What She Wore

by Edna Ferber

　　Somewhere in your story you must pause to describe your heroine'scostume. It is a ticklish task. The average reader likes hisheroine well dressed. He is not satisfied with knowing that shelooked like a tall, fair lily. He wants to be told that her gownwas of green crepe, with lace ruffles that swirled at her feet.Writers used to go so far as to name the dressmaker; and it was apoor kind of a heroine who didn't wear a red velvet by Worth. Butthat has been largely abandoned in these days of commissions.Still, when the heroine goes out on the terrace to spoon afterdinner (a quaint old English custom for the origin of which see anynovel by the "Duchess," page 179) the average reader wants to knowwhat sort of a filmy wrap she snatches up on the way out. Hedemands a description, with as many illustrations as the publisherwill stand for, of what she wore from the bedroom to the street,with full stops for the ribbons on her robe de nuit, and thebuckles on her ballroom slippers. Half the poor creatures one seesflattening their noses against the shop windows are authors gettinga line on the advance fashions. Suppose a careless writer were todress his heroine in a full-plaited skirt only to find, when hisstory is published four months later, that full-plaited skirts havebeen relegated to the dim past!I started to read a story once. It was a good one. There wasin it not a single allusion to brandy-and-soda, or divorce, or thestock market. The dialogue crackled. The hero talked like a liveman. It was a shipboard story, and the heroine was charming solong as she wore her heavy ulster. But along toward evening sheblossomed forth in a yellow gown, with a scarlet poinsettia at herthroat. I quit her cold. Nobody ever wore a scarlet poinsettia;or if they did, they couldn't wear it on a yellow gown. Or if theydid wear it with a yellow gown, they didn't wear it at the throat.Scarlet poinsettias aren't worn, anyhow. To this day I don't knowwhether the heroine married the hero or jumped overboard.You see, one can't be too careful about clothing one'sheroine.I hesitate to describe Sophy Epstein's dress. You won't likeit. In the first place, it was cut too low, front and back, for ashoe clerk in a downtown loft. It was a black dress, near-princessin style, very tight as to fit, very short as to skirt, very sleazyas to material. It showed all the delicate curves of Sophy'sunder-fed, girlish body, and Sophy didn't care a bit. Its mostobjectionable feature was at the throat. Collarless gowns were invogue. Sophy's daring shears had gone a snip or two farther. Theyhad cut a startlingly generous V. To say that the dress waselbow-sleeved is superfluous. I have said that Sophy clerked in adowntown loft.Sophy sold "sample" shoes at two-fifty a pair, and from whereyou were standing you thought they looked just like the shoes thatwere sold in the regular shops for six. When Sophy sat on one ofthe low benches at the feet of some customer, tugging away at arefractory shoe for a would-be small foot, her shameless littlegown exposed more than it should have. But few of Sophy'scustomers were shocked. They were mainly chorus girls and ladiesof doubtful complexion in search of cheap and ultra footgear,and--to use a health term--hardened by exposure.Have I told you how pretty she was? She was so pretty thatyou immediately forgave her the indecency of her pitiful littlegown. She was pretty in a daringly demure fashion, like a wickedlittle Puritan, or a poverty-stricken Cleo de Merode, with hersmooth brown hair parted in the middle, drawn severely down overher ears, framing the lovely oval of her face and ending in asimple coil at the neck. Some serpent's wisdom had told Sophy toeschew puffs. But I think her prettiness could have triumphed evenover those.If Sophy's boss had been any other sort of man he would haveinformed Sophy, sternly, that black princess effects, cut low, werenot au fait in the shoe-clerk world. But Sophy's boss had arhombic nose, and no instep, and the tail of his name had beenamputated. He didn't care how Sophy wore her dresses so long asshe sold shoes.Once the boss had kissed Sophy--not on the mouth, but justwhere her shabby gown formed its charming but immodest V. Sophyhad slapped him, of course. But the slap had not set the thingright in her mind. She could not forget it. It had made heruncomfortable in much the same way as we are wildly ill at easewhen we dream of walking naked in a crowded street. At odd momentsduring the day Sophy had found herself rubbing the spot furiouslywith her unlovely handkerchief, and shivering a little. She hadnever told the other girls about that kiss.So--there you have Sophy and her costume. You may take her orleave her. I purposely placed these defects in costuming right atthe beginning of the story, so that there should be no falsepretenses. One more detail. About Sophy's throat was a slender,near-gold chain from which was suspended a cheap and glittering LaValliere. Sophy had not intended it as a sop to the conventions.It was an offering on the shrine of Fashion, and represented manylunchless days.At eleven o'clock one August morning, Louie came to Chicagofrom Oskaloosa, Iowa. There was no hay in his hair. The comicpapers have long insisted that the country boy, on his first visitto the city, is known by his greased boots and his high-waterpants. Don't you believe them. The small-town boy is asfastidious about the height of his heels and the stripe of hisshift and the roll of his hat-brim as are his city brothers. Heperuses the slangily worded ads of the "classy clothes" tailors,and when scarlet cravats are worn the small-town boy is not morethan two weeks late in acquiring one that glows like a headlight.Louie found a rooming-house, shoved his suitcase under thebed, changed his collar, washed his hands in the gritty water ofthe wash bowl, and started out to look for a job.Louie was twenty-one. For the last four years he had beenemployed in the best shoe store at home, and he knew shoe leatherfrom the factory to the ash barrel. It was almost a religion withhim.Curiosity, which plays leads in so many life dramas, led Louieto the rotunda of the tallest building. It was built on the hollowcenter plan, with a sheer drop from the twenty-somethingth to themain floor. Louie stationed himself in the center of the mosaicfloor, took off his hat, bent backward almost double and gazed, hismouth wide open. When he brought his muscles slowly back intonormal position he tried hard not to look impressed. He glancedabout, sheepishly, to see if any one was laughing at him, and hiseye encountered the electric-lighted glass display case of the shoecompany upstairs. The case was filled with pink satin slippers andcunning velvet boots, and the newest thing in bronze street shoes.Louie took the next elevator up. The shoe display had made himfeel as though some one from home had slapped him on the back.The God of the Jobless was with him. The boss had fired twoboys the day before."Oskaloosa!" grinned the boss, derisively. "Do they wearshoes there? What do you know about shoes, huh boy?"Louie told him. The boss shuffled the papers on his desk, andchewed his cigar, and tried not to show his surprise. Louie, quiteinnocently, was teaching the boss things about the shoe business.When Louie had finished--"Well, I try you, anyhow," the bossgrunted, grudgingly. "I give you so-and-so much." He named a wagethat would have been ridiculous if it had not been so pathetic."All right, sir," answered Louie, promptly, like the boys inthe Alger series. The cost of living problem had never botheredLouie in Oskaloosa.The boss hid a pleased smile."Miss Epstein!" he bellowed, "step this way! Miss Epstein,kindly show this here young man so he gets a line on the stock. Heis from Oskaloosa, Ioway. Look out she don't sell you a goldbrick, Louie."But Louie was not listening. He was gazing at the V in SophyEpstein's dress with all his scandalized Oskaloosa, Iowa, eyes.Louie was no mollycoddle. But he had been in great demand asusher at the Young Men's Sunday Evening Club service at theCongregational church, and in his town there had been no SophyEpsteins in too-tight princess dresses, cut into a careless V. ButSophy was a city product--I was about to say pure and simple, butI will not--wise, bold, young, old, underfed, overworked, andtriumphantly pretty."How-do!" cooed Sophy in her best baby tones. Louie'sdisapproving eyes jumped from the objectionable V in Sophy's dressto the lure of Sophy's face, and their expression underwent alightning change. There was no disapproving Sophy's face, nomatter how long one had dwelt in Oskaloosa."I won't bite you," said Sophy. "I'm never vicious onTuesdays. We'll start here with the misses' an' children's, andwork over to the other side."Whereupon Louie was introduced into the intricacies of thesample shoe business. He kept his eyes resolutely away from the V,and learned many things. He learned how shoes that look like sixdollar values may be sold for two-fifty. He looked on in wide-eyedhorror while Sophy fitted a No. 5 C shoe on a 6 B foot and assuredthe wearer that it looked like a made-to-order boot. He picked upa pair of dull kid shoes and looked at them. His leather-wise eyessaw much, and I think he would have taken his hat off the hook, andhis offended business principles out of the shop forever if Sophyhad not completed her purchase and strolled over to him at thepsychological moment.She smiled up at him, impudently. "Well, Pink Cheeks," shesaid, "how do you like our little settlement by the lake, huh?""These shoes aren't worth two-fifty," said Louie, indignationin his voice."Well, sure," replied Sophy. "I know it. What do you thinkthis is? A charity bazaar?""But back home----" began Louie, hotly."Ferget it, kid," said Sophy. "This is a big town, but itain't got no room for back-homers. Don't sour on one job tillyou've got another nailed. You'll find yourself cuddling down ona park bench if you do. Say, are you honestly from Oskaloosa?""I certainly am," answered Louie, with pride."My goodness!" ejaculated Sophy. "I never believed there wasno such place. Don't brag about it to the other fellows.""What time do you go out for lunch?" asked Louie."What's it to you?" with the accent on the "to.""When I want to know a thing, I generally ask," explainedLouie, gently.Sophy looked at him--a long, keen, knowing look. "You'lllearn," she observed, thoughtfully.Louie did learn. He learned so much in that first week thatwhen Sunday came it seemed as though aeons had passed over hishead. He learned that the crime of murder was as nothing comparedto the crime of allowing a customer to depart shoeless; he learnedthat the lunch hour was invented for the purpose of making dates;that no one had ever heard of Oskaloosa, Iowa; that seven dollarsa week does not leave much margin for laundry and general reck-lessness; that a madonna face above a V-cut gown is apt to distractone's attention from shoes; that a hundred-dollar nest egg is aseffective in Chicago as a pine stick would be in propping up astone wall; and that all the other men clerks called Sophy"sweetheart."Some of his newly acquired knowledge brought pain, asknowledge is apt to do.He saw that State Street was crowded with Sophys during thenoon hour; girls with lovely faces under pitifully absurd hats.Girls who aped the fashions of the dazzling creatures they sawstepping from limousines. Girls who starved body and soul in orderto possess a set of false curls, or a pair of black satin shoeswith mother-o'-pearl buttons. Girls whose minds were bounded onthe north by the nickel theatres; on the east by "I sez to him"; onthe south by the gorgeous shop windows; and on the west by "He sezt' me."Oh, I can't tell you how much Louie learned in that first weekwhile his eyes were getting accustomed to the shifting, jostling,pushing, giggling, walking, talking throng. The city is justlyfamed as a hot house of forced knowledge.One thing Louie could not learn. He could not bring himselfto accept the V in Sophy's dress. Louie's mother had been one ofthe old-fashioned kind who wore a blue-and-white checked ginghamapron from 6 A.M. to 2 P.M., when she took it off to go downtownand help the ladies of the church at the cake sale in the emptywindow of the gas company's office, only to don it again when shefried the potatoes for supper. Among other things she had taughtLouie to wipe his feet before coming in, to respect and help women,and to change his socks often.After a month of Chicago Louie forgot the first lesson; hadmore difficulty than I can tell you in reverencing a woman who onlysaid, "Aw, don't get fresh now!" when the other men put their armsabout her; and adhered to the third only after a struggle, in whichhe had to do a small private washing in his own wash-bowl in theevening.Sophy called him a stiff. His gravely courteous treatment ofher made her vaguely uncomfortable. She was past mistress in theart of parrying insults and banter, but she had no reply ready forLouie's boyish air of deference. It angered her for someunreasonable woman-reason.There came a day when the V-cut dress brought them to openbattle. I think Sophy had appeared that morning minus the chainand La Valliere. Frail and cheap as it was, it had been the onlybarrier that separated Sophy from frank shamelessness. Louie'soutraged sense of propriety asserted itself."Sophy," he stammered, during a quiet half-hour, "I'll callfor you and take you to the nickel show to-night if you'll promisenot to wear that dress. What makes you wear that kind of a get-up,anyway?""Dress?" queried Sophy, looking down at the shiny frontbreadth of her frock. "Why? Don't you like it?""Like it! No!" blurted Louie."Don't yuh, rully! Deah me! Deah me! If I'd only knew thatthis morning. As a gen'ral thing I wear white duck complete downt' work, but I'm savin' my last two clean suits f'r gawlf."Louie ran an uncomfortable finger around the edge of hiscollar, but he stood his ground. "It--it--shows your--neck so," heobjected, miserably.Sophy opened her great eyes wide. "Well, supposin' it does?"she inquired, coolly. "It's a perfectly good neck, ain't it?"Louie, his face very red, took the plunge. "I don't know. Iguess so. But, Sophy, it--looks so--so--you know what I mean. Ihate to see the way the fellows rubber at you. Why don't you wearthose plain shirtwaist things, with high collars, like my motherwears back home?"Sophy's teeth came together with a click. She laughed a shortcruel little laugh. "Say, Pink Cheeks, did yuh ever do a washin'from seven to twelve, after you got home from work in the evenin'?It's great! 'Specially when you're living in a six-by-ten roomwith all the modern inconveniences, includin' no water except onthe third floor down. Simple! Say, a child could work it. Allyou got to do, when you get home so tired your back teeth ache, isto haul your water, an' soak your clothes, an' then rub 'em tillyour hands peel, and rinse 'em, an' boil 'em, and blue 'em, an'starch 'em. See? Just like that. Nothin' to it, kid. Nothin' toit."Louie had been twisting his fingers nervously. Now his handsshut themselves into fists. He looked straight into Sophy's angryeyes."I do know what it is," he said, quite simply. "There's beena lot written and said about women's struggle with clothes. Iwonder why they've never said anything about the way a man has tofight to keep up the thing they call appearances. God knows it'spathetic enough to think of a girl like you bending over a tubfulof clothes. But when a man has to do it, it's a tragedy.""That's so," agreed Sophy. "When a girl gets shabby, and herclothes begin t' look tacky she can take a gore or so out of herskirt where it's the most wore, and catch it in at the bottom, andcall it a hobble. An' when her waist gets too soiled she can coverup the front of it with a jabot, an' if her face is pretty enoughshe can carry it off that way. But when a man is seedy, he'sseedy. He can't sew no ruffles on his pants.""I ran short last week, continued Louie. "That is, shorterthan usual. I hadn't the fifty cents to give to the woman. Youought to see her! A little, gray-faced thing, with wisps of hair,and no chest to speak of, and one of those mashed-looking blackhats. Nobody could have the nerve to ask her to wait for hermoney. So I did my own washing. I haven't learned to wear soiledclothes yet. I laughed fit to bust while I was doing it.But--I'll bet my mother dreamed of me that night. The way they do,you know, when something's gone wrong."Sophy, perched on the third rung of the sliding ladder, wasgazing at him. Her lips were parted slightly, and her cheeks werevery pink. On her face was a new, strange look, as of somethinghalf forgotten. It was as though the spirit ofSophy-as-she-might-have-been were inhabiting her soul for a briefmoment. At Louie's next words the look was gone."Can't you sew something--a lace yoke--or whatever you call'em--in that dress?" he persisted."Aw, fade!" jeered Sophy. "When a girl's only got one dressit's got to have some tong to it. Maybe this gown would cause awave of indignation in Oskaloosa, Iowa, but it don't even make aripple on State Street. It takes more than an aggravated Dutchneck to make a fellow look at a girl these days. In a town likethis a girl's got to make a showin' some way. I'm my own stagemanager. They look at my dress first, an' grin. See? An' thenthey look at my face. I'm like the girl in the story. Muh face ismuh fortune. It's earned me many a square meal; an' lemme tellyou, Pink Cheeks, eatin' square meals is one of my favorite pas-times.""Say looka here!" bellowed the boss, wrathfully. "Just cutout this here Romeo and Juliet act, will you! That there ladderain't for no balcony scene, understand. Here you, Louie, youshinny up there and get down a pair of them brown satin pumps,small size."Sophy continued to wear the black dress. The V-cut neckseemed more flaunting than ever.It was two weeks later that Louie came in from lunch, his faceradiant. He was fifteen minutes late, but he listened to theboss's ravings with a smile."You grin like somebody handed you a ten-case note," commentedSophy, with a woman's curiosity. "I guess you must of met somerube from home when you was out t' lunch.""Better than that! Who do you think I bumped right into inthe elevator going down?""Well, Brothah Bones," mimicked Sophy, who did you meet in theelevator going down?""I met a man named Ames. He used to travel for a big Bostonshoe house, and he made our town every few months. We got to begood friends. I took him home for Sunday dinner once, and he saidit was the best dinner he'd had in months. You know how tiredthose traveling men get of hotel grub.""Cut out the description and get down to action," snappedSophy."Well, he knew me right away. And he made me go out to lunchwith him. A real lunch, starting with soup. Gee! It went big.He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was working here, andhe opened his eyes, and then he laughed and said: `How did you getinto that joint?' Then he took me down to a swell little shoe shopon State Street, and it turned out that he owns it. He introducedme all around, and I'm going there to work next week. And wages!Why say, it's almost a salary. A fellow can hold his head up in aplace like that.""When you leavin'?" asked Sophy, slowly."Monday. Gee! it seems a year away."Sophy was late Saturday morning. When she came in, hurriedly,her cheeks were scarlet and her eyes glowed. She took off her hatand coat and fell to straightening boxes and putting out stockwithout looking up. She took no part in the talk and jest that wasgoing on among the other clerks. One of the men, in search of themissing mate to the shoe in his hand, came over to her, greetingher carelessly. Then he stared."Well, what do you know about this!" he called out to theothers, and laughed coarsely, "Look, stop, listen! Little SophyBright Eyes here has pulled down the shades."Louie turned quickly. The immodest V of Sophy's gown wasfilled with a black lace yoke that came up to the very lobes of herlittle pink ears. She had got some scraps of lace from--Where dothey get those bits of rusty black? From some basement bargaincounter, perhaps, raked over during the lunch hour. There werenine pieces in the front, and seven in the back. She had sat uphalf the night putting them together so that when completed theylooked like one, if you didn't come too close. There is a certainstrain of Indian patience and ingenuity in women that no man hasever been able to understand.Louie looked up and saw. His eyes met Sophy's. In his therecrept a certain exultant gleam, as of one who had fought forsomething great and won. Sophy saw the look. The shy questioningin her eyes was replaced by a spark of defiance. She tossed herhead, and turned to the man who had called attention to hercostume."Who's loony now?" she jeered. "I always put in a yoke whenit gets along toward fall. My lungs is delicate. And anyway, Isee by the papers yesterday that collarless gowns is slightlypassay f'r winter."