'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' — Themes and Context

Having had her say with her dear friend or her dear enemy, as the case may be, our heroine proceeds to the corner and hails a passing street car. Because her heels are so high and her skirts are so snug, she takes about twice the time to climb aboard that a biped in trousers would take. Into the car she comes, teetering and swaying. The car is no more than comfortably filled. True, all the seats at the back where she has entered are occupied; but up at the front there still is room for another sittee or two. Does she look about her to ascertain whether there is any space left? I need not pause for reply. I know it already, and so do you. Midway of the aisle-length she stops and reaches for a strap. She makes an appealing picture, compounded of blindness, helplessness, and discomfort. She has clinging vine written all over her. She craves to cling, but there is no trellis. So she swings from her strap.

The passengers nearest her are all men. She stares at them, accusingly. One of them bends forward to touch her and tell her that there is room for her up forward; but now there aren't any seats left. Male passengers, swinging aboard behind her, have already scrouged on by her and taken the vacant places.

In the mind of one of the men in her immediate vicinity chivalry triumphs over impatience. He gives a shrug of petulance, arises and begs her to have his seat. She is not entitled to it on any ground, save compassion upon his part. By refusing to use the eyes in her head she has forfeited all right to special consideration. But he surrenders his place to her and she takes it.

The car bumps along. The conductor, making his rounds, reaches her. She knows he is coming; at least she should know it. A visit from the conductor has been a feature of every one of the thousands of street-car rides that she has taken in her life. She might have been getting her fare ready for him. There are a dozen handy spots where she might have had a receptacle built for carrying small change--in a pocket in her skirt, in a fob at her belt, in her sleeve or under her cuff. Counting fob pockets and change pockets, a man has from nine to fifteen pockets in his everyday garments. If also he is wearing an overcoat, add at least three more pockets to the total. It would seem that she might have had at least one dependable pocket. But she has none.

The conductor stops, facing her, and meanwhile wearing on his face that air of pained resignation which is common to the faces of conductors on transportation lines that are heavily patronized by women travelers. In mute demand he extends toward her a soiled palm. With hands encased in oversight gloves she fumbles at the catch of a hand bag. Having wrested the hand bag open, she paws about among its myriad and mysterious contents. A card of buttons, a sheaf of samples, a handkerchief, a powder puff for inducing low visibility of the human nose, a small parcel of something, a nail file, and other minor articles are disclosed before she disinters her purse from the bottom of her hand bag. Another struggle with the clasp of the purse ensues; finally, one by one, five coppers are fished up out of the depths and presented to the conductor. The lady has made a difficult, complicated rite of what might have been a simple and a swift formality.

The car proceeds upon its course. She sits in her seat, wearing that look of comfortable self-absorption which a woman invariably wears when she is among strangers, and when she feels herself to be well dressed and making a satisfactory public appearance. She comes out of her trance with a start on discovering that the car has passed her corner or is about to pass it. All flurried, she arises and signals the conductor that she is alighting here. From her air and her expression, we may gather that, mentally, she holds him responsible for the fact that she has been carried on beyond her proper destination.