Bowery Girl Read Free Page B

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    The head matron turned the heavy ledger to face her. She attacked the page with her pen, marking her initials boldly. She cocked her head at the ping of Mollie’s coins in the coffee tin. “Take a towel from the basket to the right of the door, then up the stairs. Take any tub that’s empty, and if there isn’t an empty one, share with another girl. The faucet’s on the wall—the under matron will add one kettle of hot water—scrub, then wipe, then redress. Ten minutes.”
    Mollie and Annabelle barely heard her. They darted for the stairs, grabbing a towel.
    â€œSince when’s there a sign-in?” Annabelle asked.
    â€œSince some rich bitch bought this building and the one next door. Got classrooms and everything over there. Wait till you see her. Harps on and on about us improving our lives. Can’t take a bath in peace anymore.”
    Mollie smelled the clean sting of soap before she entered the long room. Girls giggled. Water sloshed against iron tubs and dribbled from faucets.
    â€œWhere’s all the tubs?” Mollie counted only ten, where there had been twenty. Plugged pipes extended from one wall; the only evidence of the missing tubs were dark rectangular water stains.
    â€œYou’ll have to ask Miss DuPre that.” The under matron who answered made a disapproving sound from between the gap in her teeth. “Five went to the basement and one up the stairs to you-know-who’s new rooms. Knows what to do with the tubs, she does, but not what to do with us. Isn’t that right, Peggy?”
    Another under matron swayed by, her hands gripping a pot of steaming water. Her gray hair, sizzled and steamed all the day, stuck out in tiny erratic curlicues. “Serving the poor and never a care for the ones of us who make an honest living.”
    â€œ Made an honest living.”
    â€œSome’s luckier than us. Head matron downstairs is to remain head matron of the what’s it called? S ettlement house .” Peggy slopped the hot water into an empty tub. She let the bucket clatter to the floor, then twisted open the faucet. Water gushed, brown with minerals and rust, into the tub. “Not much else you can expect of one of them , is it? Not an ounce of kindness and not a bit of respect for the pope.” She crossed herself and rolled her eyes. The faucet squealed against its metal as she shut the tap. “Well, get in, girls, you only got the few minutes.”
    Mollie glanced at Annabelle. “Looks like we’re sharing.”
    Gray scum floated on the water; Mollie hoped it was only from the last girl’s soap. She put her hand in the water, and then pulled away sharply. Oh, how cold it was! How would she ever sit in the bath itself?
    There were two pegs on the wall on either side of the tub: for clothes and for towels. Combs hung from ropes (so as not to be “mistakenly” taken). Large blocks of soap sat on shelves. Across the room, kettles bubbled atop heavy cast-iron stoves.
    The under matrons sat near the stoves, each woman dressed in the cheap rags of the tenement, each serious about her job, which was to keep order.
    But how to keep down the squeals of glee and the screams as the girls first touched the cool water? Or the laughter from the mothers, happy to have left their baby or toddler in another room, to have even these few precious moments free from family responsibility? No matter how loudly the under matrons barked and shushed, it proved impossible to quiet all the temperaments in the room. The under matrons kept strict time over their tubs, if not the noise level; they knew to the second who should get out to let another “poor girl” in.
    Annabelle and Mollie undressed, hanging up their skirts and shirts and underthings.
    â€œDamn, that water looks cold as a witch’s tit,” Annabelle said.
    Holding her breath, Mollie flung herself into the tub. “Ain’t so bad.”
    Annabelle removed