Contrary Mary

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.