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The Valley of the Moon
by Jack London
September, 1998 [Etext #1449]
[Date last updated: September 12, 2003]
Project Gutenberg Etext of The Valley of the Moon by Jack London
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THE VALLEY OF THE MOON by Jack London
BOOK I
CHAPTER 1
"You hear me, Saxon? Come on along. What if it is the
Bricklayers? I'll have gentlemen friends there, and so'll you.
The Al Vista band'll be along, an' you know it plays heavenly.
An' you just love dancin'---"
Twenty feet away, a stout, elderly woman interrupted the girl's
persuasions. The elderly woman's back was turned, and the
back-loose, bulging, and misshapen--began a convulsive heaving.
"Gawd!" she cried out. "O Gawd!"
She flung wild glances, like those of an entrapped animal, up and
down the big whitewashed room that panted with heat and that was
thickly humid with the steam that sizzled from the damp cloth
under the irons of the many ironers. From the girls and women
near her, all swinging irons steadily but at high pace, came
quick glances, and labor efficiency suffered to the extent of a
score of suspended or inadequate movements. The elderly woman's
cry had caused a tremor of money-loss to pass among the
piece-work ironers of fancy starch.
She gripped herself and her iron with a visible effort, and
dabbed futilely at the frail, frilled garment on the board under
her hand.
"I thought she'd got'em again--didn't you?" the girl said.
"It's a shame, a women of her age, and . . . condition," Saxon
answered, as she frilled a lace ruffle with a hot fluting-iron.
Her movements were delicate, safe, and swift, and though her face
was wan with fatigue and exhausting heat, there was no slackening
in her pace.
"An' her with seven, an' two of 'em in reform school," the girl
at the next board sniffed sympathetic agreement. "But you just
got to come to Weasel Park to-morrow, Saxon. The Bricklayers' is
always lively--tugs-of-war, fat-man races, real Irish jiggin',
an' . . . an' everything. An' The floor of the pavilion's swell."
But the elderly woman brought another interruption. She dropped
her iron on the shirtwaist, clutched at the board, fumbled it,
caved in at the knees and hips, and like a half-empty sack
collapsed on the floor, her l
ong shriek rising in the pent room
to the acrid smell of scorching cloth. The women at the boards
near to her scrambled, first, to the hot iron to save the cloth,
and then to her, while the forewoman hurried belligerently down
the aisle. The women farther away continued unsteadily at their
work, losing movements to the extent of a minute's set-back to
the totality of the efficiency of the fancy-starch room.
"Enough to kill a dog," the girl muttered, thumping her iron down
on its rest with reckless determination. "Workin' girls' life
ain't what it's cracked up. Me to quit--that's what I'm comin'
to."
"Mary!" Saxon uttered the other's name with a reproach so
profound that she was compelled to rest her own iron for emphasis
and so lose a dozen movements.
Mary flashed a half-frightened look across.
"I didn't mean it, Saxon," she whimpered. "Honest, I didn't. I
wouldn't never go that way. But I leave it to you, if a day like
this don't get on anybody's nerves. Listen to that!"
The stricken woman, on her back, drumming her heels on the floor,
was shrieking persistently and monotonously, like a mechanical
siren. Two women, clutching her under the arms, were dragging her
down the aisle. She drummed and shrieked the length of it. The
door opened, and a vast, muffled roar of machinery burst in; and
in the roar of it the drumming and the shrieking were drowned ere
the door swung shut. Remained of the episode only the scorch of
cloth drifting ominously through the air.
"It's sickenin'," said Mary.
And thereafter, for a long time, the many irons rose and fell,
the pace of the room in no wise diminished; while the forewoman
strode the aisles with a threatening eye for incipient breakdown
and hysteria. Occasionally an ironer lost the stride for an
instant, gasped or sighed, then caught it up again with weary
determination. The long summer day waned, but not the heat, and
under the raw flare of electric light the work went on.
By nine o'clock the first women began to go home. The mountain of
fancy starch had been demolished--all save the few remnants, here
and there, on the boards, where the ironers still labored.
Saxon finished ahead of Mary, at whose board she paused on the
way out.
"Saturday night an' another week gone," Mary said mournfully, her
young cheeks pallid and hollowed, her black eyes blue-shadowed
and tired. "What d'you think you've made, Saxon?"
"Twelve and a quarter," was the answer, just touched with pride
"And I'd a-made more if it wasn't for that fake bunch of
starchers."
"My! I got to pass it to you," Mary congratulated. "You're a sure
fierce hustler--just eat it up. Me--I've only ten an' a half, an'
for a hard week . . . See you on the nine-forty. Sure now. We can
just fool around until the dancin' begins. A lot of my gentlemen
friends'll be there in the afternoon."
Two blocks from the laundry, where an arc-light showed a gang of
toughs on the corner, Saxon quickened her pace. Unconsciously her
face set and hardened as she passed. She did not catch the words
of the muttered comment, but the rough laughter it raised made
her guess and warmed her checks with resentful blood. Three
blocks more, turning once to left and once to right, she walked
on through the night that was already growing cool. On either
side were workingmen's houses, of weathered wood, the ancient
paint grimed with the dust of years, conspicuous only for
cheapness and ugliness.
Dark it was, but she made no mistake, the familiar sag and
screeching reproach of the front gate welcome under her hand. She
went along the narrow walk to the rear, avoided the missing step
without thinking about it, and entered the kitchen, where a
solitary gas-jet flickered. She turned it up to the best of its
flame. It was a small room, not disorderly, because of lack of