A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [163]
“But Katie,” protested Sissy, “all the girls are bobbing their hair nowadays.”
“They’re fools, then. A woman’s hair is her mystery. Daytimes, it’s pinned up. But at night, alone with her man, the pins come out and it hangs loose like a shining cape. It makes her a special secret woman for the man.”
“At night, all cats are gray,” said Sissy wickedly.
“None of your remarks,” said Katie sharply.
“I’d look just like Irene Castle if I had short hair,” persisted Francie.
“They make Jew women cut off their hair when they marry, so no other man will look at them. Nuns get their hair cut off to prove they’re done with men. Why should any young girl do it when she doesn’t have to?” Francie was about to reply when Mama said, “We’ll have no more arguments.”
“All right,” said Francie. “But when I’m eighteen, I’ll be my own boss. Then you’ll see.”
“When you’re eighteen, you can shave your scalp for all I care. In the meantime…” She wound Francie’s two heavy braids around her head and pinned them in place with bone hairpins which she took from her own hair. “There!” She stepped back and surveyed her daughter. “It looks just like a shining crown,” she announced dramatically.
“It does make her look at least eighteen,” conceded Sissy.
Francie looked in the mirror. She was pleased that she looked so old the way Mama had fixed her hair. But she wouldn’t give in and say so.
“All my life I’ll have headaches carrying this load of hair around,” she complained.
“Lucky you, if that’s all gives you a life of headaches,” said Mama.
Next morning, Neeley escorted his sister to New York. As the train came on to the Williamsburg Bridge after leaving Marcy Avenue station, Francie noticed that many people seated in the car rose as if in accord and then sat down again.
“Why do they do that, Neeley?”
“Just as you get on the bridge, there’s a bank with a big clock. People stand up to look at the time so’s they know whether they’re early or late for work. I betcha a million people look at that clock every day,” figured Neeley.
Francie had anticipated a thrill when she rode over that bridge for the first time. But the ride wasn’t half as thrilling as wearing grown-up clothes for the first time.
The interview was short. She was hired on trial. Hours, nine to five-thirty, half an hour for lunch, salary, seven dollars a week to start. First, the boss took her on a tour of inspection of the Press Clipping Bureau.
The ten readers sat at long sloping desks. The newspapers of all the states were divided among them. The papers poured into the Bureau every hour of every day from every city in every state of the Union. The girls marked and boxed items sought and put down their total and their own identifying number on the top of the front page.
The marked papers were collected and brought to the printer who had a hand press containing an adjustable date apparatus, and racks of slugs before her. She adjusted the paper’s date on her press, inserted the slug containing the name, city, and state of the newspaper and printed as many slips as there were items marked.
Then, slips and newspaper went to the cutter who stood before a large slanting desk and slashed out the marked items with a sharp curved knife. (In spite of the letterhead, there wasn’t a pair of shears on the premises.) As the cutter slashed out the items, throwing the discarded paper to the floor, a sea of newspaper rose as high as her waist each fifteen minutes. A man collected this waste paper and took it away for baling.
The clipped items and slips were turned over to the paster who affixed the clippings to the slips. Then they were filed, collected and placed in envelopes and mailed.
Francie got on to the filing system very easily. In two weeks, she had memorized the two thousand or so names or headings on the file box. Then she was put into training as a reader. For two more weeks, she did nothing but study the clients’ cards which were more detailed than the file box headings. When an informal examination proved that she had memorized the orders, she