The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-11-24


 ~ story of.ce building in process os construction stood out black anl bizarre. It flung uD it's beams and giEders like stern and yet airy music orderly miraCuIousIy strong. and deli "ateiE powerful. From the lower stories. where masons made their music e t~oE-cl and hammer. to the top, where s-cau-riy eters rapDed out their chorus like giant Iocusts in a summer field, the great building lived and breatheI as if ali those human energies that went to its making flowed warm through it's steel veins
 In the west window. Of woman's club next door one of the members stood looking out at this building Behind her at a tea-tabIe three other women sat talking. For some mo- menrs their cong ersatEon had had q pla5uJiEe if not an actually rebaIiious tone They were Cts-E==Iug the rei9- tive advantages of a uar-s vyorls and l WOman's. and they had arrived at ti1e conclusion that a man has much Jhe best of ii when 5t comes to a matter If the days work.
 Take a mans vo-E,,' said Mrs. Van Nechten pourtng herself a sec nnd cup of ten. He chooses it: then he is allowed to En at it with absolute freedom. He isn't hamperel by the dull, petty details of life that hamper us He-'
 Details! AGv dear there you are right" broke in Mrs. DuIIen Two men. first Mrs Bulen's father and then her husband. had seen 10 it that neither the biting wn5 of advrrsity nor the braciug air Of experience should ever touch her. Details! Sometimes feel as if were suoth- cred by them Servants, and the house, and now these relief SO cieties-'
 She was in turn interrupted by CorneIia Blair Corral.a was a spinster with more freedom than most human beings ever attain her father having worked himself to death to leave her well provided for. The whole fault is the social sys- tem,'' she declared ''I5ecause Of 1t men have been able to talk the really interesting work O. the world for themselves They've pushed the dull iobe off onto us"
 You're right, Cornefia," cried Mrs. Bullen. She really had nothing to say. but she hated not saving it i've always thought" she went on pensiveIy, that it would he so much easier just to go to an office in the morning and have nothing but husi- ness To think of. Don't you feel that way sometimes. Mrs. Trask?"
 The woman in the west window turned There was a Uui zzical Eleam in her eyes as she looked at the 0 her three. The trouble with us women is we're blind and deaf" she said slowly. We talk q lot about mems work and how they have the best of things in power and freedom, but does 1t occur to one Of us that man pays for power and freedom2 Sometimes I think that not one oe the. women Of our comfortable class would be willing to pay what our men pay for the power and freedom they get"
 What do they pay?" asked Mrs Van Vechten. her l.p curing.
 Look here. I'd like to tell you about an ordinary man and one of his jobs" he stopped and looked from Mrs. Bullen's perpleXity to Cor reIia BIair's superor smile and her eyes came last to Sally Van Vech- tens re6elIiOus frowr. I'm go ng to bore you. maybe" she laughed. grimly. But it will do you good to listen once in a while to something reaI''
 She sat down and leaned her elbows on the table. "I said that he is an ordinary man." she began What meant is that he started in like the average. without any great amount Of special training. without money, and without pull oe any k-nd He had good health. good stock back of him. an attractive personality, and two years at a technical school those were his total assets. He was twenty when he came to New York to mak place for himself. and he had already got himself engaged to girl back home. He had enough money to keep him for about three weeks, if he lived very economically. But that didn't prevent his feeling a heady exhiIaratiou that day when he walked up Fifth avenue for the first time and looked over his battIe-fia q He has told me often, with a chucl1le at the audacity of it, how he picked out his employer. All day he walked about with his eyes open for con tractors signs Whenever he came upon a building in the process of construction he looked it over cr5ti-
 
 lob he made a note Of the coutrac- tors name and address in a little green book. For he was to b. a buiIder-oE big buildings. Of courset And that night when he turned out of the avenue to go to the cheap boarding house where he had sent his trunk. he told h msel@ that he'd give himself five years to set mp an office of his. own within a block of Fifth avenue.
 "NeEt day he walked into the of hces Of Well & Strect-tha first that headed the list in ths E,tla green bool-aske5 To see 1Lr. Well. and strangely enough. got hlm. tua Even in those days Robert had a cheerful assurance tempered with ra her a nice de+erence that often got him what he wanted from older men When he loft rGe offices or Feu & street he had been =-En a job in the estimating room ct a salary that would just keep h-m from starving He grew lean ana lost his country color that winter, but he was learn ing learning all the tue. not only in tna office ot Wen & Street but at night school. where he stud g7 arrh.- lecture When he dec laI he had got all he could get out o- the est-ullr-rs- and drawing rooms he asked re Ne transferred t0 ,ua of tho 5Cn-- They sv-as.a him the .r=. ton of rIl-etsa. .r ~