I like it too. I can't imagine nothing nicer
than having a little home of your own and taking care of it yourself. It
even give me a little thrill to walk into some body else's kitchen and
see it all clean and nice, the dishes and the glasses shining, and the
pretty white cloth on the table, and a bird singing in a cage before the
window, and know that all looked so home-like cause I made it so. If
somebody else's kitchen can make me feel that way, if I had one of my
own, I suppose I'd just naturally bust. The woman I worked for was one
of those sort of no-good women who ain't bad or who ain't good, who is
just _nothing_. She didn't do a thing around the house, didn't even take
care of her own clothes. She read a little in the morning, then went
down town every afternoon of her life, either to the theatres or to the
restaurants or shopping. Then at night as often as she could, she made
her poor husband put on his dress clothes and go somewhere with her.
They use to scrap a lot about it, as he was tired and generally wanted
to put on a pair of old slippers and set and smoke and read. Sometimes I
use to wonder what she done to earn her board, as she wasn't as much of
a help as a wife of a crook generally is. Even you, Kate, used to pass
the leather on when Jim pinched one, which was doing your share in
buying your meal ticket. She was dippy on the dancing, and women used to
come in the afternoon and dance with the victrola. I didn't let her know
that I danced at first.

One night I was a cutting bread and the knife slipped and cut my hand
between my thumb and first finger. The woman was awful nice about it,
and kept me on for two weeks. It didn't seem to get no better and the
doctor thinks I poisoned it. I didn't have the nerve to stay there
without doing something, so one day when she and some of her friends
were dancing like a lump of cheese, I told her I would learn her the
dance if she wanted me to, and--gee, didn't those females work me after
that! They didn't care nothing about the housework. It could go hang,
but morning, night and noon I was a holding some fat lady or some tall
lady or some short one from breaking her neck, as she tried to do the
Castle Glide or the Maxixe. I must say my boss was generous, she was
perfectly willing to loan me to all her friends and they grabbed after
me like a cat after a mouse, cause they was getting five-dollar lessons
for nothing. I stayed two weeks and I lost six pounds and my