Dear Diary:
I’ve got to tell you this. Do you know Esperanza and I took in washing today from the men here in the camp, ’cause after all, we just play and play and so it so happened that one of our friends here brought this thing up about us washing his clothes ’cause he doesn’t have any wife, he says, and, the laundry shops are so far-away; besides he says he’s getting tired of washing his own clothes, and he
say he’ll pay us like he would pay the laundry-man. And so he says why don’t you wash some of the boys clothes here, you’ll make some extra money besides dancing on Saturdays and Sundays? And I says, “Gee, that is a very good idea.” And he says “sure” and he says too, that I can wash clothes and iron them pretty good for
a young girl like I am. And so I thank him so much for telling me about washing clothes, and to show he was in earnest, he gave me 4 shirts and 4 pair of underclothes. He says as soon as you wash them and iron, bring them to me and I’ll pay you. Well, Diary, I put his clothes all bundled-up, and put his name on it and I ran out to find Esperanza ’cause I want her in it too. You know, her and I wash and
iron and whatever we make, we’ll divide it equally. I found her, she was talking to Victoria, and so I called her and says, “Let’s go walking,” and she came to me as soon as her legs could carry her. Then when we were far from everyone I told her of the good news. Gee, she was so happy as I was. So, we turned and walk towards the
camp and asked a few more of our friends, all men, if they have any dirty clothes that they would like to be washed. At first they thought we were just joking but when they saw how earnest we were, they all say, “Sure, we have,” but they say, “Be sure and return them nice and clean or else we won’t pay you a cent,” and I caught them winking at each other. Anyway, they know I can wash them, ’cause
they always see the clothes I wash every Monday. Boy, they certainly gave us a great bundle. Anyway, we finished them in three hrs. We hung them late this afternoon about 2:30 but I think they’ll dry before evening comes, ’cause the sun is shining so hot. Tomorrow we will iron again—’cause yesterday we iron our clothes, you know.
Maybe it will take us about half day in iron all the clothes we washed today, but we don’t care, ’cause we know we’ll be paid well for our hard work. Gosh, I’m glad I could really wash, and Esperanza is too, ’cause she doesn’t have much money. You
know the money she earned last Saturday and Sunday, her father took nearly all of it. And so this money we earned washing, well, her father won’t have to know about it. And that way she can keep every cent she’ll get. About my father, well, he let me keep the money I earned, only I don’t want to. One dollar out every dance-
money I earned, is all I want. After all, he saves them and it helps to buy food too. So I don’t worry about my father, he is so good to us. Esperanza and I are tired, but we don’t care. After we finished washing I took her to the store and we had ice cream and vanilla snaps and we walked home slowly and we told stories all the way home. We laughed so much. It was fun, Diary.