had an Itoldyouso manner that made Janey mad, and she said that it was too late now for her to try to go back to Mrs. Robinson’s because Mrs. Robinson didn’t have work for the girls she had there as it was. That afternoon Janey felt too discouraged to look for work and roamed round the Smithsonian Institution trying to interest herself in the specimens of Indian beadwork and war canoes and totempoles, but everything gave her the creeps and she went up to the room and had a good cry. She thought of Joe and Jerry Burnham and wondered why she never got letters from them, and thought of the poor soldiers in the trenches and felt very lonely. By the time Alice came home she’d washed her face and put on powder and rouge and was bustling briskly about their room; she joked Alice about the business depression and said that if she couldn’t get a job in Washington she’d go to Baltimore or New York or Chicago to get a job. Alice said that sort of talk made her miserable. They went out and ate a ham sandwich and a glass of milk for supper to save money.

All that fall Janey went round trying to get work. She got so that the first thing she was conscious of in the morning when she woke up was the black depression of having nothing to do. She ate Christmas dinner with her mother and sisters and told them that she’d been promised twentyfive a week after the first of the year to keep them from sympathizing with her. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

At Christmas she got a torn paper package from Joe through the mail with an embroidered kimono in it. She went through the package again and again hoping to find a letter, but there was nothing but a little piece of paper with Merry Xmas scrawled on it. The package was postmarked St. Nazaire in France and was stamped OUVERT PAR LA CENSURE. It made the war seem very near to her and she hoped Joe wasn’t in any danger over there.

One icy afternoon in January when Janey was lying on the bed reading The Old Wives’ Tale, she heard the voice of Mrs. Baghot, the landlady, calling her. She was afraid it was about the rent that they hadn’t paid that month yet, but it was Alice on the phone. Alice said for her to come right over because there was a man calling up who wanted a stenographer for a few days and none of the girls were in and she thought Janey might just as well go over and see if she wanted the job. “What’s the address? I’ll go right over.” Alice told her the address. Her voice was stuttering excitedly at the other end of the line. “I’m so scared… if Mrs. Robinson finds out she’ll be furious.” “Don’t worry, and I’ll explain it to the man,” said Janey.

The man was at the Hotel Continental on Pennsylvania Avenue. He had a bedroom and a parlor littered with typewritten sheets and papercovered pamphlets. He wore shellrimmed spectacles that he kept pulling off and putting on as if he wasn’t sure whether he saw better with them or without them. He started to dictate without looking at Janey, as soon as she’d taken off her hat and gotten pad and pencil out of her handbag. He talked in jerks as if delivering a speech, striding back and forth on long thin legs all the while. It was some sort of article to be marked “For immediate release,” all about capital and labor and the eighthour day and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. It was with a little feeling of worry that she worked out that he must be a laborleader. When he’d finished dictating he went out of the room abruptly and told her please to type it out as soon as she could that he’d be back in a minute. There was a Remington on the table but she had to change the ribbon and typed in a great hurry for fear he would come back and find her not finished. Then she sat there waiting, with the article and the carbon copies all piled on the table looking neat and crisp. An hour passed and he didn’t come. Janey got restless, roamed about the room, looked into the pamphlets. They were all about labor and economics and didn’t interest her. Then she looked out of the window and tried to crane her neck out to see what time it said by the clock on the postoffice tower. But she couldn’t see it, so she went over to the phone to ask the office if Mr. Barrow was in the hotel please to tell him his manuscript was ready. The desk said it was five o’clock and that Mr. Barrow hadn’t come in yet, although he’d left word that he’d be back immediately. As she set down the receiver she knocked a letter on lavender paper off the stand. When she picked it up, as she had nothing to do and was tired of playing naughts and crosses with herself, she read it. She was ashamed of herself but once she’d started she couldn’t stop.

DEAR G. H.

I hate to do this but honestly, kid, I’m in a hell of a fix for jack. You’ve got to come across with two thousand iron men ($2000) or else I swear I’ll stop behaving like a lady and raise the roof. I hate to do this but I know you’ve got it or else I wouldn’t plague you like I do. I mean business this time

— the little girl you used to love

QUEENIE

Janey blushed and put the letter back exactly the way it had been. Weren’t men awful, always some skeleton in the closet. It was dark outside and Janey was getting hungry and uneasy when the telephone rang. It was Mr. Barrow, who said that he was sorry he’d kept her waiting and that he was at the Shoreham in Mr. Moorehouse’s suite and would she mind coming right over — no, not to bring the manuscript — but he had some more dictation for her right there, J. Ward Moorehouse it was, she must know the name. Janey didn’t know the name, but the idea of going to take dictation at the Shoreham quite thrilled her and this letter and everything. This was some excitement like when she used to go round with Jerry Burnham. She put on her hat and coat, freshened up her face a little in the mirror over the mantel and walked through the stinging January evening to the corner of F and 14th where she stood waiting for the car. She wished she had a muff; the lashing wind bit into her hands in her thin gloves and into her legs just above the shoetops. She wished she was a wealthy married woman living in Chevy Chase and waiting for her limousine to come by and take her home to her husband and children and a roaring open fire. She remembered Jerry Burnham and wondered if she could have married him if she’d handled it right. Or Johnny Edwards; he’d gone to New York when she’d refused him, and was making big money in a broker’s office. Or Morris Byer. But he was a Jew. This year she hadn’t had any beaux. She was on the shelf; that was about the size of it.

At the corner before the Shoreham she got out of the car. The lobby was warm. Welldressed people stood around talking in welldressed voices. It smelt of hothouse flowers. At the desk they told her to go right up to apartment number eight on the first floor. A man with a wrinkled white face under a flat head of sleek black hair opened the door. He wore a sleek black suit and had a discreet skating walk. She said she was the stenographer for Mr. Barrow and he beckoned her into the next room. She stood at the door waiting for someone to notice her. At the end of the room there was a big fireplace where two logs blazed. In front of it was a broad table piled with magazines, newspapers, and typewritten manuscripts. On one end stood a silver teaservice, on the other a tray with decanters, a cocktail shaker and glasses. Everything had a well-polished silvery gleam, chairs, tables, teaset, and the watchchain and the teeth and sleek prematurely gray hair of the man who stood with his back to the fire.

Immediately she saw him Janey thought he must be a fine man. Mr. Barrow and a little baldheaded man sat in deep chairs on either side of the fireplace listening to what he said with great attention.

“It’s a very important thing for the future of this country,” he was saying in a low earnest voice. “I can assure you that the great executives and the powerful interests in manufacturing and financial circles are watching these developments with the deepest interest. Don’t quote me in this; I can assure you confidentially that the President himself…” His eye caught Janey’s. “I guess this is the stenographer. Come right in, Miss…” “Williams is the name,” said Janey.

His eyes were the blue of alcoholflame, with a boyish flicker in them; this must be J. Ward Moorehouse whose name she ought to know.

“Have you a pencil and paper? That’s fine; sit right down at the table. Morton, you’d better carry away those teathings.” Morton made the teathings disappear noiselessly. Janey sat down at the end of the table and brought out her pad and pencil. “Hadn’t you better take off your hat and coat, or you won’t feel them when you go out?” There was something homey in his voice, different when he talked to her than when he talked to the men. She wished she could work for him. Anyway she was glad she had come.

“Now, Mr. Barrow, what we want is a statement that will allay unrest. We must make both sides in this controversy understand the value of coöperation. That’s a great word, coöperation… First we’ll get it down in rough… You’ll please make suggestions from the angle of organized labor, and you, Mr. Jonas, from the juridical angle. Ready, Miss Williams… Released by J. Ward Moorehouse, Public Relations Counsel, Hotel Shoreham, Washington, D.C., Jan. 15, 1916…” Then Janey was too busy taking down the dictation to catch the sense of what was being said.

That evening when she got home she found Alice already in bed. Alice wanted to go to sleep, but Janey chattered like a magpie about Mr. Barrow and labor troubles and J. Ward Moorehouse and what a fine man he was, and so kind and friendly and had such interesting ideas for collaboration between capital and labor, and spoke so familiarly about what the President thought and what Andrew Carnegie thought and what the Rockefeller interests or Mr. Schick or Senator LaFollette intended, and had such handsome boyish blue eyes, and was so nice, and the silver teaservice, and how young he looked in spite of his prematurely gray hair, and the open fire and the silver cocktail shaker and the crystal glasses.

“Why, Janey,” broke in Alice, yawning, “I declare you must have a crush on him. I never heard you talk about a man that way in my life.” Janey blushed and felt very sore at Alice. “Oh, Alice, you’re so silly… It’s no use talking to you about anything.” She got undressed and turned out the light. It was only when she got to bed that she remembered that she hadn’t had any supper. She didn’t say anything about it because she was sure Alice would say something silly.

Next day she finished the job for Mr. Barrow. All morning she wanted to ask him about Mr. Moorehouse, where he lived, whether he was married or not, where he came from, but she reflected it wouldn’t be much use. That afternoon, after she had been paid, she found herself walking along H Street past the Shoreham. She pretended to herself that she wanted to look in the storewindows. She didn’t see him, but she saw a big shiny black limousine with a monogram that she couldn’t make out without stooping and it would look funny if she stooped; she decided that was his car.

She walked down the street to the corner opposite the big gap in the houses where they were tearing down the Arlington. It was a clear sunny afternoon. She walked round Lafayette Square looking at the statue of Andrew Jackson on a rearing horse among the bare trees.

There were children and nursemaids grouped on the benches. A man with a grizzled vandyke with a black portfolio under his arm sat down on one of the benches and immediately got up again and strode off; foreign diplomat, thought Janey, and how fine it was to live in the Capital City where there were foreign diplomats and men like J. Ward Moorehouse. She walked once more round the statue of Andrew Jackson rearing green and noble on a greennoble horse in the russet winter afternoon sunlight and then back towards the Shoreham, walking fast as if she were late to an appointment. She asked a bellboy where the public stenographer was. He sent her up to a room on the second floor where she asked an acideyed woman with a long jaw, who was typing away with her eyes on the little sector of greencarpeted hall she could see through the halfopen door, whether she knew of anyone who wanted a stenographer. The acideyed woman stared at her. “Well, this isn’t an agency, you know.” “I know; I just thought on the chance…” said Janey, feeling everything go suddenly out of her. “Do you mind if I sit down a moment?” The acideyed woman continued staring at her.

“Now, where have I seen you before…? No, don’t remind me… You… you were working at Mrs. Robinson’s the day I came in to take out her extra work. There, you see, I remember you perfectly.” The woman smiled a yellow smile. “I’d have remembered you,” said Janey, “only I’m so tired of going round looking for a job.”

“Don’t I know?” sighed the woman.

“Don’t you know anything I could get?”

“I’ll tell you what you do… They were phoning for a girl to take dictation in number eight. They’re using ’em up like… like sixty in there, incorporating some concern or something. Now, my dear, you listen to me, you go in there and take off your hat like you’d come from somewhere and start taking dictation and they won’t throw you out, my dear, even if the other girl just came, they use ’em up too fast.”

Before Janey knew what she was doing she’d kissed the acideyed woman on the edge of the jaw and had walked fast along the corridor to number eight and was being let in by the sleekhaired man who recognized her and asked, “Stenographer?”

“Yes,” said Janey and in another minute she had taken out her pad and paper and taken off her hat and coat and was sitting at the end of the shinydark mahogany table in front of the crackling fire, and the firelight glinted on silver decanters and hotwater pitchers and teapots and on the black perfectly shined shoes and in the flameblue eyes of J. Ward Moorehouse.

There she was sitting taking dictation from J. Ward Moorehouse.

At the end of the afternoon the sleekhaired man came in and said, “Time to dress for dinner, sir,” and J. Ward Moorehouse grunted and said, “Hell.” The sleekhaired man skated a little nearer across the thick carpet. “Beg pardon, sir; Miss Rosenthal’s fallen down and broken ’er ’ip. Fell on the ice in front of the Treasury Buildin’, sir.”

“The hell she has… Excuse me, Miss Williams,” he said and smiled. Janey looked up at him indulgent-understandingly and smiled too. “Has she been fixed up all right?”

“Mr. Mulligan took her to the orspital, sir.”

“That’s right… You go downstairs, Morton, and send her some flowers. Pick out nice ones.”

“Yessir… About five dollars’ worth, sir?”

“Two fifty’s the limit, Morton, and put my card in.”

Morton disappeared. J. Ward Moorehouse walked up and down in front of the fireplace for a while as if he were going to dictate. Janey’s poised pencil hovered above the pad. J. Ward Moorehouse stopped walking up and down and looked at Janey. “Do you know anyone, Miss Williams… I want a nice smart girl as stenographer and secretary, someone I can repose confidence in… Damn that woman for breaking her hip.”

Janey’s head swam. “Well, I’m looking for a position of that sort myself.”

J. Ward Moorehouse was still looking at her with a quizzical blue stare. “Do you mind telling me, Miss Williams, why you lost your last job?”

“Not at all. I left Dreyfus and Carroll, perhaps you know them… I didn’t like what was going on round there. It would have been different if old Mr. Carroll had stayed, though Mr. Dreyfus was very kind, I’m sure.”

“He’s an agent of the German government.”

“That’s what I mean. I didn’t like to stay after the President’s proclamation.”

“Well, round here we’re all for the Allies, so it’ll be quite all right. I think you’re just the person I like… Of course, can’t be sure, but all my best decisions are made in a hurry. How about twentyfive a week to begin on?”

“All right, Mr. Moorehouse; it’s going to be very interesting work, I’m sure.”

“Tomorrow at nine please, and send these telegrams from me as you go out:

“Mrs. J. Ward Moorehouse

“Great Neck Long Island New York

“May have to go Mexico City explain Saltworths unable attend dinner Hope everything allright love to all Ward

“Miss Eleanor Stoddard

“45 E 11th Street New York

“Write me what you want brought back from Mexico as ever J.W.

“Do you mind traveling, Miss Williams?”

“I’ve never traveled, but I’m sure I’d like it.”

“I may have to take a small office force down with me… oil business. Let you know in a day or two…

“James Frunze c/o J. Ward Moorehouse

“100 Fifth Avenue New York

“Advise me immediately shoreham development situation A and B Barrow restless release statement on unity of interest americanism versus foreign socialistic rubbish. JWM…

“Thank you; that’ll be all today. When you’ve typed those out and sent the wires you may go.”

J. Ward Moorehouse went through a door in the back, taking his coat off as he went. When Janey had typed the articles and was slipping out of the hotel lobby to send the wires at the Western Union she caught a glimpse of him in a dress suit with a gray felt hat on and a buffcolored overcoat over his arm. He was hurrying into a taxi and didn’t see her. It was very late when she went home. Her cheeks were flushed but she didn’t feel tired. Alice was sitting up reading on the edge of the bed. “Oh, I was so worried…” she began, but Janey threw her arms round her and told her she had a job as private secretary to J. Ward Moorehouse and that she was going to Mexico. Alice burst out crying, but Janey was feeling so happy she couldn’t stop to notice it but went on to tell her everything about the afternoon at the Shoreham.