Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser (good non fiction books to read txt) 📗

everything was silent. Minnie was sewing by a lamp at the table. Hanson had already turned in for the night. In her weariness and disappointment Carrie did no more than announce that she was going to bed.

“Yes, you’d better,” returned Minnie. “You’ve got to get up early, you know.”

The morning was no better. Hanson was just going out the door as Carrie came from her room. Minnie tried to talk with her during breakfast, but there was not much of interest which they could mutually discuss. As on the previous morning, Carrie walked downtown, for she began to realise now that her four-fifty would not even allow her car fare after she paid her board. This seemed a miserable arrangement. But the morning light swept away the first misgivings of the day, as morning light is ever wont to do.

At the shoe factory she put in a long day, scarcely so wearisome as the preceding, but considerably less novel. The head foreman, on his round, stopped by her machine.

“Where did you come from?” he inquired.

“Mr. Brown hired me,” she replied.

“Oh, he did, eh!” and then, “See that you keep things going.”

The machine girls impressed her even less favourably. They seemed satisfied with their lot, and were in a sense “common.” Carrie had more imagination than they. She was not used to slang. Her instinct in the matter of dress was naturally better. She disliked to listen to the girl next to her, who was rather hardened by experience.

“I’m going to quit this,” she heard her remark to her neighbour. “What with the stipend and being up late, it’s too much for me health.”

They were free with the fellows, young and old, about the place, and exchanged banter in rude phrases, which at first shocked her. She saw that she was taken to be of the same sort and addressed accordingly.

“Hello,” remarked one of the stout-wristed sole-workers to her at noon. “You’re a daisy.” He really expected to hear the common “Aw! go chase yourself!” in return, and was sufficiently abashed, by Carrie’s silently moving away, to retreat, awkwardly grinning.

That night at the flat she was even more lonely⁠—the dull situation was becoming harder to endure. She could see that the Hansons seldom or never had any company. Standing at the street door looking out, she ventured to walk out a little way. Her easy gait and idle manner attracted attention of an offensive but common sort. She was slightly taken back at the overtures of a well-dressed man of thirty, who in passing looked at her, reduced his pace, turned back, and said:

“Out for a little stroll, are you, this evening?”

Carrie looked at him in amazement, and then summoned sufficient thought to reply: “Why, I don’t know you,” backing away as she did so.

“Oh, that don’t matter,” said the other affably.

She bandied no more words with him, but hurried away, reaching her own door quite out of breath. There was something in the man’s look which frightened her.

During the remainder of the week it was very much the same. One or two nights she found herself too tired to walk home, and expended car fare. She was not very strong, and sitting all day affected her back. She went to bed one night before Hanson.

Transplantation is not always successful in the matter of flowers or maidens. It requires sometimes a richer soil, a better atmosphere to continue even a natural growth. It would have been better if her acclimatization had been more gradual⁠—less rigid. She would have done better if she had not secured a position so quickly, and had seen more of the city which she constantly troubled to know about.

On the first morning it rained she found that she had no umbrella. Minnie loaned her one of hers, which was worn and faded. There was the kind of vanity in Carrie that troubled at this. She went to one of the great department stores and bought herself one, using a dollar and a quarter of her small store to pay for it.

“What did you do that for, Carrie?” asked Minnie, when she saw it.

“Oh, I need one,” said Carrie.

“You foolish girl.”

Carrie resented this, though she did not reply. She was not going to be a common shop-girl, she thought; they need not think it, either.

On the first Saturday night Carrie paid her board, four dollars. Minnie had a quaver of conscience as she took it, but did not know how to explain to Hanson if she took less. That worthy gave up just four dollars less toward the household expenses with a smile of satisfaction. He contemplated increasing his Building and Loan payments. As for Carrie, she studied over the problem of finding clothes and amusement on fifty cents a week. She brooded over this until she was in a state of mental rebellion.

“I’m going up the street for a walk,” she said after supper.

“Not alone, are you?” asked Hanson.

“Yes,” returned Carrie.

“I wouldn’t,” said Minnie.

“I want to see something,” said Carrie, and by the tone she put into the last word they realised for the first time she was not pleased with them.

“What’s the matter with her?” asked Hanson, when she went into the front room to get her hat.

“I don’t know,” said Minnie.

“Well, she ought to know better than to want to go out alone.”

Carrie did not go very far, after all. She returned and stood in the door. The next day they went out to Garfield Park, but it did not please her. She did not look well enough. In the shop next day she heard the highly coloured reports which girls give of their trivial amusements. They had been happy. On several days it rained and she used up car fare. One night she got thoroughly soaked, going to catch the car at Van Buren Street. All that evening she sat alone in the front room looking out upon the street, where the lights were reflected on the wet pavements, thinking. She had imagination enough to