Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1931-03-20
SERVICE,
NOT
SERVITUDE
s. 8 .
BY Fannie Hurst
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"a. Mcclure Newspaper syndicate.l

"a. Mcclure Newspaper syndicateN .
A 8 FAR back as the days when
"A Carrie-Lee was a ten-year-old
4 A child trudging to school each
morning, there was something
that to her was peculiarly and pa
thetically servile in the way her IA
TIERS back curved up around the
shoulders, even when he was young
man. AS a matter of fact, Walter
Mason's shoulders were not necessari-
ly curved because he was waiter.
AS a child he had been round-shoul-
dered and had worn small brace as
a corrective.
Nevertheless 1t had always seemed
to Carrie-Lee that this stoop was an
attitude of servility; the servility of
man who waited on table. 1t was
painful to Carrie-Lee to recite her
fathers occupation when asked by her
schoolmates or for registration pur-
poses as "Waiter." 1t hurt, more than
1t embarrassed her, to say 1t. There
was never a time she could remember
when she had not been pOignantly,
heart-hurtingly sorry for her father.
Oftentimes, when occasion took her to
the hotel where he was employed, she
would stand at the swinging door Of
the pantry, watching him scurry In be-
tween the tables In the dining room,
bent on service. perspiring with serv-
Ice, eager to please.
1t was a large hotel, one Of the
finest in the city. and there was
smell Of cut flowers and pleasant din
Of orchestra and the voluptuous odors
of unpronouncable foods. Her father,
while on duty, wore a uniform-at
least 1t appeared a uniform to Carrie
Lee. black suit with stripes down
the trousers and a ghostly, CLASSY,
white expansive shirt front. The
shirt front was not really shirt front
at all, but glazed dicky which her
mother laundered at home and ironed,
while wringing wet, with an enormous
ly heavy and almost red-hOt fiat
iron. The tie was ready-made, too.
1t slid into the celluloid collar with
the click of false teeth. 1t was a
hideous outfit. All sham.
And another dreadful aspect of It
was that her father never seemed to
mind. He would lean, eager and SER
vile, over the chairs and the tables of
the hotel. Women with bare Shout
ders and with frigid, aloof bearing
would draw away slightly as he how
cred. The men were curt to him,
sometimes abusive and, more often
than not, dictatorial, even when they
tossed him tips. That was most I'M
bearable Of all to Carrie-Lee, seeing
her father stand by, after he had
handed the patron his check, his eye
curved, watchful, waiting, appraising,
for the tip.
Standing behind the pantry door as
q child, the pain and torment of this
were almost unbearable. Her nice,
kind father, standing there In the
cringing attitude Of servility, waiting
for what tips would fall from the rich
mans table.
Then and there, decision was born
in the small mind Of the small girl
called Carrle-Lee. Her life work took
form in her brain. She must enamel
pate her father from the horrible serf-
dom of waiting. She must free him
from the black, shiny-fronted, stiff
uniform of servility. He must be
emancipated from that cringing at
titude beside the dining tables Of the
rich. He must never never again care
whether the fat man with the purple
veins in his cheeks and the roll of
flesh at the back OF his neck pre-
ferred his sirloin medium or under
done. No frigid woman to whom he
was so much clay must ever again
withdraw her delicate shoulders from
his violently concerned nearness.
Sometimes Carrie-Lee wanted to
throw, to hurl herself against the
Snug implacabiity of these people,
to claw off, In the name of her burn
ing resentments Mt their treatment of
her father, the Jewels and silks and
the geegaws.
Who were they to sip the clear,
golden soups that her father came
bearing them, to reject with intoler-
able curtness the chicken because 1t
was not Drowned to their liking or
the salads, II they lacked some
esOteric ingredient?
Carrie-Lee hated these people. She
ground her small, square teeth over
them. She resolved In her bitter, hurt
ing heart that her life work was to
free her father from serving them
1t was not q resolution that was
easy of accomplishment. There were
six children besides Carrle-Lee, all
younger, and frall mother who was
to die bearing her eighth child, when
Carrie-Lee was fifteen. There was no
let-up to the constant financial strain
that existed in the little household.
No wonder the eye OF Carrle-Lee's
father curved anxlOusly toward the
plate the moment after he had de.
posted the check beside the customer
and the tip was expected to fall.
1t was hungry. exacting family
that had to be fed. d0ctored, clothed
educated and housed And At fifteen.
Carrie-Lee was mother there.
Yet, through II MI. the determine.
ton In her born buck there In the
days when she Ind stood behind the
pantry door, never failed, never fall
tered. never tainted
Curious too because IN her father
there apparently sired no sense OF
'ic i'-uu'Hlir - H's wp.k3 II wa