Jack London

The Valley of the Moon Jack London

You hear me, Saxon? Come on along. What if it is the Bricklayers? I'll have gentlemenfriends 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 elderlywoman's back was turned, and the back--loose, bulging, and misshapen-began aconvulsive heaving."Gawd!" she cried out. "O Gawd!"She flung wild glances, like those of an entrapped animal, up and down the bigwhitewashed room that panted with heat and that was thickly humid with the steam thatsizzled from the damp cloth under the irons of the many ironers. From the girls and womennear her, all swinging irons steadily but at high pace, came quick glances, and laborefficiency suffered to the extent of a score of suspended or inadequate movements. Theelderly woman's cry had caused a tremor of money-loss to pass among the piece-workironers 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 woman of her age, and... condition," Saxon answered, as she frilled a laceruffle with a hot fluting-iron. Her movements were delicate, safe, and swift, and though herface 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 sniffedsympathetic agreement. "But you just got to come to Weasel Park to-morrow, Saxon. TheBricklayers' 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 theshirtwaist, clutched at the board, fumbled it, caved in at the knees and hips, and like a halfempty sack collapsed on the floor, her long shriek rising in the pent room to the acrid smellof scorching cloth. The women at the boards near to her scrambled, first, to the hot iron tosave 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 theextent 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 withreckless determination. "Workin' girls' life ain't what it's cracked up. Me to quit-that'swhat I'm comin' to.""Mary!" Saxon uttered the other's name with a reproach so profound that she wascompelled to rest her own iron for emphasis and so lose a dozen movements. Mary flashed a half-frightened look across