Document text
Project #-1655
Rose D. Workman
Charleston County
MRS. BROWN'S DIAMOND RING
c.
AM=0066 ikneat little card in the window of the shabby wood-
en house, but the house itself was below Blank Street, and cards
that read:
Approx. 2500 Words,
A„t)
"Dressmaking and Alterations,"
are not o ten seen in windows in that aristocratic section of
ni(tuaLtsamo-1-1-11-rert-e--eeeelkuftvorettlii-towyeelfl,amD
he entrance,(7!1M as is common in Old Town, was at
the side, looking over a rambling flower garden. There were quite
a lot of bells in a row, each with its card. I rang the one that
bore the inscription:
"Mrs. Bette Brown Dressmaker, First Floor."
"Come in," called a briskly pleasant voice, and I pushed open
the door and met Mrs. Brown,
Mrs. Silver might have been a better name.fturiemb*04im he
shining waves of silver -gilt hair framed a fresh, fair face, from
which bright, alert hazel eyes looked out eagerly on life. Her
simple, tailored dress of some pale gray fabric, vodishly outlined
the curves of a "perfect 36."
sed in' A -be...
emring-etti-t-ettr-s"a'19-413-4144,1eer"vitalkwys4stilAwkanowi
Mrs. Brown's neatly plucked brows rose quizzically as I asked
her to tell me something of her life history, but she really seemed
pleased with request and said we could talk right away. She had
Project #-1655
Rose D. Workman
Charleston County
001
caught up with all her work until some -one came for a fitting at
five.
TrirarTmramuftft.ara.
geasaimawirerfP4600.‘alonalmatediwOrrilettilteirlfeoroirtryway.
RomprMrs. Bpown struck a match smartly on the under surface
of the table, iktarted a cigarette, viedwiliadOM:=MMOMO,4
"I'll tell you about my diamond ring," she announced„, Ili
dramatically.
,....WINFIfts oh.
"I'd been
Ii
been coming here on visits off and on for years. I have
friends here who have done well, and the season is longer than it
is in Florida, where I come from. So, after I'd divorced my
second husband, and Jimmie-- that's my boy, he's seventeen-- got
so bad sick, I decided to move up here, get a house, rent out
rooms and take in sewing. Between the two things I'd make a liv-
ing.
2
"Well, T finally made the break and came away. When I reached
this town I had exactly $5 in cash, and a $450 diamond ring."
flew Mrs. Browtl stopped for a mametD11040111104n oddly re
AD
gretful expression in her hazel eyes looked down at her left
I".-.
hand, upon which gleamed a single narrow band of gold. The diamond
ring was missingl
"Ever since Jimmy's father and I separated," she took up her
story again, "I'd always used that ring to borrow on. Whenever
things were going pretty bad and I felt that God wasn't treating
Project #-1655
Rose D. Workman
Charleston County.
OW
me just just right, I'd go down town and get a few dollars on it.
Then when things picked up again, I'd go get it back. And that
would be that-- until next time.
"I didn't have any definite plans in those days. I just lived
from day to day. I'd say to myself, What God wants you to do,
Bette Brown, you've got to do.'
"Anyway, I camkup here, like I s id, with the $5 in my purse,
and the ring on my finger. TLIrLLTlady brought me in her car)
and I stayed at her
house for a while.
"I was scared green at what I was planning to do. Suppose I
didn't make a go of it? I knew some people here, all right, but
they weren't the real old residents --natives we call them down
home—. My friends were mostly new people, and I knew from what
I'd heard about this place that I had to make a hit with the
natives if I was going to be successful. 4#Suppose they didn't
like my sewing?
"All the way up I'd keep saying to myself: 'Don't be a fool,
Bette Brown. You've nothing to lose but your ring, and you can
do without that.'
"Well, I got here, and sold the ring outright this time. Got
$182 for it. (70116i73I rented this house, and started round to the
second hand shops to furnish it. And I bought the stoves and
Project #-1655
Rose D. Workman
Charleston County
4
frigidaires on time.
"The house has fourteen rooms. On the third floor I've got
one three-room apartment, and a single 'efficiency apartment,'
I think they call it.
"The second floor is arranged just like the third, and on this
floor I've got one two -room apartment and this room that Ilie kept
for myse f."
t A
attention to 14-1-auatIoodithe skillful in-
6enuity which had made the large room into a perfect "efficiency
apartment" itself. Across its length ran a homespun curtain,wilfth
trieeft.461made in sections, and snapped together for
laundering. No tailor could have made it better.
receiving, fitting and sewing room from the living
greater ease in
This cut off the
and sleeping
quarters. On one side was the full length mirror in which the cus-
tomers might see themselves as others saw them. Here was the iron-
ing board and electric iron; here was the electric sewing machine.
On neat pegs hung many van -colored and van -styled garments in the
process of being made, or made -overt
On the other side of the curtain, the side on which we sat,
was a gay little green table; a day bed covered with a brightly
patterned chintz; several low wicker chairs; a rug or two. She
parted still another pair of curtains in a corner to show the small
electric stove, provisions and dishes of the culinary department of
her home.
Project f-1655
Rose D. Workman
Charleston County
5
"Come and have supper with me sometime," she invited
cordially. "I hate to eat by myself. And I'll make you some
biscuits."
VW Wes sparkl d With prider she told how she herself
had made the curtains for the many windows throughout the big
house, of unbleached homespun, the natural creamy tones of which
blended so well with the colorful chintz drapes which she had
added. The windows of the room in which we sat illustrated this
fact charmingly.
"They last so much longer than the cheap, ready-made ones you
buy," she saido "And I made bedspreads to match. And table covers
too.
"I stainedZ, and polished the floors and chinked up some of the
worst cracks in them. Then I covered them with bright linoleum
rugs and if I do say it, you wouldn't know it for the same place.
TLJ71 _LK....had every apart-
ment rentedo4 When I get ahead a bit I'm goitg-to take the back
apartment on this floor for mine. I'd like to have a real place
to entertain my friends again.
"And speaking of friends," s allgaMONOMON41100 she snuffed out
a cigarette stub in the china ash tray, already brimming over,
"I've met some of the loveliest people since I've been here. Be-
fore I moved to this town people told me: 'Don't you go there to
Project #-1655
Rose D. Workman
Charleston County
6
1
live. They're the damnest, uppiest people that you've ever seen.'
But they surely made a mistake.
"I never knew people could be so nice. I just placed that card
in the window" --WM she waved her cigarette towards the sign
which had first attracted my attention -"put a little ad in the
paper, and customers started,to come. I had a small dressmaking
shop back home, and I do know how to sew. One person tells another,
and I'm getttng all the work I can do,4A4I'm trying to live entirely
off my sewing, and gat the apartment money back into the house.
That way I'll get ahead.
"Here, take a look at my Customer Bookltt Snatching a large
blankbook from a table drawer, with one of the swift, sudden move-
ments with which I was becoming familiar, she flicked over the
pages, reading out names as she rapidly turned the leaves. Many
of them were familiar berm"; and indeed she had secured some excel-'
lent patrons in the short while in which she had been in business.
Mrs. Brown was on the way to aucces4,44..ZwisammOMMOINUMMoa.' She
was satisfying the right people, all rightl
Atm,O$MMOSN6he suddenly stopped speaking, rose abruptly,
and made several quick tripsrb:Wp and forth across the room.
G,y-LAtc#Act.,
thstimmor om e memory lime disturbek.pert 'EQ:atiwieemtv
speech. FIJONWImidea he silence was unbroken save for the quick,
staccato rhythm of the tall heels of her shining patent y leather
slippers upon the bright linoleum floor.
Presently she re -seated herself, and after a moment began to
Project #-1655
Rose D. Workman
Charleston County
7
O D
talk again, but in a strangely strained fashion, as if she found
the subject difficult.
"Well, I told you I had a boy Jimmy. He's sick, and the
way his sickness takes him is in terrible temper fits. We had
just been here about a month when he had one of his spells. He
jumped on me, and I thought he was going to strangle me. Then he
rushed out of the house, across the street, and broke down the
man's fence opposite. Of course, it was pretty rickety anyway, or
Jimmy couldn't have done it, but it goes to show that he's getting
dangerous now he's growing so big and strong.
Of course, a crowd of people gathered right away, and one of
them was a doctor who lives next door.
"That night I talked to Jimmy and told him how awful it would
have been if he had killed his mother, and he broke down and cried
like a baby. But next day the doctor came over and told MB he
thought Jimmy had better go to a hospital for a while.
"Oh, what a horror I had of his going to a place where I would
not be able to see him. I'm awfully nervous," AIMMShe lit another
cigarettelp"And I've been under a terrible strain for a long time
now, what with Jimmy's father drinking the way he did, and Jimmy
having these spells, and the boys teasing him and all. That's
the biggest reason I cape up here, to get him away from those boys.
They'd gather round him and tease him, and he'd most go wild he'd
get so mad. You know how boys are. Nasty little fiends:
"I felt I couldn't stand it if they put him some place where
he'd be cruelly treated and unhappy4
Project #-1655
Rose D. Workman
Charleston County
8
MO
"But when we took him up to the hospital, the buildings and
grounds were so lovely, and everyone was so kind, that my horror
just melted away.
"I had a nice letter from him yesterday. He said he had only
had one temper spell since he got there, but he pretty nearly broke
a man's nose that time. Said they took him away and made him stay
by himself that night, but the next day they let him go back with
the others again."
ith a sudden change of mood:
"How do you like this little suit I've just finished?" She
held up a trim tailored suit of rough tweed. "I
made it out of a suit of Jimmy's. For myself." Smiling;rogtibh44,
one caught a glimpse of what a pretty, merry girl she must have been
before adversity laid its heavy hand upon her shoulder.
But trouble had not killed all her jollity of spirit', 4411iwith
a little laugh she turned to me and said, and I don't believe she
meant it as a compliment:
"You know, you talk just like a customer I had last week.
While I was fitting her-- such a lovely dress it was, too; purple
taffeta, with little hoops to make it stand away, and a jade green
sash-- she told me a story about some people she had met at a party.
She said:
'Those people sho'ly must ha been drunk. And you know you have
to drink a lot -a bare (here her laughter trilled again, as she ex-
plained the point to me, "She called itlbaref, not 'beer'.) to get
dr,mk. And they parked their cyser right in the gyanden."
Project #-1655
Rose D. Workman
Charleston County
9
AME14:1;whe conversation drifted ono too-Ashet-twans.1.4.93446,„
neecasa-ef- er
cauvirl-afid-141.4141.XW4WWW0mr9ommi. gartet-,
teaMrs4-Brownswisarefelke came to the question of politics.
"Back home," said she, a little boastfully," I was a Democratic
Committee Woman. But that was when I was married. Now I'm not es-
pecially interested in politics because a working woman has no right
to fool away her time like that. If I had a nice income and a hus-
band to support me, I would then take an interest in politics."
Mrs. Brown mentioned casually that she has allskip and miss re-
ligion."
-26 INAA:
"Sometimes I go to churchireave*ksesimmeirto-
!;494v
breaking her !IllartgLitaa„,t,,ba.,440.4, tin.
Mrs•Brown AhauglistiAsawargaversagerrottitirvirentilamaybritted
"For amusement? Oh, I go driving with my friends. And I like
to read about people. I don't like fiction. I've no time for things
that aren't true."
liams44er, frjen41 r tizta-seitatilated t the aouversa-
t i on with a sly lissaisautten
"Maybe she'd like 3C.,A9 ot'..ler kind of amiso:ult
Mrs. Brown is still a young and good-looking
woman. she'd like to go to an occasional movie with a
ngentleman friend."
15111"alli—Mrt Redmond,
Project #-1655
Rose D. Workman
uharleston County
10
Quickly, with another of her roguish smiles, she answered
my unspoken thought 15;:animem
"I would; But I don't get the chance."