Workers - An Experiment in Reality: The East — Chapter 3 - Part I - A Hotel Porter

A HOTEL PORTER

THE HIGHLANDS, ORANGE COUNTY, N.

Y.

, Tuesday, 25 August, 1891. I am now a hotel porter.

More strictly, I have just resigned my position, and with the net proceeds of three weeks' wages, which amount to four dollars and two cents, I am ready to make a fresh start in the early morning.

The leisure of this last evening at the hotel I shall give to the task of summing up the fragmentary notes which I have made in such chance hours of rest as were to be had in a service which has kept me on duty from five o'clock in the morning until eleven at night.

Why I have lingered here so long I scarcely know.

The time has flown with amazing swiftness.

I soon found my new job easily within my powers, as compared with the last one, and I have felt a certain restful security which has held me here for longer than I meant to stay.

But I am ready enough to set out now, and I feel again a "yearning for the large excitement" that comes of life upon the open highway, and the chances of a living earned by the work of my hands.

I am not twenty miles beyond my last station at Highland Falls.

It was raining when I left Mrs. Flaherty's home, and she pleaded with me to stay; but I had nothing with which to pay for further entertainment, and I certainly had not the courage to return to the job on the old Academic building.

And so we parted, Mrs. Flaherty standing with arms akimbo in the open door of her cottage, a final protest against so rash a venture as her last word, while I lifted my hat to her and to Minnie, who peered at me from the shadow of the passage behind her mother.

It must be owned that the prospect was not encouraging to my new departure.

At intervals of less than a mile, sometimes, I was driven to seek refuge from the rain.

The mountain-road was soft with mud, and a secure footing was a fruitless search.

In the hot air the heavy dampness added to the discomfort of walking.

Only in a general way I knew that the road would lead me eventually over the Highlands to Middletown, which lies in my westward course.

The beauty of the country was lost upon me, for the mountain was cloaked in a heavy fog, and all that rose visible were short, succeeding sections of muddy road, bordered with forests of oak and hickory-nut and chestnut, with matted weeds growing thick to the wagon-tracks, and clumps of blackberry bushes standing here and there along the lines of tottering stone walls and wooden fences.

In the middle of the noon hour I reached Forest-of-Dean Mines.

A

general supply store stands on the roadside.

It was thronged with Italian laborers.

I waited in its shelter until the one-o'clock whistle recalled the men to their work, and then I made terms with an Italian boy, who was left in charge, for a five-cent dinner.

The child spoke English with perfect readiness.

Almost concealed behind the counter, he looked wonderfully important and business-like as he reached up to apply the weights and fixed his great black eyes shrewdly upon the oscillations of the balance.

For five cents he agreed to give me two ounces of cheese and six soda-crackers.

This proved a hopelessly inadequate dinner, and by the middle of the afternoon I was painfully hungry.

It must have been between the hours of three and four when, on a stretch of level road, I met a tall, over-grown negro youth with a bucket of sour milk in each hand, which was plainly destined for a pig-pen that I had passed but a few yards back.

Looming dimly in the fog behind him, I could see the outlines of a large frame structure with lightly built verandas engirding it.

I

asked the youth what it was, and learned that it was a hotel, the "---- House."

'Did he think that I could get a job there?'

He was doubtful of that, but advised my seeing the "boss," whom I should find in the office.

The office was deserted when I entered it.

Some men were playing billiards in the larger room beyond, which, with the office, forms the ground floor of a building detached from the main hotel, but joined by a veranda on the upper story.

I sat down, and began to dry my feet at a slow fire which burned in an iron stove.

Presently there came in a tall man, straight of figure, with black eyes and hair and mustache and an uncommonly dark complexion.

I rose with an inquiry for the proprietor, and he sat down with the assurance that he was the man.

There were two definite requests in my mind.

I meant to apply first for a job; but, expecting nothing of a permanent character, I resolved to ask work for the remaining afternoon for the sake of food and a night's shelter from the rain.

To my surprise, instead of the negative I expected to my first request, I found some encouragement in the proprietor's manner.

He owned to the need of a porter until the arrival, in a few days, of the man who had been engaged for that position.

I declared my willingness to serve and to begin work on the moment.

He pointed out that he did not know me, and that he was not in the habit of engaging servants whom he did not know.

'Besides, there was not much for the porter to do, and for his services he was paid at the rate of eight dollars a month and his board.'

I was ready with a plea for a trial, if only for a single day, and presently the proprietor consented.

He rose, and at once began to instruct me in my duty.

Standing on the threshold between the office and billiard-room, he pointed to the bare floors, and explained that they must be scrubbed every morning.

He then indicated the score or more of oil-lamps with which the rooms were lighted, and said that these must be kept clean and filled.

Next he opened a door from the office into a small room in which was a cot.

That was to be my sleeping-place, and he showed me, in one corner, buckets and a mop and a broom, which were intended for the porter's use.

Quite abruptly he asked to see my hat, and, wondering at the request, I showed him the stained black felt with ragged holes in the crown.

"That won't do," he said, and with the word he took down from a peg a porter's cloth cap with a patent-leather visor, and bade me wear it at my work.

It was much too small, but by dint of holding my head with care I could keep it on; thus balancing the cap as best I could, and with the broom in hand, I followed my employer for further instructions.

He led the way to the verandas, and explained that they must be swept each morning before the guests are up, and again in the afternoon, at the hour when they are least in use.

They were nearly deserted now, and the proprietor told me to begin my work by sweeping them, and then he left me.

I could have danced with sheer delight.

Not if I had deliberately planned it could I have effected a better arrangement.

It fitted my needs exactly.

A change to lighter work for a time was almost a necessity; for my hands were much blistered and torn, and they refused to heal under the friction of my last employment.

And then--and my spirits rose buoyantly to this idea--here was a chance to see something of domestic service, and such another, under conditions so favorable, might not offer in all my journey across the continent.

"This morning," I thought to myself, "I was a roving laborer in search of work and with but ten cents in my pocket; now I am a hotel porter, with bed and board assured and an open field for observation, and some certainty of a surplus, regardless of the weather, when I quit the job, although, at its present rate, my daily wage is a fraction less than twenty-seven cents."

As I swept the verandas my plans began to form themselves with exciting interest.

"Here is clearly a splendid opportunity.

I have been frankly told that a porter is already engaged, and is on his way, and that my occupancy of office is simply for the interregnum.

Plainly, if I can give evidence, in the meantime, of usefulness such that, when the regular porter comes, I shall be continued in some employment about the hotel, that will be a distinct achievement; and it will not be without a bearing upon the practical question as to what a penniless man may do for himself in the way of winning permanent employment that offers chances of promotion."

I resolved to bend all my energies to that.

When the verandas were swept, I returned to the office and billiard-room, and began to study the field.

The floors were sadly in need of scrubbing; many of the lamp chimneys were smoked, and all were far from clean; the windows of both rooms were much weather-stained;

and the paint on the woodwork could be improved by a thorough washing.

I then went over the grounds, and found the walks in disorder, and the lawns matted and strewn with litter.

I lit the lamps at nightfall, and awaited a summons to supper.

While in the region of the kitchen I noticed that an extra hand might often prove of service there.

Back in my own domain for the evening, I found my offices in demand in attendance upon the billiard and pool tables.

By eleven o'clock the house was still, and I was at liberty to go to bed.

Among the furniture in the office was an alarm-clock.

This I wound up, and set for a quarter to five.

The morning was splendidly bright.

When I stepped out upon the veranda the sun had already cleared the tops of the wooded Highlands, and, with the radiance reflected from infinite rain-drops in the forests, there rolled from their "gorgeous gloom" the "sweet after showers, ambrosial air."

In no direction was the outlook wide; but the air gleamed in the sunlight with the crystal clearness which gives its peculiar quality to our autumn, and which so early as August can be had only at considerable altitudes.

But the scrubbing awaited me, and was a task of much uncertainty.

In the kitchen I filled my buckets with water--cold water, I am sorry to say.

I threw wide open the doors and windows, and first sprinkled the floors, as I had seen shopkeepers do, and then swept them thoroughly.

I

tried to apply the water by means of a mop with a long wooden handle;

but failing completely in that, I detached the handle, and getting down on my knees, I went carefully over the surface with the mop in hand.

Frequently I changed the water, and when the scrubbing was done I looked the damp floors over with immense satisfaction.

Until I was called to breakfast I spent the time in sweeping the verandas and clearing from the walks the twigs and dead leaves with which they were strewn after the rain.

In no way was I prepared for the alarming surprise which was in store for me.

When I returned to the office I stood aghast at the sight of the newly scrubbed floors.

They were dry now, and were covered with fantastic designs.

Every final movement of the mop was distinctly traceable in streaks of unmistakable dirt.

And there was the proprietor at work at his desk, and he faintly noticed me as I entered.

I stood expecting my discharge, with what fortitude I could summon, but receiving no further attention from my employer, I hurried back to the work on the walks and drives.

During the dinner-hour I brought a broom to bear upon the coiling traceries on the floor, and succeeded in softening their bolder outlines.

But scrubbing proved a peculiarly difficult art.

On the second morning I did all that I had done before, and then got buckets of clean hot water and a fresh mop; and on hands and knees I went over the floors, wiping them up with scrupulous care.

The result was no better, once dry, and the designs in daubs of dirt were as fantastic as ever.

On the third morning I tried still a new plan, but only with the result of effecting a change in the designs.

I was learning to scrub by an empirical process, and the fourth venture approached success.

Hot water and soap, and a scrub-brush vigorously applied, and then a final swabbing, left the floors comparatively clean, and free from the persistent mop-stains.

Only one more of my duties I found difficult of mastery.

Like scrubbing the floors, washing the windows was full of surprises.

From one of the house-maids I learned that clean, hot, soapy water was the prime necessity.

I was delighted with the first result, for after the washing within and without, I had visions of the glass in a high state of clean transparency.

But the sun had absorbed the water, and left stains of tenacious soap, when I came to the polishing, and after hours of labor I almost despaired of ever bringing the panes to a reasonably untarnished condition.

The work has varied so little in detail that the history of a single day is an epitome of the three weeks' service: I am up at a little before five in the morning.

The floors of the office and billiard-room are my first concern; and by the time these are scrubbed it is six o'clock.

The _chef_ early noticed my willingness to lend a hand in the kitchen, and he rewards me with a liberal supply of hot water every morning, and a cup of coffee and a slice of bread at six o'clock when he takes his own.

Fortified in this way, I sweep the verandas and walks, and rake the drives and lawns until breakfast.

There is a curious, horizontal, social cleavage among the "help."

I belong to the lower stratum.

I first noticed the distinction at our meals.

The negro head-waiter, and the pastry-cook, and the head-gardener, and the company of Irish maids, who do double duty as waitresses and house-maids, take their meals in the dining-room after the guests are served.

The remnants of these two servings are then heaped upon a table in a long, low, dimly lighted room which intervenes between the kitchen and dining-room, and there we of the lowest class help ourselves.

Our coterie consists of an English maid, a recent arrival from Liverpool, who serves as a dishwasher, three negro laundresses, two negro stable-boys and myself, with a varying element in two or three hired men, who drop in irregularly from the region of the barns.

Martha, the English maid, is chiefly in charge here, and she bravely tries to serve, and to bring some order out of the chaos; but the task is beyond her.

We take places as we find them vacant, and each helps himself from what remains to be eaten of the fragments of the meal just ended.

There is always a towering supply, but an abundance of a sort that deadens your appetite, like the blow of a sand-bag.

I reproached myself with fastidiousness at first, and imagined that to the other servants, who shared it, the fare was entirely palatable; and so I was surprised when, at a dinner early in my stay, one of the negro laundresses seized a plate heaped with scraps of meat, from which we had all been helping ourselves, and carried it out with the indignant remark that it was fit only for the dogs, adding, sententiously, as she disappeared through the door: "We are not dogs _yet_; we are supposed to be human."

And back to her afternoon's work she went, although she had eaten only a morsel.

These meals were curiously solemn functions; scarcely a word was ever spoken.

Martha was "cumbered about much serving," and very heroically she tried to impart some decent order to the meal, and a cheerfuller tone to the company.

I never knew the cause of the sullen unsociability which possessed us, whether it was ill-humor born of the physical weariness from which all the servants seemed constantly to suffer as a result of the high pressure of work at the height of the season, or the revolting fare which often sent us unrested and unfed from our meals.

It is the vision of supper that will linger clearest in my memory.

The long, reeking room seen faintly in the yellow light of one begrimed oil-lamp; the ceiling so low that I can easily reach it with my upstretched hand, and dotted over with innumerable flies.

The room is a paradise for flies, which swarm most in our food that lies in ill-assorted heaps down the middle of a rough wooden table.

Here we sit in chance order, black and white faces often alternating; the white ones livid in their vivid contrast with the background of the room's deep shadows, and the others ghastly visible in the general blackness from which gleam the whites of eyes.

Sometimes the two stable-boys find seats together; and then they bid defiance to the general gloom, and are soon bubbling over with musical laughter, that rolls responsive to the least remark from either.

It is interesting at such times to watch Martha's face.

The nervous energy which is always struggling there against a look of utter weariness shines victorious now, in the light of a new hope that a better cheer has come at last to her table.

From breakfast I hurry back to the work of putting the grounds in order.

The walks I sweep every morning, and then rake the drives and the lawns.

It was at this work that I early found convincing proof of the completeness of my social change.

The lawns at certain hours are in the possession of nurse-maids and infants.

I have never calculated the number of children in the hotel, but their ages apparently mark every stage of advance from a few weeks to as many years.

My liking for children amounts to reverent devotion, and it gave me a shock, from which I have not recovered, to find that, unshaven and uncouth in workmen's clothes, I had become for them a bogey with whom their nurses frighten them into obedience, warning them in excited tones with "Here comes the man to take you away!"

It was at this work, too, that I once incurred the avowed displeasure of a guest.

She was a beautiful Philistine, with a keenly penetrating twang and turns of speech that bespoke the regions of Sixth Avenue and Fourteenth Street.

But she was remarkably handsome, tall and graceful, and of high-bred bearing and of a thoroughly aristocratic type.

It must be confessed that whenever she was visible from my regions the section of the grounds which commanded a view of her, and was yet fairly beyond the sound of her voice, received assiduous attention from me;

for she was highly remunerative to look at.

I was sweeping a section of the walk immediately in front of the hotel.

Unlike the work at West Point, a porter's duties do not preclude mental effort.

Absorbed in thought and quite unconscious of my surroundings, I was suddenly recalled to them and to my station in life by nasal accents raised in strong reproof.

I looked up in bewilderment, and saw confronting me the beautiful Philistine, holding a little child by each hand.

Very straight she stood and bright-eyed, with her head thrown back, and an exquisite flush over her face, and her beautiful lips curled in anger, as she scolded me roundly for raising so much dust.

I was unfamiliar with the etiquette of the situation, so I held my peace, and respectfully touched my cap, inwardly calling her the beauty that she was as she stood there, and ardently hoping that she would scold me more.