Jane’s Career: A Story of Jamaica
Chapter 14
One Monday morning when she got down to work she found the girls already there in something like a flutter of excitement. As a rule, the changes which took place at Mr Repburn’s moved them not at all; they had no interest in the establishment beyond doing their work and getting their wages on Saturday afternoons. But this morning a new man was to take the place of the old supervisor or foreman, who had been transferred to some other branch of the same establishment; and as this man would directly have to do with them, they confessed to some curiosity as to his disposition.
In advance, they were antagonistic.
“I wonder what sort o’ boss him will be?” asked one young woman, familiarly known to her friends as “Chichi.” “Maybe him is one of those sort o’ people who is never satisfied.”
“Boss?” queried another, “boss? I don’t see we have any boss here at all. If y’u say him is the foreman, well, I can understand y’u; but ‘boss’ is anoder thing altogether. The only boss I know is Mr Repburn himself, an’ he is not interfering wid anybody. An’ I may just as well tell you, me love, that if dis new foreman, or ‘boss’ as you call him, is goin’ to be ignorant, I meck up my mind to clear out an’ leave de work.”
“Hi! what’s up!” exclaimed Chichi. “Things must be all right with you if y’u can leave like dat.”
“No; I don’t know what I will do if I leave here, but dat wouldn’t hinder me. My mother still alive, an’ so long as she have strength an’ can work, I can’t starve.”
“But why them bring a new man in de place?” asked Jane. “We was all getten on so nice wid Mr Charley. Why them discharge him? I doan’t like new people meself, but I can’t afford to chuck up me job too easy.”
“I doan’t think them discharge him,” said Chichi. “I heard Saturday evening that him was goin’ somewhere else.”
“An’ fancy him didn’t say a word about it to any of we!” observed the lady who had already begun to prepare for departure at any moment that the new foreman should offend her. “Them don’t count people in dis place. Them treat y’u as if y’u was a stick. Y’u mean to say Mr Charley couldn’t even say, ‘Good-bye, dog,’ when him was goin’ away Saturday night? An’ now this other man will do de same. In another country it is different; only in Jamaica your labour don’t count.”
She knew no other country; nevertheless she was satisfied that labour elsewhere was more highly regarded than in Jamaica, and her audience agreed with her.
“What kind o’ man him is?” wondered Jane. “Him is old like Mr Charley?”
“I doan’t know,” answered Chichi, “but I hear him is a married man, so him can’t be too young.” Chichi had evidently been making some inquiries about Mr Charley’s successor.
“It’s not because him married him must be old,” objected Jane; “doan’t young man get married too?”
Chichi was about to make some reply when entrance of the person under discussion prevented any further direct reference to him. He had an energetic manner. He well dressed and wa