The Prettiest Girl in the Land (The Traherns #3) (3 page)

After the supper dishes were removed, I sat with the girls and
several of the men and looked over their day’s wages.

“You get eighteen cents a day?”

“Yes.”

“And this is today’s wages?”

“Yes.”

“Y’all haven’t spent any of it?”

“No. It’s just like they count it out to us. One, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
sixteen, eighteen. When we try to buy something, they always say we don’t have
enough. But we count it just like they do.”

Sure enough, their count made the money come out right.

“Do y’all see what’s happening?” I asked the group around the
table. They shook their heads. “They’re being cheated.”

I tapped the table in front of the girls. “Put your hands on the
table, spread your fingers.”

When they did so, I asked each one how many fingers they had out
there. One girl knew, “Ten,” and told the other.

“Put a coin under each finger. That’s right. Now make a stack of
those coins. That’s ten cents. To have eighteen, you should have eight more
cents. That means a coin under every finger except two.”

They pulled the coins under their fingers and looked at the four
fingers that didn’t have any coins under them.

“Y’all are missing two coins each. Don’t let them count out to
you. If y’all can’t put your fingers on the money, you don’t have it. They’ll
try to confuse you. Make your stack of ten, then eight more.”

“Ruth, can you teach us to count?” one of the men said. “We’d be
beholden to you.”

“Of course. I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but if some of
you know how, y’all can help the others after I’ve gone. Let me hear what y’all
know.”

They all knew one through ten, then the problems began. So I had
them count to twenty-two, over and over, aloud, together, on their fingers.

It were the first time I’d ever tried to teach anyone what I
knew. It felt good as they began to learn it.

The next morning I gave Travers a quick run, then walked to the
mill with the girls. I gave myself a talking to and braved myself up, then
interviewed with the owner while the girls worked their shift.

He shook his head when I asked for a job using numbers. “I have
a man to handle buying and selling. He has to go down on the docks. And another
one does the weighing and counting. He’s moving heavy containers. I don’t need
anyone else. You could work in the mill with the rest of the women.”

“I do figures in my head. Ask me some.”

So he did and I gave him some answers, but they were easy. He
nodded his head.

“You’re quick, all right, but I got people who handle the
numbers already.” He got up and motioned me to leave.

I started for the door, then stopped, took a breath,
straightened my backbone, then turned back to him. “Is your payroll man
cheating you?” I asked. The owner was a big, burly man and I couldn’t see
anyone getting away with cheating him.

“No. At least he better not be.”

“Have you watched him pay the workers?”

“Yes.”

“If he’s not stealing from you, he’s a’stealing from them. Only
from the ones who can’t count.”

“What do you mean?”

I explained the method of counting the payroll man was using.
“If they don’t know their numbers, he takes some of their pay.”

“I know some who can’t count. The first shift is over and should
be getting their pay right now. Come along.”

We waited outside the door, and the owner asked several to show
him their pay. At first it looked like I was wrong, then three in a row were
two cents short, then another one.

The owner gave them the right amount and took their names.

“I’ve three shifts of workers. If he does this to just a few
workers each shift, every day, he is getting away with at least an extra day’s
wages. And giving me a poor reputation. Would you like his job?”

“No. If you had a counter of some kind, a wooden holder where
the workers could see that they were getting the right amount, you could hire
anyone for that job.” I told him how the girls were to use their fingers.

“Let’s see if they do it. Stay around until their shift is
over.”

He took me to lunch with him at his club. It was all fancy, with
tablecloths on the tables and china so thin I was afraid to touch it with my
fork. I looked so out of place in my travelin’ gear, I wanted to hide. But the
mill owner said he didn’t care, so neither should I. I watched what he used to
eat with, of the extra silver, and copied him.

We had us a fancy meal, of shrimp brought up from the gulf. I’d
never had that before, but it was right tasty and I told him so.

Then he called three other men over to our table.

“Ruth, this is Mr. Henry Debras, Mr. Will Franklin, and Monseiur
La Breu. They are owners in companies who might be able to use your talents.
Gentlemen, this is Ruth Trahern. She is the fastest, and most accurate, person
I’ve ever come across when it comes to moving figures around.”

They said “Hello,” and looked at me like I had two heads.

“Well,” Mr. Franklin said, “if Henry here had three thousand
pounds of cotton, fifty drums of cottonseed oil, six hundred and twenty pounds
of linseed, and wanted to ship it one hundred twenty miles at two cents a
pound, what would it cost him?”

“How many pounds in a drum?” I asked.

“Fifty.”

I rolled them around in my mind a minute. “A hundred twenty two
dollars and forty cents.” I said.

He nodded. “That’s right. I just paid that.”

“Try mine,” Mr. Debras said. He was short and balder than a
peeled egg. He pulled out a piece of paper already filled with figures and read
it off to me.

“That would be sixty two dollars and twelve cents.”

“Sixty one,” he said.

I rechecked my mind. “No. Sixty two. You’re short a dollar.”

He sat down, took out a pencil stub and started figuring.

The next gent asked me a question about miles and I converted
it.

“How do you do that?” asked Mr. Franklin.

“Was always able to,” I replied. “Numbers and me like each
other. They just line up and make sense.”

Mr. Debras stood up and put his paper away. “She’s right. I was
off a dollar.” He looked at me. “Young lady, you say you’re looking for a job.
What kind of a job do you want? I have several places in our company where I could
use you.”

“Sir, I’m plannin to see some country. Startin with California
and parts in between. I want work so I can go out there, get me an eyeful, then
go wherever else I can go. I figure I’ll have to work a year or more to earn
enough. So I’m looking for a high-payin job so’s I can get there quicker.”

“How about you work here for me until you can prove you handle
the job. If you can, I’ll send you to California to work the shipping at that
end. You’ll work out there under my brother, who is great with everything but
numbers. The clerk who’s with him right now is better than most, but when he
makes a mistake, nobody catches him, and they are costing me thousands of
dollars.”

“That was just what I was a’lookin for.”

“Here’s the address of my company. Be there tomorrow morning at
seven.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Warren.” He nodded to the mill owner who had brought
me to lunch.

“We can’t beat his offer. Good luck, young lady.” The other two
tipped their hats and left.

“Was that what you were looking for?” the mill owner asked.

“Exactly. Thank you.”

“Well, let’s go back and watch my clerk pay the second shift.
And while we’re waiting for that, show me what you have in mind to keep this
short change from happening again.”

So I showed him—a flat plank of wood with very shallow
holes, one for each coin. The worker could quickly see if he was getting all
the money coming to him.

We went to his machinist and he ordered up several different
ones to pay different wages. He had the amount burned into each plank, and made
sure the planks didn’t look alike.

“That ought to make it harder to cheat my workers,” he said.

He carried the planks with us, signaled two heavyset men to
follow along, and we went back to where we could watch the payments being made.
My two girls were in line. When they were paid, they put their fingers on the
coins and told the clerk he hadn’t given them enough.

“That’s what you always get,” he snapped. “Now move on, so the
rest can get their wages.” He shoved them aside with one arm, and the men behind
jostled them, so they looked bewildered.

“You aint givin us the right amount,” the older one said.
“You’re cheatin us.”

“Take it up with management,” the man said, and looked past
them, then blanched white when he saw the mill owner standing there.

“What seems to be the problem?” the owner asked, and I would’ve
hated to be that cheatin man at that moment.

“These girls, sir, they can’t count so they—”

“Don’t know when you’re cheating them?” the owner put in. He
stepped up to the counter, grabbed the man by the back of his collar and shook
him. “Where’s their money?”

The man glanced down and the mill owner reached down to where
he’d looked and pulled up a sack of coins that the man had been filling with
money he’d taken from the wages.

“You men see what he’s been doing?” The other workers nodded,
angry at him.

“Now he’s only been doing it to those of you who can’t count.
That’s not many, but enough so that he’s filled this bag today. See these
planks? If you can’t count, you ask for your money to be laid out on these
planks so you can see what you’re getting. This is for the weavers, like these
gals. This one’s for the general mill workers. And this is for the boys who
sweep and run errands.

“Now Mr. Marteen is going to pay you folks while I get as much
of your wages back as I can from this cheat, who will no longer be working
here. I thank you for your labor. I did not know this was happening. It took
this young lady here, who does not know the meaning of fear, to step up and
tell me what was going on. From now on, I want to hear from you if anything
like this happens again.”

He set the bag of money on the counter. “How long have you been
working here?” he asked my two girls.

“Three months, sir.”

“And have you always been paid by this man?”

“Yes, sir.”

“At four cents a day, how much did he take from them?” he asked
me.

“Do they work every day?”

“Yes.”

“Three dollars and sixty eight cents. A dollar eighty four
each.”

“Here’s two dollars each, and my apologies.”  He counted it
out to them, looked over the room. “If you can count, he probably didn’t try to
steal from you. If you can’t, come to the office tomorrow before your shift.
We’ll work out what is comin to you.”

He said goodbye to me and thanked me again. It made me feel real
proud to think I could help someone like that. If’n I hadn’t spoke up, that
cheat would still be a’stealin.

The girls were waiting for me outside, all excited.

“You did it,” the youngest said.

“Yes, you caught the crook.”

“And it warn’t the mill owner who was cheatin’ us.”

“That’s right,” I told them. “He didn’t like it none, that he
was paying the wages and you folks warn’t getting all of it. Gave him a bad
name.”

“What’s he going to do?”

“I don’t know. Toss the thief in jail, I reckon. Make him work
off the money he stole. When they pay you all tomorrow, have them lay it out on
that plank, so you can see that you’re getting the right wage.”

“He gave us two whole dollars each.”

“Yes. Put it in the bank, if you wish to save it to use later.”

“We don’t know how to use the bank. But we need dresses. One
each. And a coat.”

“Then go get those things.”

“Would you come with us?”

“I can’t. I just started a job. But the landlady seems a
motherly sort. See who she recommends to help you get your clothes.”

“And shoes. I’ve been patchin’ mine together.” She lifted one
foot. The leather had thinned out so much I could see her socks through the
holes.

“Make sure y’all buy your shoes first,” I told them. “Y’all can
always keep wearing your dresses for a bit longer, but get some shoes that’ll
hold you a spell.”

We got back to the boarding house and I took Travers out and let
him have a long run. He’d been plenty of comfort to me whilst I was traveling
the hills, but here in town he was purty big. It was a mite cozy with him in my
room, cause he took up half of it.

Now I know he was well enough behaved or he wouldn’t have lasted
long at the store. But his size and looks would scare a haunt out of its sheet.
You wouldn’t want to meet him in the dark.