But in the office, I am not Mary Ballard, Daughter of the Home. I am
Mary Ballard, Independent Wage-Earner--stenographer at a thousand a
year. There's nobody to stand between me and the people I meet. No
one to say, "Here is my daughter, a woman of refinement and breeding;
behind her I stand ready to hold you accountable for everything you may
do to offend her." In the wage-earning world a woman must stand for
what she is--and she must set the pace. So, in the office I find that
I must have other manners than those in my home. I can't meet men as
frankly and freely. I can't laugh with them and talk with them as I
would over a cup of tea at my own little table. If you and I had met,
for example, in the office, I should have put up a barrier of formality
between us, and I should have said, "Good-morning" when I met you and
"Good-night" when I left you, and it would have taken us months to know
as much about each other as you and I knew after a week in the same
house.
I suppose if I live here for years and years, that I shall grow to look
upon my gray-haired chief as a sort of official grandfather, and my
fellow-clerks will be brothers and sisters by adoption, but that will
take time.
I wonder if I shall work for "years and years"? I am not sure that I
should like it. And there you have the woman of it. A man knows that
his toiling is for life; unless he grows rich and takes to golf. But a
woman never looks ahead and says, "This thing I must do until I die."
She always has a sense of possible release.
I am not at all sure that I am a logical person. In one breath I am
telling you that I like my work; and in the next I am saying that I
shouldn't care to do it all my life. But at least there's this for it,
that just now it is a heavenly diversion from the worries which would
otherwise have weighed.
What did you do about lunches? Mine are as yet an unsolved problem. I
like my luncheon nicely set forth on my own mahogany, with the little
scalloped linen doilies that we've always used. And I want my own tea
and bread and butter and marmalade, and Susan's hot little made-overs.
But here I am expected to rush out with the rest, and feast on
impossible soups and stews and sandwiches in a restaurant across the
way. The only alternative is to bring my lunch in a box, and eat it on
my desk. And then I lose the breath of fresh air which I need more
than the food.