CHAPTER XXV

MOUNTAIN CLIMBING

There followed a long hot summer. There followed days of hopelessness.
There followed a wild desire for crisp muslin curtains, birds to wake me
in the morning, a porcelain tub, pretty gowns, tea on somebody's broad
veranda. There were days in mid-July when if I had met Bob Jennings, and
he had invited me to green fields, or cool woods, I wouldn't have
stopped even to pack. There were days in August when a letter from
Breck, post-marked Bar Harbor, and returned like three preceding letters
unopened, I didn't dare read for fear of the temptation of blue sea, and
a yacht with wicker chairs and a servant in white to bring me things.

If it hadn't been for Esther's quiet determination I might have crawled
back to Edith any one of those hot stifling nights and begged for
admittance to the cool chamber with the spinet desk. My head ached half
the time; my feet pained me; food was unattractive. The dead air of the
New York subway made me feel ill. In three minutes it could sap me of
the little hope I carried down from the surface. I used to dream nights
of the bird-like speed of Breckenridge Sewall's powerful automobiles. I
used to wake mornings longing for the strong impact of wind against my
face.

The big city, the crowds of working people that once inspired, the great
mass of congregated humanity had lost its romance. Even my own
particular struggle seemed to have no more "punch" in it. The novelty of
my undertaking, the adventure had worn away. They had been right at the
Y. W. C. A. when they advised me a year ago to go home and give up my
enterprise. I had been dauntless then, but now, although toughened and
weathered, discouragement and despair possessed me. I allowed myself to
sit for days in the room in Irving Place, without even trying for a
position.

It was Esther who obtained a steady job for me at last, in a
book-binding factory down near the City Hall. From eight in the morning
until five at night I folded paper, over and over and over again, with a
bone folder; the same process--no change--no variation. The muscles that
I used ached like a painful tooth at first. Some nights we worked until
nine o'clock. Accuracy and speed were all that was required to be an
efficient folder--no brains, no thought--and yet I never became expert.
The sameness of my work got on my nerves so at last--the everlasting
repetition of sound and motion--that occasionally I lost all sense of