What Diantha Did

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"She's picked a bunch o' winners in those girls of hers," he declared to
his friends. "They set out in the morning looking like a flock of sweet
peas--in their pinks and whites and greens and vi'lets,--and do more
work in an hour than the average slavey can do in three, I'm told."

It was a pretty sight to see those girls start out. They had a sort of
uniform, as far as a neat gingham dress went, with elbow sleeves, white
ruffled, and a Dutch collar; a sort of cross between a nurses dress and
that of "La Chocolataire;" but colors were left to taste. Each carried
her apron and a cap that covered the hair while cooking and sweeping;
but nothing that suggested the black and white livery of the regulation
servant.

"This is a new stage of labor," their leader reminded them. "You are
not servants--you are employees. You wear a cap as an English carpenter
does--or a French cook,--and an apron because your work needs it. It is
not a ruffled label,--it's a business necessity. And each one of us
must do our best to make this new kind of work valued and respected."

It is no easy matter to overcome prejudices many centuries old, and meet
the criticism of women who have nothing to do but criticize. Those who
were "mistresses," and wanted "servants,"--someone to do their will at
any moment from early morning till late evening,--were not pleased with
the new way if they tried it; but the women who had interests of their
own to attend to; who merely wanted their homes kept clean, and the food
well cooked and served, were pleased. The speed, the accuracy, the
economy; the pleasant, quiet, assured manner of these skilled employees
was a very different thing from the old slipshod methods of the ordinary
general servant.

So the work slowly prospered, while Diantha began to put in execution
the new plan she had been forced into.

While it matured, Mrs. Thaddler matured hers. With steady dropping she
had let fall far and wide her suspicions as to the character of Union
House.

"It looks pretty queer to me!" she would say, confidentially, "All those
girls together, and no person to have any authority over them! Not a
married woman in the house but that washerwoman,--and her husband's a
fool!"

"And again; You don't see how she does it? Neither do I! The expenses
must be tremendous--those girls pay next to nothing,--and all that broth
and brown bread flying about town! Pretty queer doings, I think!"

"The men seem to like that caffeteria, don't they?" urged one caller,
perhaps not unwilling to nestle Mrs. Thaddler, who flushed darkly as she
replied. "Yes, they do. Men usually like that sort of place."

"They like good food at low prices, if that's what you mean," her
visitor answered.

"That's not all I mean--by a long way," said Mrs. Thaddler. She said so
much, and said it so ingeniously, that a dark rumor arose from nowhere,
and grew rapidly. Several families discharged their Union House girls.
Several girls complained that they were insultingly spoken to on the
street. Even the lunch patronage began to fall off.

Diantha was puzzled--a little alarmed. Her slow, steady lifting of the
prejudice against her was checked. She could not put her finger on the
enemy, yet felt one distinctly, and had her own suspicions. But she
also had her new move well arranged by this time.

Then a maliciously insinuating story of the place came out in a San
Francisco paper, and a flock of local reporters buzzed in to sample the
victim. They helped themselves to the luncheon, and liked it. but that
did not soften their pens. They talked with such of the girls as they
could get in touch with, and wrote such versions of these talks as
suited them.

They called repeatedly at Union House, but Diantha refused to see them.
Finally she was visited by the Episcopalian clergyman. He had heard her
talk at the Club, was favorably impressed by the girl herself, and
honestly distressed by the dark stories he now heard about Union House.

"My dear young lady," he said, "I have called to see you in your own
interests. I do not, as you perhaps know, approve of your schemes. I
consider them--ah--subversive of the best interests of the home! But I
think you mean well, though mistakenly. Now I fear you are not aware
that this-ah--ill-considered undertaking of yours, is giving rise to
considerable adverse comment in the community. There is--ah--there is a
great deal being said about this business of yours which I am sure you
would regret if you knew it. Do you think it is wise; do you think it
is--ah--right, my dear Miss Bell, to attempt to carry on a--a place of
this sort, without the presence of a--of a Matron of assured standing?"

Diantha smiled rather coldly.

"May I trouble you to step into the back parlor, Dr. Aberthwaite," she
said; and then;

"May I have the pleasure of presenting to you Mrs. Henderson Bell--my
mother?"

*

"Wasn't it great!" said Mrs. Weatherstone; "I was there you see,-- I'd
come to call on Mrs. Bell--she's a dear,--and in came Mrs. Thaddler--"

"Mrs. Thaddler?"

"O I know it was old Aberthwaite, but he represented Mrs. Thaddler and
her clique, and had come there to preach to Diantha about propriety--I
heard him,--and she brought him in and very politely introduced him to
her mother!--it was rich, Isabel."

"How did Diantha manage it?" asked her friend.

"She's been trying to arrange it for ever so long. Of course her father
objected--you'd know that. But there's a sister--not a bad sort, only
very limited; she's taken the old man to board, as it were, and I guess
the mother really set her foot down for once--said she had a right to
visit her own daughter!"

"It would seem so," Mrs. Porne agreed. "I _am_ so glad! It will be so
much easier for that brave little woman now."

It was.

Diantha held her mother in her arms the night she came, and cried tike a
baby.

"O mother _dear!_" she sobbed, "I'd no idea I should miss you so much.
O you blessed comfort!"

Her mother cried a bit too; she enjoyed this daughter more than either
of her older children, and missed her more. A mother loves all her
children, naturally; but a mother is also a person--and may, without
sin, have personal preferences.

She took hold of Diantha's tangled mass of papers with the eagerness of
a questing hound.

"You've got all the bills, of course," she demanded, with her anxious
rising inflection.

"Every one," said the girl. "You taught me that much. What puzzles me
is to make things balance. I'm making more than I thought in some
lines, and less in others, and I can't make it come out straight."

"It won't, altogether, till the end of the year I dare say," said Mrs.
Bell, "but let's get clear as far as we can. In the first place we must
separate your business,--see how much each one pays."

"The first one I want to establish," said her daughter, "is the girl's
club. Not just this one, with me to run it. But to show that any group
of twenty or thirty girls could do this thing in any city. Of course
where rents and provisions were high they'd have to charge more. I want
to make an average showing somehow. Now can you disentangle the girl
part front the lunch part and the food part, mother dear, and make it
all straight?"

Mrs. Bell could and did; it gave her absolute delight to do it. She
set down the total of Diantha's expenses so far in the Service
Department, as follows:

Rent of Union House . . . $1,500
Rent of furniture . . . $300
One payment on furniture . . . $400
Fuel and lights, etc. . . . $352
Service of 5 at $10 a week each . . . $2,600
Food for thirty-seven . . . $3,848
-----
Total . . . $9,000

"That covers everything but my board," said Mrs. Bell.

"Now your income is easy--35 x $4.50 equals $8,190. Take that from your
$9,000 and you are $810 behind."

"Yes, I know," said Diantha, eagerly, "but if it was merely a girl's
club home, the rent and fixtures would be much less. A home could be
built, with thirty bedrooms--and all necessary conveniences--for $7,000.
I've asked Mr. and Mrs. Porne about it; and the furnishing needn't cost
over $2,000 if it was very plain. Ten per cent. of that is a rent of
$900 you see."

"I see," said her mother. "Better say a thousand. I guess it could be
done for that."

So they set down rent, $1,000.

"There have to be five paid helpers in the house," Diantha went on, "the
cook, the laundress, the two maids, and the matron. She must buy and
manage. She could be one of their mothers or aunts."

Mrs. Bell smiled. "Do you really imagine, Diantha, that Mrs.
O'Shaughnessy or Mrs. Yon Yonson can manage a house like this as you
can?"

Diantha flushed a little. "No, mother, of course not. But I am keeping
very full reports of all the work. Just the schedule of labor--the
hours--the exact things done. One laundress, with machinery, can wash
for thirty-five, (its only six a day you see), and the amount is
regulated; about six dozen a day, and all the flat work mangled.

"In a Girl's Club alone the cook has all day off, as it were; she can do
the down stairs cleaning. And the two maids have only table service and
bedrooms."

"Thirty-five bedrooms?"

"Yes. But two girls together, who know how, can do a room in 8
minutes--easily. They are small and simple you see. Make the bed,
shake the mats, wipe the floors and windows,--you watch them!"

"I have watched them," the mother admitted. "They are as quick as--as
mill-workers!"

"Well," pursued Diantha, "they spend three hours on dishes and tables,
and seven on cleaning. The bedrooms take 280 minutes; that's nearly
five hours. The other two are for the bath rooms, halls, stairs,
downstairs windows, and so on. That's all right. Then I'm keeping the
menus--just what I furnish and what it costs. Anybody could order and
manage when it was all set down for her. And you see--as you have
figured it--they'd have over $500 leeway to buy the furniture if they
were allowed to."

"Yes," Mrs. Bell admitted, "_if_ the rent was what you allow, and _if_
they all work all the time!"

"That's the hitch, of course. But mother; the girls who don't have
steady jobs do work by the hour, and that brings in more, on the whole.
If they are the right kind they can make good. If they find anyone who
don't keep her job--for good reasons--they can drop her."

"M'm!" said Mrs. Bell. "Well, it's an interesting experiment. But how
about you? So far you are $410 behind."

"Yes, because my rent's so big. But I cover that by letting the rooms,
you see."

Mrs. Bell considered the orders of this sort. "So far it averages about
$25.00 a week; that's doing well."

"It will be less in summer--much less," Diantha suggested. "Suppose you
call it an average of $15.00."

"Call it $10.00," said her mother ruthlessly. "At that it covers your
deficit and $110 over."

"Which isn't much to live on," Diantha agreed, "but then comes my
special catering, and the lunches."

Here they were quite at sea for a while. But as the months passed, and
the work steadily grew on their hands, Mrs. Bell became more and more
cheerful. She was up with the earliest, took entire charge of the
financial part of the concern, and at last Diantha was able to rest
fully in her afternoon hours. What delighted her most was to see her
mother thrive in the work. Her thin shoulders lifted a little as small
dragging tasks were forgotten and a large growing business substituted.
Her eyes grew bright again, she held her head as she did in her keen
girlhood, and her daughter felt fresh hope and power as she saw already
the benefit of the new method as affecting her nearest and dearest.

All Diantha's friends watched the spread of the work with keenly
sympathetic intent; but to Mrs. Weatherstone it became almost as
fascinating as to the girl herself.

"It's going to be one of the finest businesses in the world!" she said,
"And one of the largest and best paying. Now I'll have a surprise ready
for that girl in the spring, and another next year, if I'm not
mistaken!"

There were long and vivid discussions of the matter between her and her
friends the Pornes, and Mrs. Porne spent more hours in her "drawing
room" than she had for years.

But while these unmentioned surprises were pending, Mrs. Weatherstone
departed to New York--to Europe; and was gone some months. In the
spring she returned, in April--which is late June in Orchardina. She
called upon Diantha and her mother at once, and opened her attack.

"I do hope, Mrs. Bell, that you'll back me up," she said. "You have the
better business head I think, in the financial line."

"She has," Diantha admitted. "She's ten times as good as I am at that;
but she's no more willing to carry obligation than I am, Mrs.
Weatherstone."

"Obligation is one thing--investment is another," said her guest. "I
live on my money--that is, on other people's work. I am a base
capitalist, and you seem to me good material to invest in. So--take it
or leave it--I've brought you an offer."

She then produced from her hand bag some papers, and, from her car
outside, a large object carefully boxed, about the size and shape of a
plate warmer. This being placed on the table before them, was
uncovered, and proved to be a food container of a new model.

"I had one made in Paris," she explained, "and the rest copied here to
save paying duty. Lift it!"

They lifted it in amazement--it was so light.

"Aluminum," she said, proudly, "Silver plated--new process! And bamboo
at the corners you see. All lined and interlined with asbestos, rubber
fittings for silver ware, plate racks, food compartments--see?"

She pulled out drawers, opened little doors, and rapidly laid out a
table service for five.

"It will hold food for five--the average family, you know. For larger
orders you'll have to send more. I had to make _some_ estimate."

"What lovely dishes!" said Diantha.

"Aren't they! Aluminum, silvered! If your washers are careful they
won't get dented, and you can't break 'em."

Mrs. Bell examined the case and all its fittings with eager attention.

"It's the prettiest thing I ever saw," she said. "Look, Diantha; here's
for soup, here's for water--or wine if you want, all your knives and
forks at the side, Japanese napkins up here. Its lovely, but--I should
think--expensive!"

Mrs. Weatherstone smiled. "I've had twenty-five of them made. They
cost, with the fittings, $100 apiece, $2,500. I will rent them to you,
Miss Bell, at a rate of 10 per cent. interest; only $250 a year!"

"It ought to take more," said Mrs. Bell, "there'll be breakage and
waste."

"You can't break them, I tell you," said the cheerful visitor, "and
dents can be smoothed out in any tin shop--you'll have to pay for
it;--will that satisfy you?"

Diantha was looking at her, her eyes deep with gratitude. "I--you know
what I think of you!" she said.

Mrs. Weatherstone laughed. "I'm not through yet," she said. "Look at
my next piece of impudence!" This was only on paper, but the pictures
were amply illuminating.

"I went to several factories," she gleefully explained, "here and
abroad. A Yankee firm built it. It's in my garage now!"

It was a light gasolene motor wagon, the body built like those
old-fashioned moving wagons which were also used for excursions, wherein
the floor of the vehicle was rather narrow, and set low, and the seats
ran lengthwise, widening out over the wheels; only here the wheels were
lower, and in the space under the seats ran a row of lockers opening
outside. Mrs. Weatherstone smiled triumphantly.

"Now, Diantha Bell," she said, "here's something you haven't thought of,
I do believe! This estimable vehicle will carry thirty people inside
easily," and she showed them how each side held twelve, and turn-up
seats accommodated six more; "and outside,"--she showed the lengthwise
picture--"it carries twenty-four containers. If you want to send all
your twenty-five at once, one can go here by the driver.

"Now then. This is not an obligation, Miss Bell, it is another valuable
investment. I'm having more made. I expect to have use for them in a
good many places. This cost pretty near $3,000, and you get it at the
same good interest, for $300 a year. What's more, if you are smart
enough--and I don't doubt you are,--you can buy the whole thing on
installments, same as you mean to with your furniture."

Diantha was dumb, but her mother wasn't. She thanked Mrs. Weatherstone
with a hearty appreciation of her opportune help, but no less of her
excellent investment.

"Don't be a goose, Diantha," she said. "You will set up your food
business in first class style, and I think you can carry it
successfully. But Mrs. Weatherstone's right; she's got a new investment
here that'll pay her better than most others--and be a growing thing I
do believe."

And still Diantha found it difficult to express her feelings. She had
lived under a good deal of strain for many months now, and this sudden
opening out of her plans was a heavenly help indeed.

Mrs. Weatherstone went around the table and sat by her. "Child," said
she, "you don't begin to realize what you've done for me--and for
Isobel--and for ever so many in this town, and all over the world. And
besides, don't you think anybody else can see your dream? We can't _do_
it as you can, but we can see what it's going to mean,--and we'll help
if we can. You wouldn't grudge us that, would you?"

As a result of all this the cooked food delivery service was opened at
once.

"It is true that the tourists are gone, mostly," said Mrs. Weatherstone,
as she urged it, "but you see there are ever so many residents who have
more trouble with servants in summer than they do in winter, and hate to
have a fire in the house, too."

So Diantha's circulars had an addition, forthwith.

These were distributed among the Orchardinians, setting their tongues
wagging anew, as a fresh breeze stirs the eaves of the forest.

The stealthy inroads of lunches and evening refreshments had been
deprecated already; this new kind of servant who wasn't a servant, but
held her head up like anyone else ("They are as independent
as--as--'salesladies,'" said one critic), was also viewed with alarm;
but when even this domestic assistant was to be removed, and a square
case of food and dishes substituted, all Archaic Orchardina was
horrified.

There were plenty of new minds in the place, however; enough to start
Diantha with seven full orders and five partial ones.

Her work at the club was now much easier, thanks to her mother's
assistance, to the smoother running of all the machinery with the
passing of time, and further to the fact that most of her girls were now
working at summer resorts, for shorter hours and higher wages. They
paid for their rooms at the club still, but the work of the house was so
much lightened that each of the employees was given two weeks of
vacation--on full pay.

The lunch department kept on a pretty regular basis from the patronage
of resident business men, and the young manager--in her ambitious
moments--planned for enlarging it in the winter. But during the summer
her whole energies went to perfecting the _menus_ and the service of her
food delivery.

Mrs. Porne was the very first to order. She had been waiting
impatiently for a chance to try the plan, and, with her husband, had the
firmest faith in Diantha's capacity to carry it through.

"We don't save much in money," she explained to the eager Mrs. Ree, who
hovered, fascinated, over the dangerous topic, "but we do in comfort, I
can tell you. You see I had two girls, paid them $12 a week; now I keep
just the one, for $6. My food and fuel for the four of us (I don't
count the babies either time--they remain as before), was all of $16,
often more. That made $28 a week. Now I pay for three meals a day,
delivered, for three of us, $15 a week--with the nurse's wages, $21.
Then I pay a laundress one day, $2, and her two meals, $.50, making
$23.50. Then I have two maids, for an hour a day, to clean; $.50 a day
for six days, $3, and one maid Sunday, $.25. $26.75 in all. So we only
make $1.25.

_But!_ there's another room! We have the cook's room for an extra
guest; I use it most for a sewing room, though and the kitchen is a sort
of day nursery now. The house seems as big again!"

"But the food?" eagerly inquired Mrs. Ree. "Is it as good as your own?
Is it hot and tempting?"

Mrs. Ree was fascinated by the new heresy. As a staunch adherent of the
old Home and Culture Club, and its older ideals, she disapproved of the
undertaking, but her curiosity was keen about it.

Mrs. Porne smiled patiently. "You remember Diantha Bell's cooking I am
sure, Mrs. Ree," she said. "And Julianna used to cook for dinner
parties--when one could get her. My Swede was a very ordinary cook, as
most of these untrained girls are. Do take off your hat and have dinner
with us,--I'll show you," urged Mrs. Porne.

"I--O I mustn't," fluttered the little woman. "They'll expect me at
home--and--surely your--supply--doesn't allow for guests?"

"We'll arrange all that by 'phone," her hostess explained; and she
promptly sent word to the Ree household, then called up Union House and
ordered one extra dinner.

"Is it--I'm dreadfully rude I know, but I'm _so_ interested! Is
it--expensive?"

Mrs. Porne smiled. "Haven't you seen the little circular? Here's one,
'Extra meals to regular patrons 25 cents.' And no more trouble to order
than to tell a maid."

Mrs. Ree had a lively sense of paltering with Satan as she sat down to
the Porne's dinner table. She had seen the delivery wagon drive to the
door, had heard the man deposit something heavy on the back porch, and
was now confronted by a butler's tray at Mrs. Porne's left, whereon
stood a neat square shining object with silvery panels and bamboo
trimmings.

"It's not at all bad looking, is it?" she ventured.

"Not bad enough to spoil one's appetite," Mr. Porne cheerily agreed.

"Open, Sesame! Now you know the worst."

Mrs. Porne opened it, and an inner front was shown, with various small
doors and drawers.

"Do you know what is in it?" asked the guest.

"No, thank goodness, I don't," replied her hostess. "If there's
anything tiresome it is to order meals and always know what's coming!
That's what men get so tired of at restaurants; what they hate so when
their wives ask them what they want for dinner. Now I can enjoy my
dinner at my own table, just as if I was a guest."

"It is--a tax--sometimes," Mrs. Ree admitted, adding hastily, "But one
is glad to do it--to make home attractive."

Mr. Porne's eyes sought his wife's, and love and contentment flashed
between them, as she quietly set upon the table three silvery plates.

"Not silver, surely!" said Mrs. Ree, lifting hers, "Oh, aluminum."

"Aluminum, silver plated," said Mr. Porne. "They've learned how to do
it at last. It's a problem of weight, you see, and breakage. Aluminum
isn't pretty, glass and silver are heavy, but we all love silver, and
there's a pleasant sense of gorgeousness in this outfit."

It did look rather impressive; silver tumblers, silver dishes, the whole
dainty service--and so surprisingly light.

"You see she knows that it is very important to please the eye as well
as the palate," said Mr. Porne. "Now speaking of palates, let us all
keep silent and taste this soup." They did keep silent in supreme
contentment while the soup lasted. Mrs. Ree laid down her spoon with
the air of one roused from a lovely dream.

"Why--why--it's like Paris," she said in an awed tone.

"Isn't it?" Mr. Porne agreed, "and not twice alike in a month, I think."

"Why, there aren't thirty kinds of soup, are there?" she urged.

"I never thought there were when we kept servants," said he. "Three was
about their limit, and greasy, at that."

Mrs. Porne slipped the soup plates back in their place and served the
meat.

"She does not give a fish course, does she?" Mrs. Ree observed.

"Not at the table d'hote price," Mrs. Porne answered. "We never
pretended to have a fish course ourselves--do you?" Mrs. Ree did not,
and eagerly disclaimed any desire for fish. The meat was roast beef,
thinly sliced, hot and juicy.

"Don't you miss the carving, Mr. Porne?" asked the visitor. "I do so
love to see a man at the head of his own table, carving."

"I do miss it, Mrs. Ree. I miss it every day of my life with devout
thankfulness. I never was a good carver, so it was no pleasure to me to
show off; and to tell you the truth, when I come to the table, I like to
eat--not saw wood." And Mr. Porne ate with every appearance of
satisfaction.

"We never get roast beef like this I'm sure," Mrs. Ree admitted, "we
can't get it small enough for our family."

"And a little roast is always spoiled in the cooking. Yes this is far
better than we used to have," agreed her hostess.

Mrs. Ree enjoyed every mouthful of her meal. The soup was hot. The
salad was crisp and the ice cream hard. There was sponge cake, thick,
light, with sugar freckles on the dark crust. The coffee was perfect
and almost burned the tongue.

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