For what and for whom do they work?

Is their fundamental thought to be of benefit to a family or to some member of a family?  Is their indirect object to be strong, thrifty members of society?  No.  Their parents are secondary, their health is secondary to the consuming vanity that drives them toward a ruinous goal.  They scorn the hand-workers; they feel themselves a noblesse by comparison.  They are the American snobs whose coat of arms marks not a well-remembered family but prospective luxuries....  Married, they bring as a portion thriftless tastes, to satisfy which more than one business man has wrecked his career.  They work like men; why should they not live as men do, with similar responsibilities?  What should we think of a class of masculine clerks and employees who spent all their money on clothes?

The boss was busy when I got back to the clothing establishment.  From the bench where I waited for orders I could take an inventory of the shop’s productions.  Arrayed in rows behind glass cases there were all manner of uniforms:  serious uniforms going to the colonies to be shot to pieces, militia uniforms that would hear their loudest heart-beats under a fair head; drum-majors’ hats that would never get farther than the peaceful lawn of a military post; fireman’s hats; the dark-blue coat of a lonely lighthouse guardian; the undignified short jacket of a “buttons.”  All that meant parade and glory, the uniforms that make men identical by making each proud of himself for his brass buttons and gold lace.  Even in the heavy atmosphere of the shop’s rear, though they appeared somewhat dingy and tarnished, they had their undeniable charm, and I thought with pity of the hands that had to sew on plain serge suits.

[Illustration:  IN A CHICAGO THEATRICAL COSTUME FACTORY]

As soon as the boss saw me, the generous Mr. F. who advanced me the fifty cents smiled at the skeptical Mr. F. who had never expected to see me again.  One self said to the other:  “I told you so!” and all the kindly lines in the man’s face showed that he had looked for the best even in his inferiors and that he had found mankind worth trusting.  He was the most generous employer I met with anywhere; I also took him to be the least businesslike.  But, as though quickly to establish the law of averages, his head forewoman counterbalanced all his mercies by her ferocious crossness.  She terrorized everybody, even Mr. F. It was to her, I concluded, that we owed our $6 a week.  No girl would stay for less; it was an atelier chiefly of foreign employees; the proud American spirit would not stand the lash of Frances’ tongue.  She had been ten years in the place whose mad confusion was order to her.  Mr. F. did not dare to send her away; he preferred keeping a perpetual advertisement in the papers and changing hands every few days.