Houston Post-Dispatch (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 40, No. 233, Ed. 1 Sunday, November 23, 1924 Page: 65 of 75
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THE nfarlc was on her.
There are lomi
ymptoms about
some which despite the
oft-times inscrutable mani-
festations of nature are
Infallible.
She was born to be the
victim of someone someway. There
was a hangdog sign on her; the way
she raised her eyes the way she met
life as it seethed and sneaked at her from
every angle.
Conditions had only played "straight" to the
fim comedy of fate for her. Her mother was
a seamstress. Her name was Ikboden Lizzie
Ikboden that alone Is almost a plea of guilty at
the bar of luck and circumstance where the
mortal equations are juggled and each of us gets
the sentence as befits in this unequal mundane
court
So Lixzle Ikboden poor daughter of a poor
dressmaker grew to be sixteen about as tenderly
and intelligently tended as a weed in a vacant lot.
Then like so many of her age and sex she had
to meet and work out for herself. the elusive
mysteries of existence those hair-line problems
which have confounded profound analysts from
Moses to Freud.
Lizzie went to work In a vast shop. There
she rubbed against many other girls most of them
from about the same surroundings but many
much more shrewd far more perspicacious. And
she met men too.
Men they were who toiled at machines grind-
ing polishing buffing; at lathes and at vises drills
and riveters. It was a shop where axles for auto-
mobiles were turned out where metal conquered
metal and where flesh and bone were items in the
overhead and details in the processes. Brains
souls for what?
But the men and the women had brains and
souls such as they were. And they had all the
elemental urges of the children of earth. Lizzie
was only a number on the pay-sheet only a
leather washer in a machine of steel one of its
weak spots. But to the husky mechanics she was
a Lizzie a girl and that put her up against-per-plexities
which by constitutional construction and
specific education she was not competent to take
apart and put together.
Further she herself realized that strange reac-
tions within her took place for whereas she had
awayi looked upon all men as ab'but alike she
now noted that when Stanyslaus .Kobec smirked at
her she got the creepe but when Pete Kiwalski
did about the selfsame thing she got a tingle.
So it wasn't only what the men did that mat-
tered; there was also what she did when they did
it. And she knew (for even the Lizzie Ikbodens
know that) this stuff was something like dynamite.
And dynamite was a good thing to steer clear of.
But if one suddenly had a powerful craving for
high explosives? If one were in love as she was
with Pete Kiwalski and knew she was what
then?
Marriage! That was the only solution she
knew of off-hand at least it was the common one
and Lizzie was used to thinking in terms of com-
mon things. Yes that would be quite satisfactory.
She would marry Pete.
So the next time he pinched her arm as he
went by in the shop while the foreman was busy
around an L in the loft she leaned over and
whispered :
"You wanna marry me?"
A glance shot from Pete's eyes that was beyond
the Interpretative power of Lizzie. m
"Marry you?" he snarled. "Where'd you get
that itufrrr
And he shuffled along.
He didn't want to marry her? Well then
what was his stuff? If a man didn't want to make
a girl his wife why pinch her arm and look at her
that way and get her all flustered and flabber-
gasted? If he didn't care for her why did he
play like that and if he did care for her why
"Ha! Ain'i that
laugh ME marry
HIM1"
wouIjn-t he R0 throngh with the game ao.
cording to constituted rules?
Stanyslaus would have married her she
was quite sure of that. But she would have jumped
into the river first Yet Stan was just as sturdy
and fully as presentable as Pete got th same
wages and belonged to the same union. Why
couldn't she have felt toward Stan as she did
toward Pete when Stan stood ready to do the!
right thing and Pete didn't pinch her seriously?
But she couldn't Her heart was sore but she
still thrilled at' the sight of Pete though he no
longer touched her solid young arm. And though
she tried to be nice to Stan who she could see
was itching to pinch her arm but was repelled by
what he read in her eyes she couldn't shake off
the gooseflesh at the very thought of having him
caress her.
She knew she had committed herself to Pete
and the memory of the buffer's rebuff of her blunt
honest and naive proposal gave her k numb sensa-
tion of ignominious inferiority in his eyes. And
in his eyes of all eyes the dreamed of being first
and finest
Now every time he passed her she thought she
saw a sneer on his lips. And she wasn't the only
one who saw it for Pete had blabbed. Ethics
were not drawn to fine gold-leaf thinnesses in that
shop. When the men went to the soft drink sateon
for their noon lunch they discussed the girls with
. ..... L-t J.
unreserved ireeaom. Ana we men wno neara
told the girls they knew and thus word got all
around that Lizzie had put it up to Pete aid
Pete had turned it down.
The other girls not very gentle or considerate
threw broad allusions at her even open jeers.
Especially Bertha Bozz the bobbed-haired vamp
of the crew who was popularly conceded as hav-
ing her pick and chofce of the men gave her the
cruel ha-ha of the confident strong which sickens
the timid and wounded heart of the weakling.
Bertha and Pete were thick anyone could see
that; Bertha made no denials herself. But she
intimated that she was entertaining an interesting
little offer from no-one less than the foreman
himself and had little time for common hands.
Lizzie would have given her world which was
little enough to have sat on the dizzy throne of
Bertha Bozz. Her horizon needn't extend as far
as a foreman. If it took in only Pete yielding
that were scope enough.
She only dropped her eyes now when Pete
looked her way. She knew none of Bertha's
tricks. She had shot her whole artillery point
blank when she had projected that marriage bid
at Pete. It had been a dud. But Lizzie herself
was a dud. Now she was out of ammunition with
no reserve in the rear.
She went through the routine motions of her
circumscribed piece-work over and over again. All
life was like that to her one way traffic no right
or left turns no crossing except on signal and
with the mob. Impenetrable and unscalable walls
had always held her in the lanes without a turn-
OawrUM.
HOUSTON POST-DISPATCH. SUNDAY NOVEMBER 23. 1924-
tog. The set lights the
shrill whistles and the
commanding hands of the constituted
authorities had always stopped ter
started her drivel her.
She tried to avoid Pete for every time no
gave her one of those contemptuous looks she
suffered and had bad nights. Pete understood.
His idea of a "kick" was to torture her. Every-
one in the shop was "next." No one came to her
defense not evtfn Stan who though he was at-
tached to Lizzie hadn't the call pf manhood to
stand by her or battle for her. i
Lizzie's non-resistant temperament afforded a
foil for a long tiny but it grew monotonous whtn
Pete couldn't get a "rise" out of her so he be-
gan bumping into her as though by accident; next
fie ironically greeted her so others could hear;
emboldened by her" increased grief without any
flare-back he began to twit her then brazenly
.
to make fun of her.
"Well kiddo when you gonna get married
huh?" he would ask.
"What's a matter can't you get no man?
You ain't such a bad-lookin' bozo not so very
bad-lookin'."
"When you gonna ketch a millionaire or a
white-wing?"
These sallies were regarded as rich with wit
and always brought audible laughter.' Lower and
lower Lizzie's chin hung. More and more miser-
able she grew the patsy of the shop wjthout
stamina enough to fight without resource enough
to even answer back.
Bertha had a line of talk whenever one of the
men she didn't fancy spoke out of turn. You
can' bet no one was going to one-way traffic her.
There was a sure rebound to any address di-
rected toward Bertha. She could be flip she
could be acidulous she could be saccharine she
could be loud and stormy yea profane as the
diplomatic tactics of any situation suggested.
Oh how Lizzie envied her. How she emulated
her in the darkness of her shabby bed ifnder the
covers for she did not dare lot even herself hear
herself say such things as Berlha said Bertha who
was the mistress of any skirmish.
The other men seeing Pete's rising repute as
a jester and cut-up horned in on his material.
They tossed pertinent questions- and pointed ob-
servations at Lizzie too ; some of them even more
clumsy and hob-nailed than Pete's.
Why didn't she quit? Such thoughts had come
MM. to TaUmiUonU Tmtum Smte 1m Oml BriUla Bltbl Btwmd.
Into her mind but she hadn't dared nurse them
seriously. Quit a job? Be out of work? Ex-
plain to her mother that because she was sensi-
tive and had embarrassed herself through a social
error she was losing wages even for a day?
No that wasn't the way out There was no
way out that she could see. She must go along
and take it
It was a Saturday a short work-day. The
whistle had just blown. The tension of the
routine and discipline let down suddenly. The
workers relaxed for a minute before they started
for their wash sinks and rough dressing
rooms.
Two of the men were amiably scuffling. The
girls were grouped all but Lizzie the pariah
who was unsnapping her blue-jeans apron.
Pete was in unusually high spirits that day.
The spirit of the half holiday was high within
him. Moreover he had a date to take Bertha to
a melodramatic movie and maybe she would ask
him home to eat with her teamster father who
made home brew and handed out smokes.
He stretched then relaxed his knotty muscles
and glanced about. Ah there was Lizzie the
glum dumb punching-bag of his inspired comedy.
He hadn't paid much attention to her lately must
play a little.
He sauntered over.' She saw him out of the
corner of her downcast eye. She trembled and
turned not enough to be conspicuous. She'
shrank. She would hate run but she hadnt even
thtj courage of her cowardice. v
"Hello Peggy Hopkins" sang out Pete in voice
penetrating enough for everyone in the big loft to
hear and pay heed. "How's the marriage busi-
ness? Get yourself a guy yet?"
The floor refused to yield to Lizzie's silent
prayer that it open and let her sink through. She
only huddled herself just a mite more together
and made a feeble futile pretense at not hearing.
"She don't answer; I guess she give Vand'-
bilt the gate an' she don't like to talk about it
don't cha worry Lis Astor might come along.
Don' cha go grab the first party what falls for
your bee-you-ti-ful shape. You wait till some
movie plckcher hero steps np
what you can love a han'some
gazabo like me hub?"
' Uzzle only wished she were dead.
"But maybe when he comes he won't
ask you I Welll tell you what you do
then you ASK HIM."
A spontaneous roar of laughter hurst forth. It
was the best "cracker" Pete had yet or ever
snapped.
A heavy monkey-wrench rose and fell as out of
nowhere. On the floor limp .silent motionless
lay Pete Kiwalski the merry kidder.
"An' the nex' one o' you dirty rotten wolves
what opens a mouth to have a good time wit' me
I'll brain you" said Lizzie Ikboden calm firm
her eyes defiantly staring into all of theirs the
fighting set of a bulldog's jaw on hers.
Someone stooped to pick up Pete.
"You let him lay the pig or I'll bust In your
skonce" hissed Lizzie and the Jathe-turner re-
coiled. "I hope I killed him" said Lizzie. "Somebody
call the police."
The foreman came hurrying in. Lizzie stood
over the fallen Pete and waved him off. Soon a
bluecoat came on the run. Lizzie dropped her
wrench put on her coat and walked quietly out
with him. Pete was dead.
In the matron's room hours later that night
weary assistant prosecutor was still hammering'
away at her trying to get a detailed confession.
The police had been to her home and had brought
her worldly belongings in a cheap suitcase. She
was to be transferred to prison as soon as the
people's attorney gave the word that he had fin-
ished his third degree.
"But I understand" he argued "that you've
always been a peaceful and unusually quiet and
harmless girl until to-day. Is that right?"
"No if it's any o' your nosey business. I'm-
a tough babe an' alwus was. Any roughneck
bohunk who crashes in an' starts givin' me any
lip I crown him. That's the way I am see?
Guess I was born that way. . . . An' watcha
gonna do about it Mr. John Rubberneck Law?" '
"But what did he say to you what was this
deadly insult which flamed you Into homieide?"
"What did he say to me? .Oh boy not muh
not VERY much. Get an earful o' this; I
croaked that slob becus he come up an' asked me
to to marry him ha 1 Ain't that a laugh? ME
marry HIM f'
T7
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Bailey, George M. Houston Post-Dispatch (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 40, No. 233, Ed. 1 Sunday, November 23, 1924, newspaper, November 23, 1924; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth607877/m1/65/: accessed June 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .