The heedless girls believe that if they lived in big houses and
possessed pianos and jewelry, the coveted social life would come
to them. I know a Bohemian girl who surreptitiously saved her
overtime wages until she had enough money to hire for a week a
room with a piano in it where young men might come to call, as
they could not do in her crowded untidy home. Of course she had
no way of knowing the sort of young men who quickly discover an
unprotected girl.
Another girl of American parentage who had come to Chicago to
seek her fortune, found at the end of a year that sorting
shipping receipts in a dark corner of a warehouse not only failed
to accumulate riches but did not even bring the "attentions"
which her quiet country home afforded. By dint of long sacrifice
she had saved fifteen dollars; with five she bought an imitation
sapphire necklace, and the balance she changed into a ten dollar
bill. The evening her pathetic little snare was set, she walked
home with one of the clerks in the establishment, told him that
she had come into a fortune, and was obliged to wear the heirloom
necklace to insure its safety, permitted him to see that she
carried ten dollars in her glove for carfare, and conducted him
to a handsome Prairie Avenue residence.
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