A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [165]
Once she left home ten minutes earlier to have more time. In spite of no need of hurry, she still pushed her way out of the train, flew up the steps, rushed through the streets economically and crowded into a full elevator. She was fifteen minutes early. The big room was echoingly empty and she felt desolate and lost. When the other workers rushed in seconds before nine, Francie felt like a traitor. The next morning, she slept ten minutes longer and returned to her original timing.
She was the only Brooklyn girl in the Bureau. The others came from Manhattan, Hoboken, the Bronx, and one commuted from Bayonne, New Jersey. Two of the oldest readers there, sisters, had originally come from Ohio. The first day Francie worked at the Bureau one of the sisters said to her, “You have a Brooklyn accent.” It had sounded like a shocked accusation and made Francie self-conscious of her speech. She took to pronouncing words carefully, lest she say things like “goil” for “girl,” and “apperntment” instead of “appointment.”
There were but two people in the Bureau to whom she could talk without embarrassment. One was the boss-manager. He was a Harvard graduate and in spite of a broad “a” which he used indiscriminately, his speech was plain and his vocabulary less affected than those of the readers, most of whom had graduated from high school and had picked up an extensive vocabulary from years of reading. The other person was Miss Armstrong, who was the only other college graduate.
Miss Armstrong was the special city reader. Her desk was isolated in the choicest corner of the room where there was a north and an east window, the best light for reading. She read nothing but the Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City newspapers. A special messenger brought her each edition of the New York City newspapers soon after it left the presses. When her papers were read up, she didn’t have to pitch in, as the other readers did, and help the girls who were behind. She crocheted or manicured her nails while waiting for the next edition. She was the highest paid, receiving thirty dollars a week. Miss Armstrong was a kindly person and she took a helpful interest in Francie and tried to draw her out in conversation so that she wouldn’t feel lonely.
Once in the washroom, Francie overheard a remark about Miss Armstrong being the boss’s mistress. Francie had heard of, but never seen one of those fabulous beings. Immediately, she examined Miss Armstrong closely as a mistress. She saw that Miss Armstrong wasn’t pretty; her face was almost simian with its wide mouth and flat thick nostrils, and her figure was merely passable. Francie looked at her legs. They were long, slender and exquisitely molded. She wore the sheerest of flawless silk stockings, and expensively made high-heeled pumps shod her beautifully arched feet. “Beautiful legs, then, is the secret of being a mistress,” concluded Francie. She looked down at her own long thin legs. “I’ll never make it, I guess.” Sighing, she resigned herself to a sinless life.
There was a class system in the Bureau engendered by the cutter, printer, paster, paper baler, and delivery boy. These workers, illiterate but sharp-witted, who for some reason called themselves The Club, assumed that the better-educated readers looked down on them. In retaliation, they stirred up as much trouble as possible among the readers.
Francie’s loyalties were divided. By background and education, she belonged to The Club class but by ability and intelligence she belonged to the readers’ class. The Club was shrewd enough to feel this division in Francie and tried to use her as a go-between. They informed her of trouble-making office rumors, expecting that she would relay them to the readers and create dissension.