{"id":4240,"date":"2019-03-27T03:24:07","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T03:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.incirliseviye.com\/?p=4240"},"modified":"2019-03-27T03:24:07","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T03:24:07","slug":"the-girl-who-went-right-by-edna-ferber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/?p=4240","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Girl Who Went Right\u201d by Edna Ferber"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Ferber moved in the same circles as Dorothy Parker and No\u00ebl Coward in the Algonquin Round Table. Ferber wrote Show Boat, So Big, and Giant, in addition to several other novels adapted into musicals and Oscar-winning films. Her 1913 story \u201cThe Girl Who Went Right\u201d follows a new department store salesgirl learning the tricky business of selling lingerie in the ritzy part of town. <\/em><\/p>\n

Published on August 16, 1913<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is a story \u2014 Kipling, I think \u2014 that tells of a spirited horse galloping in the dark suddenly drawing up tense, hoofs bunched, slim flanks quivering, nostrils dilated, ears pricked. Urging being of no avail the rider dismounts, strikes a match, advances a cautious step or so, and finds himself at the precipitous brink of a newly formed crevasse.<\/p>\n

So it is with your trained editor. A miraculous sixth sense guides him. A mysterious something warns him of danger lurking within the seemingly innocent oblong white envelope. Without slitting the flap, without pausing to adjust his tortoise-rimmed glasses, without clearing his throat, without lighting his cigarette \u2014 he knows.<\/p>\n

The deadly newspaper story he scents in the dark. Cub reporter. Crusty city editor. Cub fired. Stumbles on to big story. Staggers into newspaper office wild-eyed. Last edition. \u201cHold the presses!\u201d Crusty C. E. stands over cub\u2019s typewriter grabbing story line by line. Even foreman of pressroom moved to tears by tale. \u201cBoys, this ain\u2019t just a story this kid\u2019s writin\u2019. This is history!\u201d Story finished. Cub faints. C. E. makes him star reporter.<\/p>\n

The athletic story: \u201cI could never marry a mollycoddle like you, Harold Hammond!\u201d Big game of the year. Team crippled. Second half. Halfback hurt. Harold Hammond, scrub, into the game. Touchdown! Broken leg. Five to nothing. \u201cHarold, can you ever, ever forgive me?\u201d<\/p>\n

The pseudo-psychological story: She had been sitting before the fire for a long, long time. The flame had flickered and died down to a smoldering ash. The sound of his departing footsteps echoed and reechoed through her brain. But the little room was very, very still.<\/p>\n

The shop-girl story: Torn boots and temptation, tears and sneers, pathos and bathos, all the way from Zola to the vice inquiry.<\/p>\n

Having thus attempted to hide the deadly commonplaceness of this story with a thin layer of cynicism, perhaps even the wily editor may be tricked into taking the leap.<\/p>\n

Four weeks before the completion of the new 12-story addition the store advertised for 200 experienced saleswomen. Rachel Wiletzky, entering the superintendent\u2019s office after a wait of three hours, was Applicant No. 179. The superintendent did not look up as Rachel came in. He scribbled busily on a pad of paper at his desk, thus observing rules one and two in the proper conduct of superintendents when interviewing applicants. Rachel Wiletzky, standing by his desk, did not cough or wriggle or rustle her skirts or sag on one hip. A sense of her quiet penetrated the superintendent\u2019s subconsciousness. He glanced up hurriedly over his left shoulder. Then he laid down his pencil and sat up slowly. His mind was working quickly enough though. In the 12 seconds that intervened between the laying down of the pencil and the sitting up in his chair he had hastily readjusted all his well-founded preconceived ideas on the appearance of shop-girl applicants.<\/p>\n

Rachel Wiletzky had the coloring and physique of a dairymaid. It was the sort of coloring that you associate in your mind with lush green fields, and Jersey cows, and village maids, in Watteau frocks, balancing brimming pails aloft in the protecting curve of one rounded upraised arm, with perhaps a Maypole dance or so in the background. Altogether, had the superintendent been given to figures of speech, he might have said that Rachel was as much out of place among the preceding 178 bloodless, hollow-chested, stoop-shouldered applicants as a sunflower would be in a patch of dank white fungi.<\/p>\n

He himself was one of those bleached men that you find on the office floor of department stores. Gray skin, gray eyes, graying hair, careful gray clothes \u2014 seemingly as void of pigment as one of those sunless things you disclose when you turn over a board that has long lain on the moldy floor of a damp cellar. It was only when you looked closely that you noticed a fleck of golden brown in the cold gray of each eye, and a streak of warm brown forming an unquenchable forelock that the conquering gray had not been able to vanquish. It may have been a something within him corresponding to those outward bits of human coloring that tempted him to yield to a queer impulse. He whipped from his breast-pocket the gray-bordered handkerchief, reached up swiftly and passed one white corner of it down the length of Rachel Wiletzky\u2019s Killarney-rose left cheek. The rude path down which the handkerchief had traveled deepened to red for a moment before both rose-pink cheeks bloomed into scarlet. The superintendent gazed rather ruefully from unblemished handkerchief to cheek and back again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy \u2014 it \u2014 it\u2019s real!\u201d he stammered.<\/p>\n

Rachel Wiletzky smiled a good-natured little smile that had in it a dash of superiority.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was putting it on,\u201d she said, \u201cI hope I\u2019d have sense enough to leave something to the imagination. This color out of a box would take a spiderweb veil to tone it down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not much more than a score of words. And yet before the half were spoken you were certain that Rachel Wiletzky\u2019s knowledge of lush green fields and bucolic scenes was that gleaned from the condensed milk ads that glare down at one from billboards and street-car chromos. Hers was the ghetto voice \u2014 harsh, metallic, yet fraught with the resonant music of tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cH\u2019m \u2014 name?\u201d asked the gray superintendent. He knew that vocal quality.<\/p>\n

A queer look stole into Rachel Wiletzky\u2019s face, a look of cunning and determination and shrewdness.<\/p>\n

\u201cRay Willets,\u201d she replied composedly. \u201cDouble l.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClerked before, of course. Our advertisement stated \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yes,\u201d interrupted Ray Willets hastily, eagerly. \u201cI can sell goods. My customers like me. And I don\u2019t get tired. I don\u2019t know why, but I don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

The superintendent glanced up again at the red that glowed higher with the girl\u2019s suppressed excitement. He took a printed slip from the little pile of paper that lay on his desk.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, anyway, you\u2019re the first clerk I ever saw who had so much red blood that she could afford to use it for decorative purposes. Step into the next room, answer the questions on this card and turn it in. You\u2019ll be notified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray Willets took the searching, telltale blank that put its questions so pertinently. \u201cWhere last employed?\u201d it demanded. \u201cWhy did you leave? Do you live at home?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray Willets moved slowly away toward the door opposite. The superintendent reached forward to press the button that would summon Applicant No. 180. But before his finger touched it Ray Willets turned and came back swiftly. She held the card out before his surprised eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t fill this out. If I do I won\u2019t get the job. I work over at the Halsted Street Bazaar. You know \u2014 the Cheap Store. I lied and sent word I was sick so I could come over here this morning. And they dock you for time off whether you\u2019re sick or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The superintendent drummed impatiently with his fingers. \u201cI can\u2019t listen to all this. Haven\u2019t time. Fill out your blank, and if \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

All that latent dramatic force which is a heritage of her race came to the girl\u2019s aid now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe blank! How can I say on a blank that I\u2019m leaving because I want to be where real people are? What chance has a girl got over there on the West Side? I\u2019m different. I don\u2019t know why, but I am. Look at my face! Where should I get red cheeks from? From not having enough to eat half the time and sleeping three in a bed?\u201d<\/p>\n

She snatched off her shabby glove and held one hand out before the man\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom where do I get such hands? Not from selling hardware over at 12th and Halsted. Look at it! Say, couldn\u2019t that hand sell silk and lace?\u201d<\/p>\n

Someone has said that to make fingers and wrists like those which Ray Willets held out for inspection it is necessary to have had at least five generations of ancestors who have sat with their hands folded in their laps. Slender, tapering, sensitive hands they were, pink-tipped, temperamental. Wistful hands they were, speaking hands, an inheritance, perhaps, from some dreamer ancestor within the old-world ghetto, some long-haired, velvet-eyed student of the Talmud dwelling within the pale with its squalor and noise, and dreaming of unseen things beyond the confining gates \u2014 things rare and exquisite and fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cAshamed of your folks?\u201d snapped the superintendent.<\/p>\n

\u201cN-no \u2014 No! But I want to be different. I am different! Give me a chance, will you? I\u2019m straight. And I\u2019ll work. And I can sell goods. Try me.\u201d<\/p>\n

That all-pervading grayness seemed to have lifted from the man at the desk. The brown flecks in the eyes seemed to spread and engulf the surrounding colorlessness. His face, too, took on a glow that seemed to come from within. It was like the lifting of a thick gray mist on a foggy morning, so that the sun shines bright and clear for a brief moment before the damp curtain rolls down again and effaces it.<\/p>\n

He leaned forward in his chair, a queer half-smile on his face.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll give you your chance,\u201d he said, \u201cfor one month. At the end of that time I\u2019ll send for you. I\u2019m not going to watch you. I\u2019m not going to have you watched. Of course your sale slips will show the office whether you\u2019re selling goods or not. If you\u2019re not they\u2019ll discharge you. But that\u2019s routine. What do you want to sell?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do I want to Do you mean \u2014 Why, I want to sell the lacy things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lacy \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

Ray, very red-cheeked, made the plunge. \u201cThe \u2014 the lawnjeree, you know. The things with ribbon and handwork and yards and yards of real lace. I\u2019ve seen \u2019em in the glass case in the French Room. Seventy-nine dollars marked down from 100.\u201d<\/p>\n

The superintendent scribbled on a card. \u201cShow this Monday morning. Miss Jevne is the head of your department. You\u2019ll spend two hours a day in the store school of instruction for clerks. Here, you\u2019re forgetting your glove.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gray look had settled down on him again as he reached out to press the desk button. Ray Willets passed out at the door opposite the one through which Rachel Wiletzky had entered.<\/p>\n

Someone in the department nicknamed her Chubbs before she had spent half a day in the underwear and imported lingerie. At the store school she listened and learned. She learned how important were things of which Halsted Street took no cognizance. She learned to make out a sale slip as complicated as an engineering blueprint. She learned that a clerk must develop suavity and patience in the same degree as a customer waxes waspish and insulting, and that the spectrum\u2019s colors do not exist in the costume of the girl-behind-the-counter. For her there are only black and white. These things she learned and many more, and remembered them, for behind the rosy cheeks and the terrier-bright eyes burned the indomitable desire to get on. And the finished embodiment of all of Ray Willets\u2019 desires and ambitions was daily before her eyes in the presence of Miss Jevne, head of the lingeries and neglig\u00e9es.<\/p>\n

Of Miss Jevne it might be said that she was real where Ray was artificial, and artificial where Ray was real. Everything that Miss Jevne wore was real. She was as modish as Ray was shabby, as slim as Ray was stocky, as artificially tinted and tinctured as Ray was naturally rosy-cheeked and buxom. It takes real money to buy clothes as real as those worn by Miss Jevne. The soft charmeuse in her graceful gown was real and miraculously draped. The cobweb-lace collar that so delicately traced its pattern against the black background of her gown was real. So was the ripple of lace that cascaded down the front of her blouse. The straight, correct, hideously modern lines of her figure bespoke a real 18-dollar corset. Realest of all, there reposed on Miss Jevne\u2019s bosom a bar pin of platinum and diamonds \u2014 very real diamonds set in a severely plain but very real bar of precious platinum. So if you except Miss Jevne\u2019s changeless color, her artificial smile, her glittering hair and her undulating head-of-the-department walk, you can see that everything about Miss Jevne was as real as money can make one.<\/p>\n

Miss Jevne, when she deigned to notice Ray Willets at all, called her \u201cgirl,\u201d thus: \u201cGirl, get down one of those Number Seventeens for me \u2014 with the pink ribbons.\u201d Ray did not resent the tone. She thought about Miss Jevne as she worked. She thought about her at night when she was washing and ironing her other shirtwaist for next day\u2019s wear. In the Halsted Street Bazaar the girls had been on terms of dreadful intimacy with those affairs in each other\u2019s lives which popularly are supposed to be private knowledge. They knew the sum which each earned per week; how much they turned in to help swell the family coffers and how much they were allowed to keep for their own use. They knew each time a girl spent a quarter for a cheap sailor collar or a pair of near-silk stockings. Ray Willets, who wanted passionately to be different, whose hands so loved the touch of the lacy, silky garments that made up the lingerie and negligee departments, recognized the perfection of Miss Jevne\u2019s faultless realness \u2014 recognized it, appreciated it, envied it. It worried her too. How did she do it? How did one go about attaining the same degree of realness?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile she worked. She learned quickly. She took care always to be cheerful, interested, polite. After a short week\u2019s handling of lacy silken garments she ceased to feel a shock when she saw Miss Jevne displaying a robe-de-nuit made up of white cloud and sea-foam and languidly assuring the customer that of course it wasn\u2019t to be expected that you could get a fine handmade lace at that price \u2014 only 27.50. Now if she cared to look at something really fine \u2014 made entirely by hand \u2014 why \u2014<\/p>\n

The end of the first 10 days found so much knowledge crammed into Ray Willets\u2019 clever, ambitious little head that the pink of her cheeks had deepened to carmine, as a child grows flushed and too bright-eyed when overstimulated and overtired.<\/p>\n

Miss Myrtle, the store beauty, strolled up to Ray, who was straightening a pile of corset covers and brassieres. Miss Myrtle was the store\u2019s star cloak-and-suit model. Tall, svelte, graceful, lovely in line and contour, she was remarkably like one of those exquisite imbeciles that Rossetti used to love to paint. Hers were the great cowlike eyes, the wonderful oval face, the marvelous little nose, the perfect lips and chin. Miss Myrtle could don a 40-dollar gown, parade it before a possible purchaser, and make it look like an imported model at 125. When Miss Myrtle opened those exquisite lips and spoke you got a shock that hurt. She laid one cool slim finger on Ray\u2019s ruddy cheek.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure enough!\u201d she drawled nasally. \u201cWhereja get it anyway, kid? You must of been brought up on peaches \u2018n\u2019 cream and slept in a pink cloud somewheres.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMe!\u201d laughed Ray, her deft fingers busy straightening a bow here, a ruffle of lace there. \u201cMe! The L-train runs so near my bed that if it was ever to get a notion to take a short cut it would slice off my legs to the knees.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLive at home?\u201d Miss Myrtle\u2019s grasshopper mind never dwelt long on one subject.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, sure,\u201d replied Ray. \u201cDid you think I had a flat up on the Drive?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI live at home too,\u201d Miss Myrtle announced impressively. She was leaning indolently against the table. Her eyes followed the deft, quick movements of Ray\u2019s slender, capable hands. Miss Myrtle always leaned when there was anything to lean on. Involuntarily she fell into melting poses. One shoulder always drooped slightly, one toe always trailed a bit like the picture on the cover of the fashion magazines, one hand and arm always followed the line of her draperies while the other was raised to hip or breast or head.<\/p>\n

Ray\u2019s busy hands paused a moment. She looked up at the picturesque Myrtle. \u201cAll the girls do, don\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh?\u201d said Myrtle blankly.<\/p>\n

\u201cLive at home, I mean? The application blank says \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSay, you\u2019ve got clever hands, ain\u2019t you?\u201d put in Miss Myrtle irrelevantly. She looked ruefully at her own short, stubby, unintelligent hands, that so perfectly reflected her character in that marvelous way hands have. \u201cMine are stupid-looking. I\u2019ll bet you\u2019ll get on.\u201d She sagged to the other hip with a weary gracefulness. \u201cI ain\u2019t got no brains,\u201d she complained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere do they live then?\u201d persisted Ray.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho? Oh, I live at home\u201d \u2014 again virtuously \u2014 \u201cbut I\u2019ve got some heart if I am dumb. My folks couldn\u2019t get along without what I bring home every week. A lot of the girls have flats. But that don\u2019t last. Now Jevne \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes?\u201d said Ray eagerly. Her plump face with its intelligent eyes was all aglow.<\/p>\n

Miss Myrtle lowered her voice discreetly. \u201cHer own folks don\u2019t know where she lives. They says she sends \u2019em money every month, but with the understanding that they don\u2019t try to come to see her. They live way over on the West Side somewhere. She makes her buying trip to Europe every year. Speaks French and everything. They say when she started to earn real money she just cut loose from her folks. They was a drag on her and she wanted to get to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSay, that pin\u2019s real, ain\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReal? Well, I should say it is! Catch Jevne wearing anything that\u2019s phony. I saw her at the theater one night. Dressed! Well, you\u2019d have thought that birds of paradise were national pests, like English sparrows. Not that she looked loud. But that quiet, rich elegance, you know, that just smells of money. Say, but I\u2019ll bet she has her lonesome evenings!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray Willets\u2019 eyes darted across the long room and rested upon the shining black-clad figure of Miss Jevne moving about against the luxurious ivory-and-rose background of the French Room.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe \u2014 she left her folks, h\u2019m?\u201d she mused aloud.<\/p>\n

Miss Myrtle, the brainless, regarded the tips of her shabby boots.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did it get her?\u201d she asked as though to herself. \u201cI know what it does to a girl, seeing and handling stuff that\u2019s made for millionaires, you get a taste for it yourself. Take it from me, it ain\u2019t the six-dollar girl that needs looking after. She\u2019s taking her little pay envelope home to her mother that\u2019s a widow and it goes to buy milk for the kids. Sometimes I think the more you get the more you want. Somebody ought to turn that vice inquiry on to the tracks of that 30-dollar-a-week girl in the Irish crochet waist and the diamond bar pin. She\u2019d make swell readin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

There fell a little silence between the two \u2014 a silence of which neither was conscious. Both were thinking, Myrtle disjointedly, purposelessly, all unconscious that her slow, untrained mind had groped for a great and vital truth and found it; Ray quickly, eagerly, connectedly, a new and daring resolve growing with lightning rapidity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s another new baby at our house,\u201d she said aloud suddenly. \u201cIt cries all night pretty near.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t they fierce?\u201d laughed Myrtle. \u201cAnd yet I dunno \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

She fell silent again. Then with the half-sigh with which we waken from daydreams she moved away in response to the beckoning finger of a saleswoman in the evening coat section. Ten minutes later her exquisite face rose above the soft folds of a black charmeuse coat that rippled away from her slender, supple body in lines that a sculptor dreams of and never achieves.<\/p>\n

Ray Willets finished straightening her counter. Trade was slow. She moved idly in the direction of the black-garbed figure that flitted about in the costly atmosphere of the French section. It must be a very special customer to claim Miss Jevne\u2019s expert services. Ray glanced in through the half-opened glass and ivory-enamel doors.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, girl,\u201d called Miss Jevne. Ray paused and entered. Miss Jevne was frowning. \u201cMiss Myrtle\u2019s busy. Just slip this on. Careful now. Keep your arms close to your head.\u201d<\/p>\n

She slipped a marvelously wrought garment over Ray\u2019s sleek head. Fluffy drifts of equally exquisite lingerie lay scattered about on chairs, over mirrors, across showtables. On one of the fragile little ivory-and-rose chairs, in the center of the costly little room, sat a large, blonde, perfumed woman who clanked and rustled and swished as she moved. Her eyes were white-lidded and heavy, but strangely bright. One ungloved hand was very white too, but pudgy and covered so thickly with gems that your eye could get no clear picture of any single stone or setting.<\/p>\n

Ray, clad in the diaphanous folds of the robe-de-nuit that was so beautifully adorned with delicate embroideries wrought by the patient, needle-scarred fingers of some silent, white-faced nun in a far-away convent, paced slowly up and down the short length of the room that the critical eye of this coarse, unlettered creature might behold the wonders woven by this weary French nun and, beholding, approve.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt ain\u2019t bad,\u201d spake the blonde woman grudgingly. \u201cHow much did you say?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNinety-five,\u201d Miss Jevne made answer smoothly. \u201cI selected it myself when I was in France my last trip. A bargain.\u201d<\/p>\n

She slid the robe carefully over Ray\u2019s head. The frown came once more to her brow. She bent close to Ray\u2019s ear. \u201cYour waist\u2019s ripped under the left arm. Disgraceful!\u201d<\/p>\n

The blonde woman moved and jangled a bit in her chair. \u201cWell, I\u2019ll take it,\u201d she sighed. \u201cLook at the color on that girl! And it\u2019s real too.\u201d She rose heavily and came over to Ray, reached up and pinched her cheek appraisingly with perfumed white thumb and forefinger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019ll do, girl,\u201d said Miss Jevne sweetly. \u201cTake this along and change these ribbons from blue to pink.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray Willets bore the fairy garment away with her. She bore it tenderly, almost reverently. It was more than a garment. It represented in her mind a new standard of all that was beautiful and exquisite and desirable.<\/p>\n

Ten days before the formal opening of the new 12-story addition there was issued from the superintendent\u2019s office an order that made a little flurry among the clerks in the sections devoted to women\u2019s dress. The new store when thrown open would mark an epoch in the retail dry goods business of the city, the order began. Thousands were to be spent on perishable decorations alone. The highest type of patronage was to be catered to. Therefore the women in the lingerie, negligee, millinery, dress, suit and corset sections were requested to wear during opening week a modest but modish black one-piece gown that would blend with the air of elegance which those departments were to maintain.<\/p>\n

Ray Willets of the lingerie and neglig\u00e9e sections read her order slip slowly. Then she reread it. Then she did a mental sum in simple arithmetic. A childish sum it was. And yet before she got her answer the solving of it had stamped on her face a certain hard, set, resolute look.<\/p>\n

The store management had chosen Wednesday to be the opening day. By eight-thirty o\u2019clock Wednesday morning the French lingerie, millinery, and dress sections, with their women clerks garbed in modest but modish black one-piece gowns, looked like a levee at Buckingham when the court is in mourning. But the ladies-in-waiting, grouped about here and there, fell back in respectful silence when there paced down the aisle the queen royal in the person of Miss Jevne. There is a certain sort of black gown that is more startling and daring than scarlet. Miss Jevne\u2019s was that style. Fast black you might term it. Miss Jevne was aware of the flurry and flutter that followed her majestic progress down the aisle to her own section. She knew that each eye was caught in the tip of the little dog-eared train that slipped and slunk and wriggled along the ground, thence up to the soft drapery caught so cunningly just below the knee, up higher to the marvelously simple sash that swayed with each step, to the soft folds of black against which rested the very real diamond and platinum bar pin, up to the lace at her throat, and then stopping, blinking and staring again gazed fixedly at the string of pearls that lay about her throat, pearls rosily pink, mistily gray. An aura of self-satisfaction enveloping her, Miss Jevne disappeared behind the rose-garlanded portals of the new cream-and-mauve French section. And there the aura vanished, quivering. For standing before one of the plate-glass cases and patting into place with deft fingers the satin bow of a hand-wrought chemise was Ray Willets, in her shiny little black serge skirt and the braver of her two white shirtwaists.<\/p>\n

Miss Jevne quickened her pace. Ray turned. Her bright brown eyes grew brighter at sight of Miss Jevne\u2019s wondrous black. Miss Jevne, her train wound round her feet like an actress\u2019 photograph, lifted her eyebrows to an unbelievable height.<\/p>\n

\u201cExplain that costume!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCostume?\u201d repeated Ray, fencing.<\/p>\n

Miss Jevne\u2019s thin lips grew thinner. \u201cYou understood that women in this department were to wear black one-piece gowns this week!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray smiled a little twisted smile. \u201cYes, I understood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen what \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

Ray\u2019s little smile grew a trifle more uncertain. \u201cI \u2014 I had the money \u2014 last week \u2014 I was going to \u2014 The baby took sick \u2014 the heat I guess, coming so sudden. We had the doctor \u2014 and medicine \u2014 I Say, your own folks come before black one-piece dresses!\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Jevne\u2019s cold eyes saw the careful patch under Ray\u2019s left arm where a few days before the torn place had won her a reproof. It was the last straw.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t stay in this department in that rig!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho says so?\u201d snapped Ray with a flash of Halsted Street bravado. \u201cIf my customers want a peek at Paquin I\u2019ll send \u2019em to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll show you who says so!\u201d retorted Miss Jevne, quite losing sight of the queen business. The stately form of the floor manager was visible among the glass showcases beyond. Miss Jevne sought him agitatedly. All the little sagging lines about her mouth showed up sharply, defying years of careful massage.<\/p>\n

The floor manager bent his stately head and listened. Then, led by Miss Jevne, he approached Ray Willets, whose deft fingers, trembling a very little now, were still pretending to adjust the perfect pink-satin bow.<\/p>\n

The manager touched her on the arm not unkindly. \u201cReport for work in the kitchen utensils, fifth floor,\u201d he said. Then at sight of the girl\u2019s face: \u201cWe can\u2019t have one disobeying orders, you know. The rest of the clerks would raise a row in no time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Down in the kitchen utensils and household goods there was no rule demanding modest but modish one-piece gowns. In the kitchenware one could don black sateen sleevelets to protect one\u2019s clean white waist without breaking the department\u2019s tenets of fashion. You could even pin a handkerchief across the front of your waist, if your job was that of dusting the granite ware.<\/p>\n

At first Ray\u2019s delicate fingers, accustomed to the touch of soft, sheer white stuff and ribbon and lace and silk, shrank from contact with meat grinders, and aluminum stewpans, and egg beaters, and waffle irons, and pie tins. She handled them contemptuously. She sold them listlessly. After weeks of expatiating to customers on the beauties and excellencies of gossamer lingerie she found it difficult to work up enthusiasm over the virtues of dishpans and spice boxes. By noon she was less resentful. By two o\u2019clock she was saying to a fellow clerk:<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, anyway, in this section you don\u2019t have to tell a woman how graceful and charming she\u2019s going to look while she\u2019s working the washing machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was a born saleswoman. In spite of herself she became interested in the buying problems of the practical and plain-visaged housewives who patronized this section. By three o\u2019clock she was looking thoughtful \u2014 thoughtful and contented.<\/p>\n

Then came the summons. The lingerie section was swamped! Report to Miss Jevne at once! Almost regretfully Ray gave her customer over to an idle clerk and sought out Miss Jevne. Some of that lady\u2019s statuesqueness was gone. The bar pin on her bosom rose and fell rapidly. She espied Ray and met her halfway. In her hand she carried a soft black something which she thrust at Ray.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, put that on in one of the fitting rooms. Be quick about it. It\u2019s your size. The department\u2019s swamped. Hurry now!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray took from Miss Jevne the black-silk gown, modest but modish. There was no joy in Ray\u2019s face. Ten minutes later she emerged in the limp and clinging little frock that toned down her color and made her plumpness seem but rounded charm.<\/p>\n

The big store will talk for many a day of that afternoon and the three afternoons that followed, until Sunday brought pause to the thousands of feet beating a ceaseless tattoo up and down the thronged aisles. On the Monday following thousands swarmed down upon the store again, but not in such overwhelming numbers. There were breathing spaces. It was during one of these that Miss Myrtle, the beauty, found time for a brief moment\u2019s chat with Ray Willets.<\/p>\n

Ray was straightening her counter again. She had a passion for order. Myrtle eyed her wearily. Her slender shoulders carried an endless number and variety of garments during those four days and her feet had paced weary miles that those garments might the better be displayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack\u2019s grand on you,\u201d observed Myrtle. \u201cTones you down.\u201d She glanced sharply at the gown. \u201cLooks just like one of our 18-dollar models. Copy it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d said Ray, still straightening petticoats and corset covers. Myrtle reached out a weary, graceful arm and touched one of the lacy piles adorned with cunning bows of pink and blue to catch the shopping eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t that sweet!\u201d she exclaimed. \u201cI\u2019m crazy about that shadow lace. It\u2019s swell under voiles. I wonder if I could take one of them home to copy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray glanced up. \u201cOh, that!\u201d she said contemptuously. \u201cThat\u2019s just a cheap skirt. Only twelve-fifty. Machine-made lace. Imitation embroidery \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

She stopped. She stared a moment at Myrtle with the fixed and wide-eyed gaze of one who does not see.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019d I just say to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh?\u201d ejaculated Myrtle, mystified.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019d I just say?\u201d repeated Ray.<\/p>\n

Myrtle laughed, half understanding. \u201cYou said that was a cheap junk skirt at only 12.50, with machine lace and imitation<\/p>\n

But Ray Willets did not wait to hear the rest. She was off down the aisle toward the elevator marked \u201cEmployees.\u201d The superintendent\u2019s office was on the ninth floor. She stopped there. The gray superintendent was writing at his desk. He did not look up as Ray entered, thus observing rules one and two in the proper conduct of superintendents when interviewing employees. Ray Willets, standing by his desk, did not cough or wriggle or rustle her skirts or sag on one hip. A consciousness of her quiet penetrated the superintendent\u2019s mind. He glanced up hurriedly over his left shoulder. Then he laid down his pencil and sat up slowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, it\u2019s you!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it\u2019s me,\u201d replied Ray Willets simply. \u201cI\u2019ve been here a month today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yes.\u201d He ran his fingers through his hair so that the brown forelock stood away from the gray. \u201cYou\u2019ve lost some of your roses,\u201d he said, and tapped his cheek. \u201cWhat\u2019s the trouble?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it\u2019s the dress,\u201d explained Ray, and glanced down at the folds of her gown. She hesitated a moment awkwardly. \u201cYou said you\u2019d send for me at the end of the month. You didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all right,\u201d said the gray superintendent. \u201cI was pretty sure I hadn\u2019t made a mistake. I can gauge applicants pretty fairly. Let\u2019s see \u2014 you\u2019re in the lingerie, aren\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then with a rush: \u201cThat\u2019s what I want to talk to you about. I\u2019ve changed my mind. I don\u2019t want to stay in the lingeries. I\u2019d like to be transferred to the kitchen utensils and household goods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTransferred! Well, I\u2019ll see what I can do. What was the name now? I forget.\u201d<\/p>\n

A queer look stole into Ray Willets\u2019 face, a look of determination and shrewdness.<\/p>\n

\u201cName?\u201d she said. \u201cMy name is Rachel Wiletzky.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Ferber moved in the same circles as Dorothy Parker and No\u00ebl Coward in the Algonquin Round Table. Ferber wrote Show Boat, So Big, and Giant, in addition to several other novels adapted into musicals and Oscar-winning films. Her 1913 story \u201cThe Girl Who Went Right\u201d follows a new department store salesgirl … <\/p>\n

Read more “\u201cThe Girl Who Went Right\u201d by Edna Ferber”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}