🎧 279: Early one afternoon ...

EARLY ONE AFTERNOON, about two months before the Armistice was signed, Lorna sat in the lunchroom in the mill, reading a pamphlet. What she read struck her with such force that she pounded her fist on the table, spilling her soup and startling the women around her.
     “Damn!” she said.
     “What’s the matter?” asked Elsie Hensel.
     “Oh, I’m furious with myself for being so—so—childish!” cried Lorna. She stormed out of the lunchroom and strode through the building. She hesitated for only an instant outside Luther’s door; then she knocked, with sharp, rapid taps.
     “Come in,” said Luther. Lorna opened the door and went inside.
     “Uncle Luther,” she said in a rush, knowing that if she hesitated she would surely waver in her resolve, “I want you to tell me how much you were paying John Caldwell to do the work I’m doing.” She took a long breath. Behind her back, she rolled and twisted the pamphlet in her hands.
     Luther drew a long breath of his own. “Lorna,” he said, “I’m surprised at you. That’s not a polite question to ask.”
     “Politeness doesn’t have anything to do with it,” said Lorna. She hoped that the anger and fear rippling through her wouldn’t make her voice quaver. “I’ve been reading this pamphlet.” She brought it out from behind her back, untwisted it, bent it back to flatten it, and held it out to Luther with both hands. “It’s about women’s working conditions.”
     “Lorna, Lorna,” said Luther, rising and moving toward her. “You mustn’t let yourself get into such a state. These are difficult times, Lorna dear,” he said. He put his hand on her shoulder, and Lorna stiffened. “We all have important work to do, and we all must make sacrifices. This is not a time when any of us should be thinking about personal gain.”
     “I’m not thinking about personal gain,” said Lorna. She had to work to keep the pfrom betraying her anger.
     “Now, really, Lorna,” said Luther. “What other name can we put on it?” He took the pamphlet that Lorna held out to him. “ ‘The National Women’s Trade Union League of America,’ ” he read. “Now who are they? Do we know anything about them?”
     “I know something about them,” said Lorna. She was surprised (and, she would admit to herself later, pleased) to find that Luther’s attitude incensed her, made her bolder than she would have been. “I know that I like what they say.”
     “And what do they say?” asked Luther. He smiled. Lorna thought that she might kick him if he didn’t stop smiling. She snatched the pamphlet from him and flipped through its pages to the place where she’d been reading when she’d struck the table with her fist.
     “They say,” she said, “ ‘Equal pay for equal work.’ ”
     “Oh, now, Lorna,” said Luther.
     “Uncle Luther,” said Lorna, pressing her feet together so that she wouldn’t kick him, “I don’t want to argue with you. My mind is made up. I’m going to — ”
     “Stop,” said Luther, with maddening calm. He looked at her for a moment, deciding what he wanted to do. He had begun to consider Lorna a liability in coarse goods. Her work was wonderful, of course, superior in every way, but as a carver she had been bad for morale. She had set a standard that the others couldn’t attain. Half of them strained to measure up, taking pains that wasted time without improving their work, and the other half fell into grumbling and loafing. Production had fallen off. As manager, she was an even more imposing presence. The others in the specialty department feared or resented her ability, and Luther, though he admired her talent, wondered if he wouldn’t be just as glad to see her go. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “I have an idea. Why don’t you quit the specialty goods and go onto the regular line in suspenders or buttons? I shall be pleased to pay you just what everyone else is getting there.”
     “I — ” Lorna began, surprised and confused.
     Still smiling, quoting her, Luther said, “I don’t want to argue with you. My mind is made up.”
     Lorna stood straight and clenched her fists at her sides. “I think I’ll just quit work altogether,” she said.
     “Lorna, Lorna,” said Luther with an exaggerated look of offense and disappointment. “There’s a war on, remember? I’m sure you want to do your part.”
     “Uncle Luther — ” Lorna began.
     “You know, Lorna,” said Luther, as if the idea had just occurred to him, “it would break your parents’ hearts if they knew what you’d been up to here.”
     Lorna took two steps backward, as if she’d been pushed. In an instant, she understood how rough a fight she was in, and she struck back with the kind of blow she’d been dealt.
     “And it would make your brother furious if he knew what you’d been up to with his daughters,” she said with a calm like that she’d seen in Luther.
     On the way out she repeated to herself, Do not slam the door; do not slam the door, and because she couldn’t trust herself not to slam it, she left it standing open. Luther slammed it.

In Topical Guide 279, Mark Dorset considers Real Reality and Fictional Reality and Working Women from this episode.

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