“There were big rooms, too, for meetings and parties; places for billiards and bowling and swimming — it was planned for real human enjoyment, like a summer hotel.”
“But I thought you said this place was for women,” I incautiously ventured.
“Oh, Uncle John! And has it never occurred to you that women like to amuse themselves? Or that professional women have men relatives and men friends? There were plenty of men in the building, and plenty more to visit it. They were shown how nice it was, you see. But the chief card was the food and service. This company engaged, at high wages, first-class houseworkers, and the residents paid for them by the hour; and they had a food service which was beyond the dreams of — of — homes, or boarding houses.”
“Your professional women must have been millionaires,” I mildly suggested.
“You think so because you do not understand the food business, Uncle John; nobody did in those days. We were so used to the criminal waste of individual house-keeping, with its pitifully low standards, and to monotonous low-grade restaurant meals, with their waste and extortion, that it never occurred to us to estimate the amount of profit there really was in the business. These far-seeing women were pioneers — but not for long! Dozens are claiming first place now, just as the early ‘Women’s Clubs’ used to.
“They established in that block a meal service that was a wonder for excellence, and for cheapness, too; and people began to learn.”
I was impressed, but not convinced, and she saw it.
“Look here, Uncle John, I hate to use figures on a helpless listener, but you drive me to it.”
Then she reached for the bookcase and produced her evidence, sparingly, but with effect. She showed me that the difference between the expense of hiring separate service and the same number of people patronizing a service company was sufficient to reduce expenses to the patrons and leave a handsome payment for the company
Owen looked on, interpreting to my ignorance.
“You never kept house, old, man,” he said, “nor thought much about it, I expect; but you can figure this out for yourself easily enough. Here were a hundred families, equal to, say, five hundred persons. They hired a hundred cooks, of course; paid them something like six dollars a week — call it five on an average. There’s $500 a week, just for cooks — $26,000 a year!
“Now, as a matter of fact (our learned daughter tells us this), ten cooks are plenty for five hundred persons — at the same price would cost $1,300 a year!”
“Ten are plenty, and to spare,” said Hallie; “but we pay them handsomely. One chef at $3,000; two next bests at $2,000 each, four thousand; two at $1,000 apiece, two thousand; five at $800, four thousand. That’s $18,000 — half what we paid before, and the difference in service between a kitchen maid and a scientific artist.”
“Fifty per cent, saved on wages, and 500 per cent, added to skill,” Owen continued. “And you can go right on and add 90 per cent, saving in fuel, 90 per cent, in plant, 50 per cent, in utensils, and — how much is it, Hallie, in materials?”
Hallie looked very important.
“Even when they first started, when food was shamefully expensive and required all manner of U Jand — ations, L saving was all of 60 per cent. Now it is fully 80 per cent.”
“That makes a good deal all told, Uncle John,” Jerrold quietly remarked, handing me a bit of paper. “You see, it does leave a margin of profit.”
I looked rather helplessly at the figures; also at Hallie.
“It is a shame, Uncle, to hurry you so, but the sooner you get these little matters clear in your head, the better. We have these great food furnishing companies, now, all over the country; and they have market gardens and dairies and so on, of their own. There is a Food Bureau in every city, and a National Food Bureau, with international relations. The best scientific knowledge is used to study food values, to improve old materials and develop new ones; there’s a tremendous gain.”
“But — do the people swallow things as directed by the government?” I protested. “Is there no chance to go and buy what you want to eat when you want it?”
They rose to their feet with one accord. Jerrold seized me by the hand.
“Come on, Uncle!” he cried. “Now is as good a time as any. You shall see our food department — come to scoff and remain to prey — if you like.”
The elevator took us down, and I was led unresistingly among their shining modernities.
“Here is the source of supply,” said Owen, showing where the basement supply room connected with a clean, airy subway under the glass-paved sidewalk. “Ice we make, drinking water we distil, fuel is wired to us; but the food stuffs are brought this way. Come down early enough and you would find these arteries of the city flowing steadily with ”
“Milk and honey,” put in Jerrold.
“With the milk train, the meat train, the vegetable train, and so on.”
“Ordered beforehand?” I asked.
“Ordered beforehand. Up to midnight you may send down word as to the kind of mushrooms you prefer — and no extra charge. During the day you can still order, but there’s a trifle more expense — not much. But most of us are more than content to have our managers cater for us. From the home outfit you may choose at any time. There are lists upstairs, and here is the array.”
There were but few officials in this part of the great establishment at this hour, but we were politely shown about by a scholarly looking man in white linen, who had been reading as we entered. They took me between rows of glass cases, standing as books do in the library, and showed me the day’s baking; the year’s preserves; the fragrant, colorful shelves of such fruit and vegetables as were not fresh picked from day to day.
“We don’t get today’s strawberries till the local ones are ripe,” Jerrold told us.
“These are yesterday’s, and pretty good yet.”
“Excuse me, but those have just come in,” said the white-linen person; “this morning’s picking, from Maryland.”
I tasted them with warm approval. There was a fascinating display of cakes and cookies, some old favorites, some of a new but attractive aspect; and in glass-doored separate ice-chambers, meats, fish, milk, and butter.
“Can people come in here and get what they want, though?” I inquired triumphantly.
“They can, and occasionally they do. But what it will take you some time to realize, John,” my sister explained, “is the different attitude of people toward their food. We are all not only well fed — sufficiently fed — but so wisely fed that we seldom think of wanting anything further. When we do we can order from upstairs, come down to the eating room and order, send to the big depots if it is some rare thing, or even come in like this. To the regular purchasers it is practically free,”
“And how if you are a stranger — a man in the street?”
“In every city in our land you may go into any eating house and find food as good — and cheap — as this,” said Hallie, triumphantly.
