Bridget's Flame, first entry for June
The advertisement in the paper had said “Wanted: young, single women to work as domestic servants in the fine homes of the West. Must be clean, healthy, have good skill with a needle. Ability to cook also helpful. Please reply to Sally Marks, with a photographic portrait if you have one.”
Trapped as she was in Boston, the fourth daughter of a just-shy-of-poor merchant on the south end, Mary was enchanted by the thought of adventure in the wide-open west; she dreamed of working as a maid in the big house of a sprawling ranch, eventually marrying a dashing cowboy and presiding over a grand ranch house of her own (she had been reading the wild west stories in the paper, and had quite a romantic view of plains life).
She promptly and secretly sent off a letter, with the asked-for photographic portrait. After a few weeks time, the reply came, a delighted invitation for Mary to come west, complete with a train ticket to St. Louis, and a seperate letter of introduction to a Mr. Smith, an especial friend of Miss Marks who would see her the rest of the way to Texas. Mary told her family what she had done, packed her bags, kissed them all goodbye, and set out westward.
By the time she arrived in St. Louis, Mary was not sure that she was cut out for a life of adventure. The journey on the train had been hard and uncomfortable; she was using up her small amount of money far more quickly than she imagined possible, and she sorely missed her family and the familiar atmosphere of Boston. But Mr. Smith was kind and solicitous; He took Mary to his home, where his wife and daughters (strangely, they were all grown women, and none married, thought they did entertain quite a number of gentlemen callers that evening) took her in, fed her, and tucked her in to bed.
After a few days in St. Louis, and upon the arrival of three other girls in the same situation as she, Mr. Smith loaded them all onto a stage coach going west, with one of his daughters, who had made the trip before, as guardian. If the journey by train had been hard, the journey by stage was near impossible. The girls sat for hours on the hard seats of the cramped, stuffy coach, constantly jostled by the coach’s bumping over the rough roads. At night, they would stay in post-stop inns, dining on cold food and all sleeping together in cramped, filthy beds.
Finally, they arrived at their supposed destination: a post-stop in a tiny Texas town, which rose up out of the vast, open countryside, empty for miles around. Surely, Mary thought, this couldn’t be their destination; there wasn’t a fine house to be seen anywhere, and you could see quite far in these flat lands. Mr. Smith’s daughter explained, with a strange smile, that the ranch houses they would eventually be working at were spread quite far apart, separated by the vast tracts of land where the cattle grazed. First, however, they would spend some time working in Miss Marks’s house, for training and what have you, before they were let out to work in the really fine homes.
Indeed, just then, a great carriage clattered up, driven by a statuesque woman with a great pile of a plumed hat set atop a great pile of the palest blonde hair Mary had ever seen. The woman introduced herself as their new employer, Miss Marks. She looked them over, pronounced them acceptable, and thanked Miss Smith, who promptly went inside the post-stop, to book herself a seat on the next coach east.
Miss Marks instructed the girls to put their bags in the back of the carriage, and climb aboard. Mary managed to get the seat next to Miss Marks, who was kind, and made wonderful conversation, telling the girls funny stories about her house, and the other girls who were currently working there, and the ranch hands that visited in the evenings. Mary asked about the size of the house, and how many were in Miss Marks’ family. Miss Marks said it was just her and her girls, which Mary took to mean her other servants, and Mary thought it strange that there were so many girls living in one house, to wait on one woman, but she supposed that, now that there was a new crop of girls in the house to be trained up as servants, some of the others would be sent out to work at other ranches.
The house they finally arrived at was grand indeed: a great, white house with a deep porch and columns across the front. There was a nice grass lawn, and flowerbeds and trees around the house, and rocking chairs on the porch. Miss Marks drove the carriage up to the front steps and whistled; two Negro servants came running out, taking the horse and handing Miss Marks down from the driver’s seat. She instructed the girls to get their bags and follow her, and they made quite a parade, Miss Marks gliding along at the head of a line of tired, awkward girls, looking for all the world like a swan with her cygnets.
They entered a grand hall, filled with gilt mirrors and a grand, curving staircase with a wrought iron railing that disappeared into the shadowy second floor. A great, glittering chandelier hung from the ceiling, and beneath it was a table with a great big vase of flowers on it. A door to the left showed a grand salon filled with gilt furniture covered in red velvet, and a door to the right opened into a game room, with a billiard table and other, smaller tables covered in green cloth. The entire house was dim, and hushed, as if everyone inside was asleep.
Miss Marks led the girls past the grand staircase and through a swinging door into a vast kitchen. Around a large, plain wooden table sat a group of the most beautiful girls Mary had ever seen. They all had long hair that tumbled about their shoulders, hair of every color Mary had ever seen. Their skin and eyes, too, were quite varied, and they seemed to still be dressed in their nightclothes. Mary supposed that, the climate here being so warm, one wouldn’t wear more than a scanty shift to sleep in, though she wondered why, since they were so frilly and lacy, and didn’t seem to cover much of anything, the girls were still wearing them, it being well past noon.
Miss Marks introduced them all, and said that these girls were some of the finest entertainers in the great state of Texas, and that her ranch, the Fleur de L’Oest, was the most renowned house of entertainment for miles around. She further explained that, some day, each of the new girls might take her place among them, and that they might command a king’s ransom for their services, if they were lucky. For now, though, their job would be to clean these girl’s rooms, and mend their fine clothes, which understandably got rent from time to time from the excitement of their clients. They would also keep the house clean, the linens fresh, and cook meals for the household, and sometimes for the customers as well. They would learn marksmanship; all the girls needed to know how to handle a gun in case things got out of hand. If they liked, they would be taught the art of entertaining gentlemen, and other men, but if they wished to remain as only house maids that would be fine too. Miss Marks said she took care of all the girls at her ranch, no matter their station, and they could eventually leave her to work in other houses as promised in the advertisement, but that most girls chose to stay on with her.
Miss Marks asked if any of the girls had any questions; none of them did, though they all look considerably overwhelmed by what they had just learned about their new situation. Miss Marks showed them to a group of tiny rooms in a low wing off the kitchen; each room had a small bed dressed in crisp white linens, a small white chair and table, a narrow white clothes press, and a small, open window with crisp white curtains blowing in the breeze. She assigned each girl to a room and instructed them to get settled in, and report back to the kitchen when the clock rang the hour.
Mary set her valise on the floor, sat on the bed (it was quite soft) and looked out the window. There was a large, spreading tree in the back yard, with a table and chairs set beneath it. There was a vast kitchen garden, and laundry hung from lines in the sun. The two Negro servants were currying the carriage horses; she noticed that both Negroes and horses seemed happy.
She remembered that the girls in the kitchen had also seemed contented. She looked around the room; it was much brighter and nicer than her room back home, which she had had to share with her two younger sisters. She thought about what she had heard about whores in church, and how those ideas fitted against the actuality of the whorehouse she found herself in. She thought about how her adventure in the west had turned out so far, and what it would be like to go home and explain to her family what had happened. She lay back against the soft pillows, on the fragrant linens, and closed her eyes.
When the clock struck the next hour, she presented herself, fresh in a clean skirt and modest blouse, in the kitchen. She told Miss Marks that, though she would probably never wish to become an entertainer, she had a fine hand with a needle, that she was a good cook, and could make excellent bread, but that she was no good at ironing. She said that her father had taught her to keep his accounts, and that she would be more than happy to do the same for Miss Marks.
Miss Marks smiled and embraced her, and welcomed her to her family. Over the next few weeks, Mary baked bread, and mended; she became the favorite seamstress of the girls at the ranch. Miss Marks let her look at her books, and Mary not only put them in order, but also suggested ways for the ranch to save money, and become more profitable.
True to her word, she never became an entertainer, and never went to the front of the house, or upstairs among the entertainer’s rooms, when they were entertaining gentlemen. She never went to work in any other fine house of the west, but she did move out of the servant’s quarters, and into a luxurious suite of rooms above them. She was eventually placed in charge of the servants, and, when Miss Marks decided to retire, it was Mary who was put in charge of the ranch, and it was Mary who advertised back east for new girls, and who answered their letters with promises of work and adventure in the fine houses of the wild west.
Trapped as she was in Boston, the fourth daughter of a just-shy-of-poor merchant on the south end, Mary was enchanted by the thought of adventure in the wide-open west; she dreamed of working as a maid in the big house of a sprawling ranch, eventually marrying a dashing cowboy and presiding over a grand ranch house of her own (she had been reading the wild west stories in the paper, and had quite a romantic view of plains life).
She promptly and secretly sent off a letter, with the asked-for photographic portrait. After a few weeks time, the reply came, a delighted invitation for Mary to come west, complete with a train ticket to St. Louis, and a seperate letter of introduction to a Mr. Smith, an especial friend of Miss Marks who would see her the rest of the way to Texas. Mary told her family what she had done, packed her bags, kissed them all goodbye, and set out westward.
By the time she arrived in St. Louis, Mary was not sure that she was cut out for a life of adventure. The journey on the train had been hard and uncomfortable; she was using up her small amount of money far more quickly than she imagined possible, and she sorely missed her family and the familiar atmosphere of Boston. But Mr. Smith was kind and solicitous; He took Mary to his home, where his wife and daughters (strangely, they were all grown women, and none married, thought they did entertain quite a number of gentlemen callers that evening) took her in, fed her, and tucked her in to bed.
After a few days in St. Louis, and upon the arrival of three other girls in the same situation as she, Mr. Smith loaded them all onto a stage coach going west, with one of his daughters, who had made the trip before, as guardian. If the journey by train had been hard, the journey by stage was near impossible. The girls sat for hours on the hard seats of the cramped, stuffy coach, constantly jostled by the coach’s bumping over the rough roads. At night, they would stay in post-stop inns, dining on cold food and all sleeping together in cramped, filthy beds.
Finally, they arrived at their supposed destination: a post-stop in a tiny Texas town, which rose up out of the vast, open countryside, empty for miles around. Surely, Mary thought, this couldn’t be their destination; there wasn’t a fine house to be seen anywhere, and you could see quite far in these flat lands. Mr. Smith’s daughter explained, with a strange smile, that the ranch houses they would eventually be working at were spread quite far apart, separated by the vast tracts of land where the cattle grazed. First, however, they would spend some time working in Miss Marks’s house, for training and what have you, before they were let out to work in the really fine homes.
Indeed, just then, a great carriage clattered up, driven by a statuesque woman with a great pile of a plumed hat set atop a great pile of the palest blonde hair Mary had ever seen. The woman introduced herself as their new employer, Miss Marks. She looked them over, pronounced them acceptable, and thanked Miss Smith, who promptly went inside the post-stop, to book herself a seat on the next coach east.
Miss Marks instructed the girls to put their bags in the back of the carriage, and climb aboard. Mary managed to get the seat next to Miss Marks, who was kind, and made wonderful conversation, telling the girls funny stories about her house, and the other girls who were currently working there, and the ranch hands that visited in the evenings. Mary asked about the size of the house, and how many were in Miss Marks’ family. Miss Marks said it was just her and her girls, which Mary took to mean her other servants, and Mary thought it strange that there were so many girls living in one house, to wait on one woman, but she supposed that, now that there was a new crop of girls in the house to be trained up as servants, some of the others would be sent out to work at other ranches.
The house they finally arrived at was grand indeed: a great, white house with a deep porch and columns across the front. There was a nice grass lawn, and flowerbeds and trees around the house, and rocking chairs on the porch. Miss Marks drove the carriage up to the front steps and whistled; two Negro servants came running out, taking the horse and handing Miss Marks down from the driver’s seat. She instructed the girls to get their bags and follow her, and they made quite a parade, Miss Marks gliding along at the head of a line of tired, awkward girls, looking for all the world like a swan with her cygnets.
They entered a grand hall, filled with gilt mirrors and a grand, curving staircase with a wrought iron railing that disappeared into the shadowy second floor. A great, glittering chandelier hung from the ceiling, and beneath it was a table with a great big vase of flowers on it. A door to the left showed a grand salon filled with gilt furniture covered in red velvet, and a door to the right opened into a game room, with a billiard table and other, smaller tables covered in green cloth. The entire house was dim, and hushed, as if everyone inside was asleep.
Miss Marks led the girls past the grand staircase and through a swinging door into a vast kitchen. Around a large, plain wooden table sat a group of the most beautiful girls Mary had ever seen. They all had long hair that tumbled about their shoulders, hair of every color Mary had ever seen. Their skin and eyes, too, were quite varied, and they seemed to still be dressed in their nightclothes. Mary supposed that, the climate here being so warm, one wouldn’t wear more than a scanty shift to sleep in, though she wondered why, since they were so frilly and lacy, and didn’t seem to cover much of anything, the girls were still wearing them, it being well past noon.
Miss Marks introduced them all, and said that these girls were some of the finest entertainers in the great state of Texas, and that her ranch, the Fleur de L’Oest, was the most renowned house of entertainment for miles around. She further explained that, some day, each of the new girls might take her place among them, and that they might command a king’s ransom for their services, if they were lucky. For now, though, their job would be to clean these girl’s rooms, and mend their fine clothes, which understandably got rent from time to time from the excitement of their clients. They would also keep the house clean, the linens fresh, and cook meals for the household, and sometimes for the customers as well. They would learn marksmanship; all the girls needed to know how to handle a gun in case things got out of hand. If they liked, they would be taught the art of entertaining gentlemen, and other men, but if they wished to remain as only house maids that would be fine too. Miss Marks said she took care of all the girls at her ranch, no matter their station, and they could eventually leave her to work in other houses as promised in the advertisement, but that most girls chose to stay on with her.
Miss Marks asked if any of the girls had any questions; none of them did, though they all look considerably overwhelmed by what they had just learned about their new situation. Miss Marks showed them to a group of tiny rooms in a low wing off the kitchen; each room had a small bed dressed in crisp white linens, a small white chair and table, a narrow white clothes press, and a small, open window with crisp white curtains blowing in the breeze. She assigned each girl to a room and instructed them to get settled in, and report back to the kitchen when the clock rang the hour.
Mary set her valise on the floor, sat on the bed (it was quite soft) and looked out the window. There was a large, spreading tree in the back yard, with a table and chairs set beneath it. There was a vast kitchen garden, and laundry hung from lines in the sun. The two Negro servants were currying the carriage horses; she noticed that both Negroes and horses seemed happy.
She remembered that the girls in the kitchen had also seemed contented. She looked around the room; it was much brighter and nicer than her room back home, which she had had to share with her two younger sisters. She thought about what she had heard about whores in church, and how those ideas fitted against the actuality of the whorehouse she found herself in. She thought about how her adventure in the west had turned out so far, and what it would be like to go home and explain to her family what had happened. She lay back against the soft pillows, on the fragrant linens, and closed her eyes.
When the clock struck the next hour, she presented herself, fresh in a clean skirt and modest blouse, in the kitchen. She told Miss Marks that, though she would probably never wish to become an entertainer, she had a fine hand with a needle, that she was a good cook, and could make excellent bread, but that she was no good at ironing. She said that her father had taught her to keep his accounts, and that she would be more than happy to do the same for Miss Marks.
Miss Marks smiled and embraced her, and welcomed her to her family. Over the next few weeks, Mary baked bread, and mended; she became the favorite seamstress of the girls at the ranch. Miss Marks let her look at her books, and Mary not only put them in order, but also suggested ways for the ranch to save money, and become more profitable.
True to her word, she never became an entertainer, and never went to the front of the house, or upstairs among the entertainer’s rooms, when they were entertaining gentlemen. She never went to work in any other fine house of the west, but she did move out of the servant’s quarters, and into a luxurious suite of rooms above them. She was eventually placed in charge of the servants, and, when Miss Marks decided to retire, it was Mary who was put in charge of the ranch, and it was Mary who advertised back east for new girls, and who answered their letters with promises of work and adventure in the fine houses of the wild west.