WORKING WITH THE WORKING WOMAN

 _By_ CORNELIA STRATTON PARKER _Author of_ “AN AMERICAN IDYLL”

 NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS _MCMXXII_

 WORKING WITH THE WORKING WOMAN

 Copyright, 1922, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America

 CONTENTS

 PAGE

 INTRODUCTION vii

I. NO. 1075 PACKS CHOCOLATES 1

II. 286 ON BRASS 42

III. 195 IRONS “FAMILY” 75

IV. IN A DRESS FACTORY 109

V. NO. 536 TICKETS PILLOW CASES 137

VI. NO. 1470, “PANTRY GIRL” 173

 CONCLUSION 226

 INTRODUCTION

The number of books on the labor problem is indeed legion. The tragedyof the literature on any dynamic subject is that most of it is writtenby people who have time to do little else. Perhaps the best books onmany subjects will never be written because those folk, who would bemost competent to do the writing, through their vital connection withthe problem at hand, never find the spare minutes to put theirfindings down on paper. 

There could be no more dynamic subject than labor, since labor isnothing less than human beings, and what is more dynamic than humanbeings? It is, therefore, the last subject in the world to beapproached academically. Yet most of the approach to the problems oflabor is academic. Men in sanctuaries forever far removed from theendless hum and buzz and roar of machinery, with an intellectualbackground and individual ambitions forever far removed from theinterests and desires of those who labor in factory and mill, theorize—and another volume is added to the study of labor. 

But, points out some one, there are books on labor written bybona-fide workers. First, the number is few. Second, and moreimportant, any bona-fide worker capable of writing any kind of book onany subject, puts himself so far above the rank and file that one isjustified in asking, for how many does he speak?

Suppose that for the moment your main intellectual interest was toascertain what the average worker—not the man or woman so faradvanced in the cultural scale that he or she can set his ideasintelligently on paper—thought about his job and things in general. To what books could you turn? Indeed I have come to feel that in thepages of O. Henry there is more to be gleaned on the psychology of theworking class than any books to be found on economic shelves. Theoutstanding conclusion forced upon any reader of such books asconsciously attempt to give a picture of the worker and his job isthat whoever wrote the books was bound and determined to find outeverything that was wrong in every investigation made, and tell allabout the wrongs and the wrongs only. Goodness knows, if one ishunting for the things which should be improved in this world, onelife seems all too short to so much as make a start. In all honesty, then, such books on labor should be classified under “Troubles ofWorkers. ” No one denies they are legion. Everybody's troubles are, iftroubles are what you want to find. 

The Schemer of Things has so arranged, praise be, that no one's lifeshall be nothing but woe and misery. Yea, even workers have been knownto smile. 

 * * * * *

The experiences lived through in the following pages may strike thereader as superficial, artificial. In a way they were. Yet, theyfulfilled their object in my eyes, at least. I wanted to feel formyself the general “atmosphere” of a job, several jobs. I wanted toknow the worker without any suspicion on the part of the girls andwomen I labored among that they were being “investigated. ” I wanted tosee the world through their eyes—for the time being to close my ownaltogether. 

There are no startling new facts or discoveries here recorded. Nothingin these pages will revolutionize anything. To such as wish the lot ofthe worker painted as the most miserable on earth, they will bedisappointing. 

Yet in being as honest as I could in recording the impressions of myexperiences, I am aware that I have made possible the drawing of falseconclusions. Already such false conclusions have been drawn. “See, ”says an “old-fashioned” employer, “the workers are happy—thesearticles of Mrs. Parker's show it. Why should they have betterconditions? They don't want them!”

A certain type of labor agitator, or a “parlor laborite, ” prefer tosee only the gloomy side of the worker's life. They are as dishonestas the employer who would see only the contentment. The picture mustbe viewed in its entirety—and that means considering the workers notas a labor problem, but as a social problem. Workers are not anisolated group, who keep their industrial adversities or industrialblessings to themselves. They and their families and dependents arethe majority of our population. As a nation, we rise no higher in thelong run than the welfare of the majority. Nor can the word “welfare, ”if one thinks socially, ever be limited to the word “contentment. ” Itis quite conceivable—nay, every person has seen it in actuality—thatan individual may be quite contented in his lot and yet have that lotincompatible with the welfare of the larger group. 

It is but as a part of the larger group that worker, employer, and thepublic must come to view the labor problem. When a worker is found whoappears perfectly amenable to long hours, bad air, unhygienicconditions in general—and many are—somebody has to pay the price. There are thousands of contented souls, as we measure contentment, inthe congested tenement districts of East Side New York. Does that factadd to our social welfare? Because mothers for years were willing tofeed their children bad milk, was then the movement to provide goodmilk for babies a waste of time and money? Plenty of people alwayscould be found who would willingly drink impure water. Society foundthat too costly, and cities pride themselves to-day on their purewater supply and low typhoid rate. 

There are industrial conditions flourishing which insidiously take agreater toll of society than did ever the death of babies from uncleanmilk, the death of old and young from impure water. The trouble isthat their effects permeate in ways difficult for the unwilling eye tosee. 

Perhaps in the long run, one of the most harmful phases of moderncivilization is this very contentment of not only the workers, but theemployer and society at large, under conditions which are not buildingup a wholesome, healthy, intelligent population. Indeed, it is not somuch the fault of modern industrialism as such. Perhaps it is becausethere are so many people in the world and the ability of us humanbeings, cave men only ten thousand years ago, to care for so manypeople has not increased with the same rapidity as the population. Ournumbers have outrun our capacities. Twentieth century developmentcalls for large-scale organization for which the human mind has shownitself inadequate. 

It is well to keep in mind that no situation is the product of its ownday. The working woman, for instance, we have had with us since thebeginning of women—and they began a good spell ago. The problem ofthe working woman, as we think of it to-day, began with the beginningof modern industry. Nor is it possible to view her past withoutrealizing that the tendency has ever been, with but few interruptions, toward improvement. 

In the early factory days in our country it is known that women roseat four, took their breakfast with them to the mills, and by five werehard at work in badly constructed buildings, badly heated, badlylighted. From seven-thirty to eight-thirty there was an hour forbreakfast, at noon half an hour, and from then on steady work untilhalf past seven at night. It would be perhaps eight o'clock before themill girls reached home, sometimes too tired to stay awake till theend of supper. Later, hours were more generally from five in themorning until seven at night. In Lowell the girls worked two hoursbefore breakfast and went back to the mills again in the evening aftersupper. By 1850 twelve hours had come to be the average workingday. [1]

 [Footnote 1: Abbot, _Women in Industry_. ]

Wages were very low—around seventy-five cents or a dollar a week withboard. Mills and factories were accustomed to provide room and boardin the corporation boarding houses, poorly constructed, ill-ventilatedbuildings, girls often sleeping six and eight in a room. In 1836 itwas estimated that the average wage for women in industry (excludingboard) was thirty-seven and one-half cents a day, although onethousand sewing women investigated received on an average twenty-fivecents a day. In 1835 the New York _Journal of Commerce_ estimated thatat the beginning of the century women's labor brought about fiftycents a week, which was equivalent to twenty-five cents in 1835. In1845 the New York _Tribune_ reported fifty thousand women averagingless than two dollars a week wages, and thousands receiving one dollarand fifty cents. Another investigation in 1845 found “female labor inNew York in a deplorable degree of servitude, privation and misery, drudging on, miserably cooped up in ill-ventilated cellars andgarrets. ” Women worked fifteen to eighteen hours a day to earn one tothree dollars a week. 

And yet authorities tell us that some of the mill towns of NewEngland, Lowell in particular, are looked back upon as being almostidyllic as regards the opportunities for working women. On examinationit is found that what was exceptional from our point of view was notthe conditions, but the factory employees. In those days work in themills was “socially permissible. ” Indeed there was practically noother field of employment open to educated girls. The old domesticlabors had been removed from the household—where could a girl withspirit and ability make the necessary money to carry out herlegitimate desires? Her brothers “went west”—she went into thefactories—with the same spirit. Ambitious daughters of New Englandfarmers formed the bulk of cotton mill employees the first half of thenineteenth century. Their granddaughters are probably collegegraduates of the highest type to-day. After the long factory hoursthey found time for reading, debating clubs, lectures, churchactivities, French, and German classes. Part of the time some of themill operatives taught school. Many of them looked forward tofurthering their own education in such female seminaries as existed inthose days, the expense to be met from their mill earnings. Poorlypaid as mill hands were, it was often six to seven times what teachersreceived. 

“The mills offered not only regular employment and higher wages, buteducational advantages which many of the operatives prized even morehighly. Moreover, the girl who had worked in Lowell was looked uponwith respect as a person of importance when she returned to her ruralneighborhood. Her fashionable dress and manners and her general air ofindependence were greatly envied by those who had not been to themetropolis and enjoyed its advantages. ”[2]

 [Footnote 2: Abbot, _Women in Industry_. ]

By 1850 the situation had altered. With the opening of the west, opportunities for women of gumption and spirit increased. Theindustrial depression of 1848-49 lowered wages, and little by littlethe former type of operative left the mill, her place being filledlargely by Irish immigrants. 

The Civil War saw a great change in the world of working women. Thousands of men were taken from industry into war, and overnightgreat new fields of opportunity were opened to women. The moreeducated were needed as nurses, for teaching positions, and forvarious grades of clerical work deserted by men. After the close ofthe war farmers became more prosperous and their daughters were notforced to work for the wherewithal to acquire advantages. Add to allthis the depression caused in the cotton industry due to the war—andthe result of these new conditions was that when the mills reopened itwas with cheap immigrant labor. What then could have been consideredhigh wages were offered in an attempt to induce the more efficientAmerican women operatives back to the mills, but the cost of livinghad jumped far higher even than high wages. The mills held no furtherattractions. Even the Irish deserted, their places being filled withimmigrants of a lower type. 

Since the Civil War look at us—8, 075, 772 women in industry, asagainst 2, 647, 157 in 1880. Almost a fourth of the entire femalepopulation over ten years of age are at work, as against aboutone-seventh in 1880. The next census figures will show a still largerproportion. Those thousands of women the World War threw intoindustry, who never had worked before, did not all get out of industryafter the war. Take just the railroads, for example. In April, 1918, there were 65, 816 women employed in railroad work; in October, 1918, 101, 785; and in April, 1919, 86, 519. In the 1910 census, of all thekinds of jobs in our country filled by men, only twelve were not alsofilled by women—and the next census will show a reduction there:firemen (either in manufacturing or railroads), brakemen, conductors, plumbers, common laborers (under transportation), locomotiveengineers, motormen, policemen, soldiers, sailors, and marines. Theinteresting point is that in only one division of work are womendecreasing in proportion to men—and that was women's work at thebeginning—manufacturing. In agriculture, in the professions, indomestic and personal service, in trade and transportation, the numberof women is creeping up, up, in proportion to the number of men. Fromthe point of view of national health and vitality for this and thenext generation, it is indeed a hopeful sign if women are giving wayto men in factories, mills, and plants, and pushing up into workrequiring more education and in turn not demanding such physical andnervous strain as does much of the machine process. Also, since onthe whole as it has been organized up to date, domestic service hasbeen one of the least attractive types of work women could fill, it isencouraging (though not to the housewife) to find that the proportionof women going into domestic and personal service has fallen fromforty-four and six-tenths per cent, in 1880, to thirty-two andfive-tenths per cent, in 1910. 

Women working at everything under the sun—except perhaps beinglocomotive engineers and soldiers and sailors. Why?

First, it is part of every normal human being to want to work. Therefore, women want to work. Time was when within the home wereenough real life-sized jobs to keep a body on the jump morning andnight. Not only mother but any other females handy. There are thosewho grumble that women could find enough to do at home now if theyonly tried. They cannot, unless they have young children or unlessthey putter endlessly at nonessentials, the doing of which leaves themand everybody else no better off than before they began. And it ispart of the way we are made that besides wanting to work, we need towork at something we feel “gets us some place. ” We prefer to work atsomething desirable and useful. Perhaps what we choose is not reallyso desirable and useful, looked at in the large, but it stacks up asmore desirable and more useful than something else we might be doing. And with it all, if there is to be any real satisfaction, must go somefeeling of independence—of being on “one's own. ”

So, then, women go out to work in 1921 because there is not enough todo to keep them busy at home. They follow in part their age-oldcallings, only nowadays performed in roaring factories instead of bythe home fireside. In part they take to new callings. Whatever the jobmay be, women _want_ to work in preference to the nonproductiveness ofmost home life to-day. 

Graham Wallas, in his _Great Society_, quotes the answers given by anumber of girls to a woman who held their confidence as to why theyworked. He wished to learn if they were happy. The question meant tothe girls evidently, “Are you happier than you would have been athome?” and practically every answer was “Yes. ”

In a “dismal and murky, ” but fairly well-managed laundry, six Irishgirls all answered they were happy. One said the work “took up hermind, she had been awfully discontented. ” Another that “you were ofsome use. ” Another, “the hours went so much faster. At home one couldread, but only for a short time. Then there was the awful lonesomeafternoon ahead of you. ” “Asked a little girl with dyed hair but agood little heart. She enjoyed her work. It made her feel she wasworth something. ”

At another laundry, the first six girls all answered they were happybecause the “work takes up your mind, ” and generally added, “It'sawful lonesome at home, ” or “there is an awful emptiness at home. ”However, one girl with nine brothers and sisters was happy in thecollar packing room just because “it was so awful lonesome”—shecould enjoy her own thoughts. An Irishwoman at another laundry who hadmarried an Italian said, “Sure I am always happy. It leaves me no timeto think. ” At a knitting plant one girl said “when she didn't work, she was always thinking of dead people, but work always made her cheerup directly. ”

The great industrial population comes from crowded tenements. It isinconceivable that enough work could be found within those walls tomake life attractive to the girls and young women growing to maturityin such households. 

So much for the psychological side. The fact remains that the greatbulk of women in industry work because they _have_ to work—they enterindustrial life to make absolutely necessary money. The old tasks atwhich a woman could be self-supporting in the home are no longerpossible in the home. She earns her bread now as she has earned it forthousands of years—spinning, weaving, sewing, baking, cooking—onlyto-day she is one of hundreds, thousands in a great factory. Nor isshe longer confined to her traditional tasks. Men are playing a largerpart in what was since time began and up to a few years ago woman'swork. Women, in their need, are finding employment at any work thatcan use unskilled less physically capable labor. 

Ever has it been the very small proportion of men who could by theirunaided effort support the entire family. At no time have all the menin a country been able to support all the women, regardless ofwhether that situation would be desirable. Always must the aid ofwomenfolk be called in as a matter of course. We have a national idealof a living wage to the male head of the family which will allow himto support his family without forcing his wife and children intoindustry. Any man who earns less than that amount during the year mustdepend on the earnings of wife and children or else fall below theminimum necessary to subsistence, with all which that implies. In1910, four-fifths of the heads of families in the United States earnedunder eight hundred dollars a year. At that same time, almostnine-tenths of the women workers living at home in New York Cityworking in factories, mills, and such establishments, paid theirentire earnings to the family. Of 13, 686 women investigated inWisconsin in 1914, only 2 per cent gave nothing to the family support. Of girls in retail stores living at home in New York City, 84 per centpaid their entire earnings to the family. Work, then, for the majorityof women, is more apt to be cold economic necessity—not only forherself, but for her family. 

Besides the fact that great numbers of women must work and many wantto work, there are the reasons for women's work arising in modernindustry itself. First, a hundred years ago, there was the need forhands in the new manufactures, and because of the even more pressingagricultural demands, men could not be spared. The greater thesubdivisions of labor up to a certain point, the simpler the process, and the more women can be used, unskilled as they are ever apt to be. Also they will work at more monotonous, more disagreeable work thanmen, and for less wages. Again, women's entrance into new industrieshas often been as strike breakers, and once in, there was no way toget them out. Industrial depressions throw men out of work, and alsowomen, and in the financial pressure following, women turn to any sortof work at any sort of pay, and perhaps open a new wedge for women'swork in a heretofore untried field, desirable or undesirable. 

The freedom from having to perform every and all domestic functionswithin the four walls of home is purchased at the expense of millionsof toilers outside the home, the majority of whom do not to-dayreceive enough wages, where they are the menfolk, to support their ownfamilies; nor where they are single women, to support themselves. Thefact that men cannot support their families forces women in largenumbers into industry. There would be nothing harmful in that, if onlyindustry were organized so that participation in it enriched humanlives. Remembering always that where industry takes women from thecare of young children, society and the nation pay dearly; for, inadequate and ignorant as mothers often are regarding child care, their substitutes to-day are apt to be even less efficient. 

Pessimists marshal statistics to show that modern industrialism isgoing to rack and ruin. Maybe it is. But pessimism is more a matter oftemperament than statistics. An optimist can assemble a most cheerfularray of figures to show that everything is on the up. Temperamentagain. Industry is what industry does. If you are feeling gloomyto-day, you can visit factories where it is plain to see that no humanbeing could have his lot improved by working there. Such factoriescertainly exist. If you would hug your pessimism to your soul, thenthere are many factories you must stay away from. Despite all thepessimists, there is a growing tendency to increase the welfare ofhuman beings in industry. 

It is but an infinitesimal drop any one individual can contribute tohasten a saner industrialism. Yet some of us would so fain contributeour mite! Where the greatest need of all lies is that the human beingsin industry, the employer and the employees, shall better understandone another, and society at large better understand both. My ownamateur and humble experiences here recorded have added much to my ownunderstanding of the problems of both manager and worker. 

Can they add even a fraction to the understanding of anyone else?

 CORNELIA STRATTON PARKER. 

 Woods Hole, _August_, 1921. 

 WORKING WITH THE WORKING WOMAN

 I

 _No. 1075 Packs Chocolates_

Wise heads tell us we act first—or decide to act first—and reasonafterward. Therefore, what could be put down in black and white as towhy we took up factory work is of minor value or concern. Yet everyonepersists in asking why? So then, being merely as honest as the Lordallows, we answer first and foremost because we wanted to. Isn't thatenough? It is the why and wherefore of almost everything anyone doesany place at any time. Only the more adept can concoct much weightierreasons as an afterthought. There is only one life most of us doubtinghumans are absolutely sure of. That one life gets filled with so muchof the same sort of performance day in and day out; usually only anunforeseen calamity—or stroke of luck—throws us into a way of livingand doing things which is not forever just as we lived and did thingsyesterday and the day before. 

Yet the world is so full of the unexplored! To those who care more forpeople than places, around every corner is something new—a world onlydreamt of, if that. Why should all one's life be taken up with thekind of people we were born among, doing the sort of things our auntsand our uncles and our cousins and our friends do? Soon there creepsin—soon? yes, by six years or younger—that comforting belief that aswe and our aunts and our uncles and our cousins and our friends do, sodoes—or should do—the world. And all the time we and our aunts andour uncles and our cousins and our friends are one littleinfinitesimal drop in one hundred million people, and what those aboveand below and beyond and around about think and do, we know nothing, nor care nothing, about. But those others are the world, with us, aspeck of—well, in this case it happened to be curiosity—in the midstof it all. 

Therefore, being curious, we decided to work in factories. In additionto wanting to feel a bona-fide part of a cross section of the worldbefore only viewed second or third hand through books, there was thedesire better to understand the industrial end of things by trying aturn at what some eight million or so other women are doing. “Women'splace is the home. ” All right—that side of life we know first hand. But more and more women are not staying home, either from choice orfrom necessity. Reading about it is better than nothing. Being anactive part of it all is better still. It is one thing to lounge on anoverstuffed davenport and read about the injurious effect on women oflong hours of standing. It is another to be doing the standing. 

Yet another reason for giving up some months to factory work, besidesthe adventure of it, besides the desire to see other angles of lifefor oneself, to experience first hand the industrial end of it. Somuch of the technic of the world to-day we take as a matter of course. Clothes appear ready to put on our backs. As far as we know or care, angels left them on the hangers behind the mirrored sliding doors. Food is set on our tables ready to eat. It might as well have beencreated that way, for all our concern. The thousands of operationsthat go into an article before the consumer buys it—no, there is noreason why use and want should make us callous and indifferent to thehows and wherefores. Never was there such an age. Let's poke behindthe scenes a bit. 

So, factories it was to be. Not as a stranger snooping in to“investigate. ” As a factory girl working at her job—with all that, wedetermined to peek out of the corner of our eyes, and keep both earsto the wind, lest we miss anything from start to finish. Artificial, of course. Under the circumstances, since we were born how and as wewere, and this had happened and that, we were not an honest Eyetalianliving in a back bedroom on West Forty-fourth Street near the river. 

We did what we could to feel the part. Every lady in the land knowsthe psychology of dress—though not always expressed by her in thoseterms. She feels the way she looks, not the other way round. So then, we purchased large green earrings, a large bar pin of platinum andbrilliants ($1. 79), a goldy box of powder (two shades), a lip stick. During the summer we faded a green tam-o'shanter so that it would notlook too new. For a year we had been saving a blue-serge dress(original cost $19) from the rag bag for the purpose. We wore a pairof old spats which just missed being mates as to shade, and a buttonoff one. Silk stockings—oh yes, silk—but very darned. A bluesweater, an orange scarf, and last, but not least—

If you had been brought up in a fairly small city by female relativeswho were one and all school-teachers, who had watched over yourvocabulary (unsuccessfully) as they hung over your morals; if you hadbeen taught, not in so many words, but insidiously, that breaking theTen Commandments (any one or the entire ten), split infinitives, andchewing gum, were one in the sight of God, or the devil—then youcould realize the complete metamorphosis when, in addition to theearrings and the bar pin, the green tam and the lip stick, you steppedup to the Subway newsstand and boldly demanded a package of—chewinggum. And then and there got out a stick and chewed it, and chewed iton the Subway and chewed it on the streets of New York. Some peoplehave to go to a masquerade ball to feel themselves some one else for achange. Others, if they have been brought up by school-teachers, canget the same effect with five cents' worth of chewing gum. 

After all, one of the most attractive features about being “wellbrought up” is the fun of sloughing off. The fun of sloughing off alot at once! Had it ever been known ahead of time the fascination ofdoing forbidden things, just that first factory morning would havebeen worth the whole venture. To read the morning paper over otherpeople's shoulders—not furtively, but with a bold and open eye. Tostare at anything which caught one's attention. (Bah! all that ismissed in New York because it has been so ground into the bone that itis impolite to stare!) And to talk to any one, male or female, wholooked or acted as if he or she wanted to talk to you. Only even ashort experience has taught that that abandon leads to more troublethan it is worth. What a pity mere sociability need suffer so muchrepression! We hate to make that concession to our upbringers. 

When the time for beginning factory work came there appeared but oneadvertisement among “Help Wanted—Female” which did not call for“experience. ” There might have to be so much lying, direct andindirect, to do. Better not start off by claiming experience whenthere was absolutely none—except, indeed, had we answeredadvertisements for cooks only, or baby tenders, or maids of all work. One large candy factory bid for “girls and women, good wages to start, experience not necessary, ” and in a part of town which could bereached without starting out the night before. At 7. 15 of a Mondaymorning we were off, with a feeling something akin to stage fright. Once we heard a hobo tell of the first time he ever tried to get on afreight train in the dark of night when it was moving. But we chewedour gum very boldly. 

One of the phases of finding a job often criticized by those who wouldadd somewhat of dignity to labor is the system of hiring. Like a lotof other things, perhaps, you don't mind the present system if you getby. Here was this enormous good-looking factory. On one side of thefront steps, reaching all the way up into the main entrance hall, stood a line of men waiting for jobs; on the other side, though notnear so long a line, the girls. The regular employees file by. Atlast, about eight o'clock, the first man is beckoned. Just behind thecorner of a glassed-in telephone booth, but in full view of all, he isquestioned by an employee in a white duck suit. Man after man is senton out, to the growing discouragement, no doubt, of those remaining inline. At last, around a little corner in the stairs, the first girl issummoned. The line moves up. A queer-looking man with pop eyes asks afew questions. The girl goes on upstairs. I am fourth in line—a steamheater next and the actions of my insides make the temperature seem120 at least. My turn. 

“How much experience you've had?”

“None. ”

“What you work in last?”

“Didn't work in a factory—been doin' housework—takin' care of kids. ”

“Well, I start you packing. You get thirteen dollars this week, fourteen dollars next—you understand?”

He writes something on a little card and I go upstairs with it. ThereI am asked my name, age (just did away with ten years while I was atit). Married or single? Goodness! hadn't thought of that. In the end alie there would make less conversation. Single. Nationality—Eyetalian?No, American. It all has to be written on a card. At that point my eyelights on a sign which reads: “Hours for girls 8 A. M. -6 P. M. Saturdays8-12. ” Whew! My number is 1075. The time clock works so. My key hangson this hook; then after I ring up, it hangs here. (That was anentrancing detail I had not anticipated—made me wish we had to ring upat noon as well as morning and night. ) Locker key 222. A man takes mein the elevator to the third floor and there hands me over to Ida. Thelocker works thus and so. Didn't I have no apron? No—but to-morrow I'dbring it, and a cap. Sure. 

Three piles of boxes and trucks and barrels and Ida opens a great doorlike a safe, and there we are in the packing room—from the steamheater downstairs to the North Pole. Cold? Nothing ever was so cold. Ten long zinc-topped tables, a girl or two on each side. At the right, windows which let in no air and little light, nor could you see out atall. On the left, shelves piled high with wooden boxes. Mostly all abody can think of is how cold, cold, cold it is. Something happens tochocolates otherwise. 

That first day it is half-pound boxes. My side of the table holds somesixty at a time. First the date gets stamped on the bottom, thenpartitions are fitted in. “Here's your sample. Under the table you'llfind the candies, or else ask Fannie, there. You take the paper cupsso, in your left hand, give them a snap so, lick your fingers now andthen, slip a cup off, stick the candy in with your right hand. ” AndIda is off. 

The saints curse the next person who delicately picks a chocolate fromits curled casing and thinks it grew that way—came born in that papercup. May he or she choke on it! Can I ever again buy chocolatesotherwise than loose in a paper bag? You push and shove—not a cupbudges from its friends and relatives. Perhaps your fingers need morelicking. Perhaps the cups need more “snapping. ” In the end you hold ahandful of messed-up crumpled erstwhile cup-shaped paper containers, the first one pried off looking more like a puppy-chewed mat by thetime it is loose and a chocolate planted on its middle. By then, needless to remark, the bloom is off the chocolate. It has the look ofbeing clutched in a warm hand during an entire circus parade. Whereatyou glance about furtively and quickly eat it. It is nice the room iscold; already you fairly perspire. One mussed piece of naked brownpaper in a corner of a box. 

The table ahead, fingers flying like mad over the boxes, works Annie. It is plain she will have sixty boxes done before I have one. Justthen a new girl from the line of that morning is put on the other sideof my table. She is very cold. She fares worse with brown paper cupsthan I. Finally she puts down the patient piece of chocolate candyand takes both hands to the job of separating one cup from the others. She places what is left of the chocolate in the middle of what is leftof the paper, looks at me, and better than any ouija board I know whatis going on in her head. I smile at her, she smiles back, and she eatsthat first chocolate. Tessie and I are friends for life. 

Then we tackle the second union of chocolate and paper. Such is life. Allah be praised, the second goes a shade less desperately than thefirst, the third than the second, and in an hour chocolate and paperget together without untoward damage to either. But the room staysfeeling warm. Anon a sensation begins to get mixed up with the hecticefforts of fingers. Yes, yes—now it's clear what it is—feet! Is onenever to sit down again as long as one lives? Clumsy fingers—feet. Feet—clumsy fingers. Finally you don't give a cent if you never learnto pry those paper cups loose without wrenching your very soul in theeffort. If once before you die—just once—you can sit down! Till 12and then after, 1 till 6. Help!

A bell rings. “All right, girls!” sings Ida down the line. Everyonedrops everything, and out into the warm main third floor we go. Allthe world is feet. Somehow those same feet have to take theirpossessor out to forage for food. Into a little dirty, crowded groceryand delicatessen store we wedge ourselves, to stand, stand, stand, until at last we face the wielder of a long knife. When in Rome do asthe Romans do. “A bologna and a ham sandwich and five cents' worth ofpickles. ” Slabs of rye bread, no butter, large, generous slices ofsausage and ham which hang down curtainlike around the bread—twenty-onecents. Feet take me back to the factory lunch room. At last I flop ona chair. Sing songs to chairs; write poems to chairs; paint chairs!

Dear German Tessie, pal of the morning, she who ate more chocolatesthan I and thus helped to sustain my moral courage—Tessie and I eatbologna sausage sandwiches together and _sit_. The feet of Tessie arevery, very badly off—ach!—but they feel—they feel—jus' fierce—andtill six o'clock—“Oh, my Gawd!” says Tessie, in good English. 

A gong sounds. Up we go to the ice box packing room. It sends theshivers down our spines. But already there is a feeling of saunteringin like an old hand at the game. What's your business in life? Packingchocolates. The half-pound boxes get finished, wax paper on top, covered, stacked, counted, put on the truck. 

“Lena! Start the girl here in on 'assorteds. '”

Pert little Lena sidles up alongside and nudges me in the ribs. 

“Say, got a fella?”

I give Lena one look, for which Belasco should pay me a thousanddollars a night. Lena reads it out loud quick as a wink. She snickers, pokes me in the ribs again, and, “What to hell do I think you are, hey?” That's just what I'd meant. “Gee!” says Lena. “Some fool whatcan't get some kind of a dope!”

“You said it!”

“Say, got more 'n one dope?” asks Lena, hopefully. Meanwhile she setsout, with my aid, row after row of dinky little deep boxes. 

“Say now, ” say I to Lena, “and what would a girl be doin' with jus'_one_ dope?”

“You said it!” says Lena. 

At which follows a discussion on dopes, ending by Lena's promisingnever to vamp my dope if I won't vamp hers. 

“Where'd ya work last?” asks Lena. 

One thing the first day taught me. If you want to act the part andfeel the part, earrings and gum help, but if there is one thing youare more conscious of than all else, it is such proper English as youpossess—which compared to Boston is not much, but compared to Lenaand Ida and Mary and Louise and Susie and Annie is painfully flawless. Chew hard as ever you can, if you tell Fannie, “There aren't any moreplantations, ” it echoes and re-echoes and shrieks at you from the foursides of Christendom. But holler, “Fannie, there ain't no moreplantations!” and it is like the gentle purring of a home cat bycomparison. Funny how it is easier to say “My Gawd!” and “Where t'hell's Ida!” than “I 'ain't got none. ” Any way round, you never do getover being conscious of your grammar. If it is correct, it is lonesomeas the first robin. If it is properly awful, there are thoseschool-teacher upbringers. I am just wondering if one might not bedining with the head of the university philosophy department and hisacademic guests some night and hear one's voice uttering down asuddenly silent table, “She ain't livin' at that address no more. ”Utterly abashed, one's then natural exclamation on the stillness wouldbe, “My Gawd!” Whereat the hostess would busily engage her end of thetable in anguished conversation, giving her husband one look, which, translated into Lena's language, would say, “What t' hell did we askher for, anyhow?”

Is one to write of factory life as one finds it, or expurgated? I canhear the upbringers cry “expurgated”! Yet the way the girls talked wasone of the phases of the life which set the stamp of difference on itall. What an infinitesimal portion of the population write our books!What a small proportion ever read them! How much of the nation'stalking is done by the people who never get into print! The proportionwho read and write books, especially the female folk, live and die inthe belief that it is the worst sort of bad taste, putting it mildly, to use the name of the Creator in vain, or mention hell for anypurpose whatsoever. Yet suddenly, overnight, you find yourself in agroup who would snap their fingers at such notions. Sweet-faced, curly-headed Annie wants another box of caramels. ElizabethWitherspoon would call, “Fannie, would you be so kind as to bring meanother box of caramels?” Annie, without stopping her work or so muchas looking up, raises her voice and calls down the room—and in herheart she is the same exactly as Elizabeth W. —“Fannie, you bum, bringme a box of car'mels or I'll knock the hell clean out o' ya. ”

According to Elizabeth's notions Fannie should answer her, “Onemoment, Miss Elizabeth; I'm busy just now. ” What Fannie (with her soulas pure as drifted snow) does call back to Annie is, “My Gawd! Keepyour mouth shut. 'Ain't you got sense enough to see I'm busy!”

Annie could holler a hundred times, and she does, that she'd knock thehell out of Fannie, and God would love her every bit as much as hewould love Miss Elizabeth Witherspoon, who has been taught otherwiseand never said hell in her life, not even in a dark closet. Fannie andall the other Fannies and Idas and Louisas, say, “My Gawd!” as MissElizabeth says “You don't say!” and it is all one to the HeavenlyFather. Therefore, gentle reader, it must be all one to you. There isnot the slightest shade of disrespect in Annie's or Fannie's hearts asthey shower their profanity on creation in general. There is not theslightest shade in mind as I write of them. 

So then, back that first day Lena asked, “Where'd ya work last?”

“Didn't work in a factory before. ”

“'Ain't ya?”

“No, I 'ain't. ” (Gulp. ) “I took care of kids. ”

“Gee! but they was fresh. ”

“You said it!”

“Lena!” hollers Ida. “Get ta work and don't talk so much!” WhereatLena gives me another poke in my cold ribs and departs. And Tessie andI pack “assorteds”: four different chocolates in the bottom of eachbox, four still different ones in the top—about three hundred andfifty boxes on our table. We puff and labor on the top layer and Idabreezes along. “My Gawd! Look at that! Where's your cardboards?”

Tessie and I look woebegone at one another. Cardboards? Cardboards?

Ida glues her Eyetalian eye on Lena down the line. “Lena, you fool, didn't you tell these here girls about cardboards?. .. My Gawd! MyGawd!” says Ida. Whereat she dives into our belabored boxes and grabsthose ached-over chocolates and hurls them in a pile. “Get all themtop ones out. Put in cardboards. Put 'em all in again. ” Tessie and Ialmost could have wept. By that time it is about 4. We are all feet, feet, FEET. First I try standing on one foot to let the other think Imight really, after all, be sitting down. Then I stand on it and givethe other a delusion. Then try standing on the sides, the toes, theheels. FEET! “Ach! Mein Gott!” moans Tessie. “To-morrow I go look fora job in a biscuit factory. ”

“Leave me know if you get a sit-down one. ”

And in that state—FEET—Ida makes us pack over the whole top layer inthree hundred and fifty boxes. Curses on Lena and her “dopes. ” Orcurses on me that I could so suddenly invent such picturesque loveaffairs that Lena forgot all about cardboards. 

About then my locker key falls through a hole in my waist pocket andon to the floor and out of sight. In the end it takes a broom handlepoked about diligently under the bottom shelf of our table to make arecovery. Before the key appear chocolates of many shapes and sizes, long reposing in oblivion under the weighty table. The thrifty Spanishwoman behind me gathers up all the unsquashed ones and packs them. “Mus' be lots of chocolates under these 'ere tables, eh?” she noteswisely and with knit brows. As if to say that, were she boss, she'dpoke with a broom under each and every bottom shelf and fill many abox. 

At least my feet get a moment's rest while I am down on my hands andknees among the debris from under the tables. 

By five o'clock Tessie thinks she'll throw up her job then and there. “Ach! Ach! My feet!” she moans. I secretly plan to kill the nextperson who gives me a box of chocolate candy. 

Surely it is almost 6. 

Five minutes after 5. 

The bell has forgotten to ring. It must be 7. 

Quarter after 5. 

Now for sure and certain it is midnight. 

Half-past 5. 

My earrings begin to hurt. You can take off earrings. But FEET—

Tessie says she's eaten too many candies; her stomach does her pain. Her feet aren't so hurting now her _magen_ is so bad. I couldn't eatanother chocolate for five dollars, but my stomach refused to feel inany way that takes my mind in the least off my feet. 

Eternity has passed on. It must be beyond the Judgment Day itself. 

Ten minutes to 6. 

When the bell does ring I am beyond feeling any emotion. There is nopart of me with which to feel emotion. I am all feet, and feet eitherdo not feel at all or feel all weary unto death. During the summer Ihad played one match in a tennis tournament 7-5, 5-7, 13-11. I hadthought I was ready to drop dead after that. It was mere knitting inthe parlor compared to how I felt after standing at that table in thatcandy factory from 8 A. M. To 6 P. M. , with a bit of a half-hour'ssitting at noon. 

Somehow you could manage to endure it all if it were not for thecrowning agony of all—standing up on the Subway going home. I am noaggressive feminist, and I am no old-fashioned clinging vine, but Isurely do hate, hate, hate every man in that Subway who sits back incomfort (and most of them look as if they had been sitting all day)while I and my feet stand up. When in my utter anguish I find myselfswaying with the jerks and twists of the express in front of a personwith a Vandyke beard reading _The Gospel According to St. John_, Ilong with all the energy left in me (I still have some in my arms) tograb that book out of his hands, fling it in his face, and hiss, “Hypocrite!” at him. I do not believe I ever knew what it was reallyand honestly to hate a person before. If it had been the _PoliceGazette_ I could have borne up under it. But _The Gospel According toSt. John_—my Gawd!

Thus ends my first factory day. It is small comfort to calculate Istepped on more chocolates in those nine hours than I usually eat in ayear. To be sure, it was something new on the line of life'sexperiences. If that man in front of me were only a chocolate withsoft insides and I could squash him flat! Yes, there was enough energyin my feet for that. To get my heel square above him and then_stamp_—ugh! the sinner! He continues reading _The Gospel Accordingto St. John_, nor so much as looks up to receive my last departingglare as I drag myself off at 116th Street. 

Bless the Lord, O my soul, the next morning my feet feel as if theyhad never been stood on before. What if we do have to stand up in theSubway all the way down? Who minds standing in the Subway? And thenstand in the jammed and elbowing cross-town car. Who cares? And how wedo walk up those factory steps as if we owned the world! Thechestiness of us as we take our key off left-hand hook 1075, ring upunder the clock (twenty minutes early we are) and hang up on No. 1075right; but it seems you are late if you are not ten minutes early. Itis the little tricks like that you get wise about. 

I saunter over to the elevator with a jam of colored girls—themajority of the girls in that factory were colored. I call out, “Third, please. ” Oh, glory be! Why were we ever born? That elevatorman turns around and pierces me with his eye as though I were the manwith the Vandyke beard in the Subway, and he, the elevator man, wereI. “_Third_ floor did ya say? And since when does the elevator liftya to the _third_ floor? If ya want the sixth floor ya can ride. _Third_ floor! My Gawd! _Third_ floor!” And on and on he mutters andup and up I go, all the proud feelings of owning the world strippedfrom me—exposed before the multitudes as an ignoramus who didn't knowany better than to ride in the elevator when she was bound only forthe third floor. “_Third_ floor, ” continues muttering the elevatorman. At last there is no one left in the elevator but the mutteringman and me. “Well, ” I falter, chewing weakly on my Black Jack, “Whatshall I do, then?”

“I'll leave ya off at the third this time, but don't ya try this trickagain. ”

“Again? Goodness! You don't think I'd make this mistake twice, doyou?”

“_Twice?_” he bellows. “_Twice?_ Didn't I have this all out with yayesterday mornin'?”

“Goodness, no!” I try to assure him, but he is putting me off at thirdand calling after me: “Don't I know I did tell ya all this yesterdaymornin'? And don't ya forget it next time, neither. ” It must be awfulto be that man's wife. But I love him compared to the Vandyke beard inthe Subway reading _The Gospel According to St. John_. 

Everybody is squatting about on scant corners and ledges waiting forthe eight o'clock bell. I squat next the thrifty Spanish lady, whereatshe immediately begins telling me the story of her life. 

“You married?” she asks. No. “Well don' you do it, ” says the fat andmussy Espaniole, as the girls called her. “I marry man—five years, all right. One morning I say, 'I go to church—you go too?' He say'No, I stay home. ' I go church. I come home. I fin' him got young girlthere. I say, 'You clear out my house, you your young girl!' Out hego, she go. 'Bout one year 'go he say he come back. I say no you don'. He beg me, beg me come home. I say no, no, no. He write me letter, letter, letter. I say no, no, no. Bymby I say alright, you come livemy house don't you _touch_ me, hear? Don' you _touch_ me. He live oneroom, I live one room. He no touch me. Two weeks 'go he die. Take allmy money, put him in cemetery. I have buy me black waist, black skirt. I got no money more. I want move from that house—no want live thathouse no more—give me bad dreams. I got no money move. Got sonthirteen. He t'ink me fool have man around like that. I no care. Seehe sen's letter, letter, letter. Now I got no money. I have work. ” Thebell rings. We shiver ourselves into the ice box. 

No Tessie across the table. Instead a strange, unkempt female whosticks it out half an hour, announces she has the chills in her feet, and departs. Her place is taken by a slightly less disheveled youngwoman who claims she'd packed candy before where they had seats andshe thought she'd go back. They paid two dollars less a week, but itwas worth two dollars to sit down. How she packs! The sloppiest work Iever saw. It outrages my soul. The thrill of new pride I have when Idagets through swearing at her and turns to me. 

“Keep your eye on this girl, will ya? Gee! she packs like a fright!”And to the newcomer: “You watch that girl across the table” (me, shemeans—me!) “and do the way she does. ”

No first section I ever got in economics gave me such joy. 

But, ah! the first feeling of industrial bitterness creeps in. Here isa girl getting fourteen dollars a week. Tessie was promised fourteendollars a week. I packed faster, better, than either of them forthirteen dollars. I would have fourteen dollars, too, or know thereason why. Ida fussed and scolded over the new girls all day. Thesweetness of her entire neglect of me!

By that noon my feet hardly hurt at all. I sit in a quiet corner toeat rye-bread sandwiches brought from home, gambling on whom I willdraw for luncheon company. Six colored girls sit down at my table. Agood part of the time they spend growling on the subject of overtime. I am too new to know what it is all about. 

The lunch room is a bare, whitewashed, huge affair, with upliftingadvice on the walls here and there. “Any fool can take a chance; ittakes brains to be careful, ” and such like. One got me all upset:“America is courteous to its women. Gentlemen will, therefore, pleaseremove their hats in this room. ” That Vandyke beard in the Subway!

By 4. 30 again I think my feet will be the death of me. That last hourand a half! Louie, the general errand boy of our packing room, brushesby our table with some trays and knocks about six of my carefullypacked boxes on the floor. “You Louie!” I holler, and I long to haveacquired the facility to call lightly after him, as anyone else wouldhave done, “Say, you go to hell!” Instead, mustering all the reserveforce I can, the best showing I am able to make is, “You Louie! Go offand die!” I almost hold my own—468 boxes of “assorteds” do I pack. And again the anguishing stand in the Subway. I hate men—hate them. Ijust hope every one of them gets greeted by a nagging wife when hearrives home. Hope she nags all evening. .. . If enough of those wivesreally did do enough nagging, would the men thereupon stay downtownfor dinner and make room in the Subway for folk who had been standing, except for one hour, from 7. 15 A. M. ? At last I see a silver lining tothe dark cloud of marital unfelicity. .. . 

 * * * * *

Lillian of the bright-pink boudoir cap engaged me in conversation thismorning. Lillian is around the Indian summer of life—as to years, butnot atmosphere. Lillian has seen better days. Makes sure you know it. Never did a lick of work in her life. At that she makes a noise withher upper lip the way a body does in southern Oregon when he uses atoothpick after a large meal. “No, sir, never did a lick. ” Lilliansays “did” and not “done. ” Practically no encouragement is needed forLillian to continue. “After my husband died I blew in all the money heleft me in two years. Since then I have been packing chocolates. ” Howlong ago was that?

“Five years. ”

“My Gawd, ” I say, and it comes natural-like. “What did you do withyour feet for five years?”

“Oh, you get used to it, ” says Lillian. “For months I cried everynight. Don't any more. But I lie down while I'm warmin' up my supper, and then I go to bed soon as its et. ”

Five years!

“Goin' to vote?” asks Lillian. 

“Sure. ”

“I'm not, ” allows Lillian. “To my notions all that votin' business isnothing for a lady to get mixed up in. No, sir. ” Lillian makes thatnoise with her upper lip again. Lillian's lips are very red, hereyebrows very black. I'll not do anything, though, with my eyebrows. Says Lillian: “No, siree, not for a lady. I got a good bet up on theelection. Yes, sir!—fifty dollars on Harding. ”

And five years of going to bed every night after supper. 

Tessie is back. I do love Tessie, and I know Tessie loves me. She hadnot gone hunting for another job, as I thought. Her husband had hadhis elbow broken with an electric machine of some sort where he workson milk cans. The morning before she had taken him to the hospital. That made her ten minutes late to the factory. The little pop-eyed mantold her, “You go on home!” and off she went. “But he tell me thatonce more I no come back again, ” said Tessie, her cheeks very red. 

I begin to get the “class feeling”—to understand a lot of things Iwanted to know first hand. In the first place, there is no thoughtever, and I don't see in that factory how there can be, for the bossand his interests. Who is he? Where is he? The nearest one comes tohim is the pop-eyed man at the door. Once in a while Ida hollers “ForGawd's sake, girls, work faster!” Now that doesn't inspire toincreased production for long. There stands Tessie across the tablefrom me—peasant Tessie from near München, with her sweet face andwhite turned-up cap. She packs as fast as she can, but her hands areclumsy and she can't seem to get the difference between chocolatesvery well. It is enough to drive a seer crazy. They change thepositions on the shelves every so often; the dipping-machine tenderscut capers and mark the same kind of chocolates differently to-dayfrom yesterday. By three in the afternoon you're too sick ofchocolates to do any more investigating by sampling. Even Ida herselfhas sometimes to poke a candy in the bottom—if it feels one way it's“marsh”; another, it's peach; another, it's coconut. But my feeling isnot educated and I poke, and then end by having to bite, and then, just as I discover it is peach, after all, some one has run off withthe last box and Ida has to be found and a substitute declared. 

Tessie gives up in despair and hurls herself on me. So then Tessie isnearest to me in the whole factory, and Tessie is slow. The faster Ipack the more it shows up Tessie's slowness. If Ida scolded Tessie itwould break my heart. The thought of the man who owns that factory, and his orders and his profits and his obligations, never enter my orany other packer's head. I will not pack so many boxes that Tessiegets left too far behind. 

Then a strange thing happens. All of a sudden I get more interested inpacking chocolates than anything else on earth. A little knack ortwist comes to me—my fingers fly (for me). I forget Tessie. I forgetthe time. I forget my feet. How many boxes can I pack to-day? That isall I can think of. I don't want to hear the noon bell. I can't waitto get back after lunch. I fly out after the big boxes to pack thelittle boxes in. In my haste and ignorance I bring back covers bymistake and pack dozens of little boxes in covers. It must all be doneover again. Six hundred boxes I pack this day. I've not stopped forbreath. I'm not a bit tired when 6 o'clock comes round. I ask Ida whenshe will put me on piecework—it seems the great ambition of my lifeis to feel I am on piecework. “When you can pack about two thousandboxes a day, ” says Ida. Two thousand! I was panting and proud over sixhundred! “Never mind, ” says Ida, “you're makin' out fine. ” Oh, thethrill of those words! I asked her to show me again about separatingthe paper cups. I didn't have it just right, I was sure. “My Gawd!”sighed Ida, “what ambition!” Yes, but the ambition did not last morethan a few days at that pitch. 

Tessie wanted to tell me something about her _Mann_ to-day so badly, but could not find the English words. Her joy when I said, “Tell me inGerman”! How came I to speak German? I'd spent three years in Germanywith an American family, taking care of the children. Honest for once. 

“That was luck for you, ” says Tessie. 

“That was sure luck for me, ” says I—honest again. 

Wherever Lena works there floats conversation for a radius of threetables. The subject matter is ever the same—“dopes. ” “Is he big?. .. Gee! I say!. .. More like a sister to him. .. . He never sees theletters. ” “Lena” (from Ida), “shut up and get to work!” . .. “I pickedhim up Sunday. .. . Where's them waxing papers?. .. Third she vamped intwo days. .. . Sure treats a girl swell. .. . Them ain't pineapples. .. . ”“Lee-na! get to work or I'll knock the hell out a ya!” And pretty Lenagiggles on: “He says. .. . She says to him. .. . Sure my father says if hecomes 'round again. .. . ”

And Tessie and I; I bend over to hear Tessie's soft, low German as shetells me how good her _Mann_ is to her; how he never, never scolds, nomatter if she buys a new hat or what; how he brings home all his payevery week and gives it to her. He is such a good _Mann_. They aresaving all their money. In two years they will go back near Münchenand buy a little farm. 

Tessie and her poor _Mann_, with his broken elbow and his swollen armall black and blue, couldn't sleep last night. Oh dear! this New York!One man at one corner he talk about Harding, one man other corner hetalk about Cox; one man under their window he talk MacSwiney—New Yorktalk, talk, talk!

Looked like rain to-day, but how can a body buy an umbrellaappropriate to chocolate packing at thirteen dollars a week when thestores are all closed before work and closed after? I told Lillian mytroubles. I asked Lillian if a cheap umbrella could be purchased inthe neighborhood. 

“Cheap, ” sniffs Lillian. “I don't know. I got me a nice one—samplethough—at Macy's for twelve-fifty. ” Lillian may take to her bed aftersupper, but while she is awake she is going to be every inch to themanner born. 

By the time I pack the two thousandth box of “assorteds” my soul turnsin revolt. “If you give me another 'assorted' to pack, ” says I to Ida, “I'll lie down here on the floor and die. ”

“The hell you will, ” says Ida. But she gets me fancy pound boxes witha top and bottom layer, scarce two candies alike, and Tessie beams onme like a mother with an only child. “That takes the brains!” saysTessie. “Not for me! It gives me the ache in my head to think of it. ”

Indeed it near gives me the ache in mine. Before the next to the lastrow is packed the bottom looks completely filled. Where can four fatchocolates in cups find themselves? I push the last row over gently tomake room, —three chocolates in the middle rear up and stand on end. Press them gently down and two more on the first row get out of hand. At last the last row is in—only to discover four candies here andthere have all sprung their moorings. For each one I press downgently, another some place else acts up. How long can my patiencehold out? Firmly, desperately I press that last obstreperous chocolatedown in its place. My finger goes squash through the crusty brown, andpink goo oozes up and out. A fresh strawberry heart must be found. “Ain't no more, ” announces Fannie. Might just as well tell an artistthere is only enough paint for one eye on his beautiful portrait. Ofcourse another chocolate can be substituted. But a strawberry heartwas what belonged there!

At last the long rows of boxes are packed, wax paper laid overeach—to blow off every time Louie goes by. Then come covers withlovely ladies in low-neck dresses on the tops—and the room so cold, anyhow. Why are all the pictures on all the boxes smiling ladies inscanty attire, instead of wrapped to the ears in fur coats so that abody might find comfort in gazing on them in such a temperature?

Ida comes along and peers in one box. “You can consider yourself afancy packer now—see?” Harding the night of the election felt lessjoyous than do I at her words. 

This night there is a lecture at the New School for Social Research tobe attended. If some of those educated foreigners in our room can goto night school, I guess I can keep up my school. They are allforeigners but Lillian and Sadie and I. Sadie is about the sameIndian-summer stage as Lillian and uses even better English. Hereyebrows are also unduly black; her face looks a bit as if she hadbeen trying to get the ring out of the flour with her teethHalloween. Her lips are very red. Sadie has the air of having justmissed being a Vanderbilt. Her boudoir cap is lacy. Her smile isconscious kindness to all as inferiors. One wonders, indeed, whatbrought Sadie to packing chocolates in the autumn of life—a verywrinkly, powdered autumn. So Lillian, Sadie, and I are therepresentatives of what the nation produces—not what she getspresented with. As for the rest, there are a Hungarian, two Germans, four Italians, two Spaniards, a Swede, an Englishwoman, and numerouscolored folk. Louie is an Italian. Fannie (bless her dear heart! Ilove Fannie) is colored, with freckles. She is Indian summer too—witha heart of gold. Fannie trudges on her feet all day. Years and yearsshe has been there. At noon she sits alone in the lunch room, andafter eating puts her head on her arms and, bending over the coldmarble-topped table, gets what rest she can. She was operated on notso long ago, and every so often still has to go to the hospital for aday or so. Everything is at sixes and sevens when Fannie is away. 

So then, that night I take my sleepy way to a lecture on “The Role ofthe State in Modern Civilization. ” And it comes over me in the courseof the evening, what a satisfactory thing packing chocolates is. Therole of the State—some say this, some say that. A careful teacherguards against being dogmatic. When it comes to the past, oneinterpreter gives this viewpoint, due to certain prejudices; anotherthat viewpoint, due to certain other prejudices. When it comes to thefuture, no sane soul dare prophesy at all. Thus it is with much whichone studies nowadays—we have evolved beyond the era of intellectualsurety. What an almighty relief to the soul, then, when one can packsix rows of four chocolates each in a bottom layer, seven rows of fourchocolates each in the top, cover them, count them, stack them, pilethem in the truck, and away they go. One job _done_—done now andforever. A definite piece of work put behind you—and no one comingalong in six months with documents or discoveries or new theories orpractices to upset all your labors. I say it is blessed to packchocolates when one has been studying labor problems for some years. Every professor ought to have a fling at packing chocolates. 

Folks wonder why a girl slaves in a factory when she could be earninggood money and a home thrown in doing housework. I think of that as Iwatch Annie. Imagine Annie poking about by her lonesome, saying, “No, ma'm, ” “Yes, ma'm, ” “No, sir, ” “Yes, sir. ” “Can I go out for a fewmoments, Mrs. Jones?” “Oh, all right, ma'm!” Annie, whose talk echoesup and down the room all day. She is Annie to every Tom, Dick, andHarry who pokes his nose in our packing room, but they are Tom, Dick, and Harry to her. It is not being called by your first name that makesthe rub. It is being called it when you must forever tack on the Mr. And the Mrs. And the Miss. Annie is in awe of no human being. Annie isthe fastest packer in the room and draws the most pay. Annie sassesthe entire factory. Annie never stops talking unless she wants to. Which is only now and then when her mother has had a bad spell andAnnie gets a bit blue. Little Pauline, an Italian, only a few monthsin this country, only a few weeks in the factory, works across thetable from Annie. Pauline is the next quickest packer in our room. Shecannot speak a word of English. Annie gives a sigh audible from oneend of the room to the next. “My Gawd!” moans Annie to the entirefloor. “If this here Eyetalian don't learn English pretty soon I gottalearn Eyetalian. I can't stand here like a dead one all day withnobody to talk to. ” Pauline might perhaps be reasoning that, afterall, why learn English, since she would never get a silent moment inwhich to practice any of it. 

I very much love little Pauline. All day long her fingers fly; all daylong not a word does she speak, only every now and then little Paulineturns around to me and we smile at each other. Once on the street, ablock or so from the factory, little Pauline ran up to me, put her armthrough mine, and caught my hand. So we walked to work. Neither couldsay a word to the other. Each just smiled and smiled. For the firsttime in all my life I really felt the melting pot first hand. ToPauline I was no agent of Americanization, no superior proclaiming theneed of bathtubs and clean teeth, no teacher of the “Star-spangledbanner” and the Constitution. To Pauline I was a fellow-worker, andshe must know, for such things are always known, that I loved her. Tomyself, I felt suddenly the hostess—the generation-long inhabitantof this land so new and strange to little Pauline. She was my guesthere. I would indeed have her care for my country, have her glad shecame to my home. That day Pauline turned around and smiled more oftenthan before. 

I finally settled down to eating lunch daily between Tessie and Mrs. Lewis, the Englishwoman. We do so laugh at one another's jokes. I knoweverything that ever happened to Tessie and Mrs. Lewis from the timethey were born; all the heartbreaking stories of the first homesickmonths in this my land, all the jobs they have labored at. Mrs. Lewishas worked “in the mills” ever since she was born, it would seem, first in England, later in Michigan. Tessie and her husband mostlyhave hired out together in this country for housework, and she likesthat better than packing chocolates standing up, she says. Mrs. Lewisis—well, she's Indian summer, too, along with Lillian and Sadie andFannie, only she makes no bones about it (nor does black Fannie, forthat matter). Mrs. Lewis is thin and wrinkled, with a skimpy littledust cap on her head. Her nose is very long and pointed, her teethvery false. Her eyes are always smiling. She loves to laugh. One daywe were talking about unemployment. 

“Don't you know, it's awful in Europe, ” volunteers Mrs. Lewis. 

“One hundred thousand unemployed in Paris alone—saw it in headlinesthis morning, ” I advance. 

“Paris?” said Tessie. “Paris? Where's Paris?”

If one could always be so sure of one's facts. 

“France. ”

Mrs. Lewis wheels about in her chair, looks at me sternly over the topof her spectacles, and:

“Do you know, they're telling me that's a pretty fast country, thatFrance. ”

“You don't say!” I look interested. 

“No—no I haven't got the details _yet_”—she clasped her chin withher hand—“but 'fast' was the word I heard used. ”

Irene is a large, florid, bleached blonde. She worked at the tablebehind me about four days. “Y'know”—Irene has a salon air—“y'know, Ijus' can't stand steppen on these soft chocolates. Nobody knows how Isuffer. It just goes through me like a knife. ” She spent a good partof each day scraping off the bottoms of her French-heeled shoes with apiece of cardboard. It evidently was too much for her nerves. She isno more. 

The sign reads, “Saturdays 8-12. ” When Saturday came around Idahollered down the room, “Everybody's gotta work to-day till five. ” Thehowl that went up! I supposed “gotta” meant “gotta. ” But Lena came upto me. 

“You gonna work till five? Don't you do it. We had to strike to get aSaturday half holiday. Now they're tellin' us we gotta work tillfive—pay us for it, o' course. If enough girls'll stay, pretty soonthey'll be sayin: 'See? What ud we tell ya? The girls want to workSaturday afternoons'; and they'll have us back regular again. ” In theend not a girl in our room stayed, and Ida wrung her hands. 

Monday next, though, Ida announced, “Everybody's gotta work till sevento-night 'cause ya all went home Saturday afternoon. Three nights aweek now you gotta work till seven. ” To stand from 1 to 7! One girl inthe room belonged to some union or other. She called out, “Will theypay time and a half for overtime?” At which everyone broke intolaughter. “Gee! Ida, here's a girl wants time and a half!” Tessie, Mrs. Lewis, Sadie, and I refused to work till 7. Ida used threats andargument. “I gotta put down your numbers!” We stood firm—6 o'clockwas long enough. “Gee! You don't notice that last hour—goes like asecond, ” argued Ida. We filed out when the 6-o'clock bell rang. 

The girls all fuss over the hour off at noon. It takes at best twentyminutes to eat lunch. For the rest of the hour there is no place togo, nothing to do, but sit in the hard chairs at the marble-toppedtables in the whitewashed room for half an hour till the bell rings at12. 50, and you can sit on the edge of a truck upstairs for ten minuteslonger. They all say they wish to goodness we could have half an hourat noon and get off half an hour earlier at night. 

 * * * * *

A tragedy the first pay day. I was so excited when that Saturday cameround, to see what it would all be like—to get my first pay envelope. About 11. 30 two men came in, one carrying a wooden box filled withlittle envelopes. Girls appear suddenly from every place and crowdaround the two men. One calls out a number, the girl takes herenvelope and goes off. I keep working away, thinking you are notsupposed to step up till your number is called. But, lo! everyoneseems paid off and the men departing, whereat I leave my work withbeating heart and announce: “You didn't call 1075. ” But it seems I wassupposed to step up and give 1075. I get handed my little envelope. Connie Parker in one corner, 1075 in the other, the date, and $6. 81. Six dollars and eighty-one cents, and I had expected fourteen dollars. (I had told Ida at last that I thought I ought to get fourteendollars, and she thought so, too, and said she'd “speak to the man”about it. ) I clutched Ida—“only six dollars and eighty one cents!”“Well, what more do ya want. ”

“But you said fourteen dollars. ”

It seems the week goes Thursday to Thursday, instead of Monday toSaturday, so my first pay covered only three days and a deduction formy locker key. 

At that moment a little cry just behind me from Louisa. Louisa hadbeen packing with Irene—dark little, frail little Yiddish Louisa; bigbrawny bleached-blond Irene. 

“I've lost my pay envelope!”

Wan little Louisa! She had been talking to Topsy, Fannie's helper. Herenvelope had slipped out of her waist, and when she went to pick itup, lo! there was nothing there to pick—fourteen dollars gone! Therewas excitement for you. Fourteen dollars in Wing 13, Room 3, was equalto fourteen million dollars in Wall Street. Everybody pulled outboxes and searched, got down on hands and knees and poked, and therest mauled Louisa from head to foot. 

“Sure it ain't in your stocking? Well, look _again_. ”

“What's this?”—jabbing Louisa's ribs—“this?”

Eight hands going over Louisa's person as if the anguished slip of agirl could not have felt that stiff envelope with fourteen dollars init herself had it been there. She stood helpless, woebegone. 

Ida rose Napoleon-like to the rescue. “I'll search everybody in theroom!”

Whereat she made a grab at Topsy and removed her. “They” say Topsy wasstripped to the breezes in Ida's fury, but no envelope. 

Topsy, be it known, was already a suspicious character. That very weekFannie's purse had disappeared under circumstances pointing to Topsy. Which caused a strained relationship between the two. One day itbroke—such relationship as existed. 

Fannie up at her end of the boxes was heard to screech down the lineto where Topsy was sorting chocolate rolls:

“How dare you talk to me like that?”

“I ain't talkin' to you!”

“You am. You called me names. ”

“I never. I called you nothin', you ole white nigger. ”

“You stand lie to me like that and call me names?”

“Who say lie? I ain't no liar. You shut up; you ain't my boss. I'llcall you anythin' I please, sassin' me that way!”

“I didn't sassed you. You called me names. ”

“I don't care what I called you—I know what you _is_. ” Here Topsygathered all her strength and shouted up to Fannie, “You're a_heifer_, you is. ”

Now there is much I do not know about the world, and maybe heifer is aword like some one or two others you are never supposed to set down inso many letters. If so, it is new to me and I apologize. The way Topsycalled it, and the way Fannie acted on hearing herself called it, would lead one to believe it is a word never appearing in print. 

“You—call—me a _heifer_?” shrieked Fannie. “I'll tell ya landlady onya, I will!”

“Don' yo' go mixin' up in my private affairs. You shut yo' mouth, yo'hear me? yo' _heifer_!”

“I _ain't_ no heifer!”

Fortunately Ida swung into our midst about then and saved folk frombodily injury. A few days later Fanny informed me privately that shedon't say nothin' when that nigger starts rowin' with her, but if shejus' has her tin lunch box with her next time when that nigger startstalkin' fresh—callin' her a heifer—_her!_—she'll slug her right'cross the face with it. 

So Topsy was searched. When she got her garments back on she appearedat the door—a small black goddess of fury. “Yo' fresh Ida, yo'—yessa—yo' jus' searched me 'cause I'm black. That's all, 'causeI'm black. Why don't you search all that white trash standin' there?”And Topsy flung herself out. Monday she appeared with a new maroonembroidered suit. Cost every nickel of thirty-eight dollars, Fannieinformed me. In the packing room she had a hat pin in her cap. Somegirl heard Topsy tell some other girls she was going stick that pin inFannie if Fannie got sassin' her again. Ida made her remove the hatpin. In an hour she disappeared altogether and stayed disappearedforever after. “Went South, ” Fannie told me. “Always said she wasgoin' South when cold weather started. .. . Huh! Thought she'd stick mewith a hat pin. I was carryin' a board around all mornin'. If she somuch as come near me I was goin' to give her a crack aside the head. ”

 * * * * *

But there was little Louisa—and no longer could she keep back thetears. Nor could ever the pay envelope be unearthed. Later I found hersitting on the pile of dirty towels in the washroom, sobbing her heartout. It was not so much that the money was gone—that was awfulenough—fourteen dollars!—fourteen dollars!—oh-h-h, —but her motherand father—what would they do to her when she came home and told 'em?They mightn't believe it was lost and think she'd spent it onsomethin' for herself. The tears streamed down her face. And that wasthe last we ever saw of Louisa. 

Had “local color” been all we were after, perhaps Wing 13, Room 3, would have supplied sufficient of that indefinitely, with thecombination of the ever-voluble Lena and the ever-present laborturnover. Even more we desired to learn the industrial feel of thething—what do some of the million and more factory women think aboutthe world of work? Remaining longer in Wing 13 would give no deeperclue to that. For all that I could find out, the candy workers therethought nothing about it one way or the other. The younger unmarriedgirls worked because it seemed the only thing to do—they or theirfamilies needed the money, and what would they be doing otherwise?Lena claimed, if she could have her way in the world, she would sleepuntil 12 every day and go to a show every afternoon. But that lifewould pall even on Lena, and she giggled wisely when I slangilysuggested as much. 

The older married women worked either because they had to, since themale breadwinner was disabled (an old fat Irishwoman at the chocolatedipper had a husband with softening of the brain. He was a dischargedEnglish soldier who “got too much in the sun in India”) or because histenure of job was apt to be uncertain and they preferred to take nochances. Especially with the feel and talk of unemployment in the air, two jobs were better than none. A few, like Mrs. Lewis, worked to layby toward their old age. Mrs. Lewis's husband had a job, but his wagespermitted of little or no savings. Some of her friends told her: “Oh, well, somebody's bound to look out for you somehow when you get old. They don't let you die of hunger and cold!” But Mrs. Lewis was not sosure. She preferred to save herself from hunger and cold. 

Such inconveniences of the job as existed were taken as being all inthe day's work—like the rain or a cold in the head. At some time theymust have shown enough ability for temporary organization to strikefor the Saturday half holiday. I wish I could have been there whenthat affair was on. Which girls were the ringleaders? How muchagitation and exertion did it take to acquire the momentum which wouldresult in enforcing their demands? Had I entered factory work with anyidea of encouraging organization among female factory workers, Ishould have considered that candy group the most hopeless soilimaginable. Those whom I came in contact with had no class feeling, noideas of grievances, no ambitions over and above the doing of anuninteresting job with as little exertion as possible. 

I hated leaving Tessie and Mrs. Lewis and little Pauline. Already Imiss the life behind those candy scenes. For the remainder of my daysa box of chocolates will mean a very personal—almost too personal forcomfort!—thing to me. But for the rest of the world. .. . 

 * * * * *

Some place, some moonlight night, some youth, looking like a collaradvertisement, will present his fair love with a pound box of fancyassorted chocolates—in brown paper cups; and assured of at least agenerous disposition, plus his lovely collar-advertisement hair, shewill say yes. On the sofa, side by side, one light dimly shining, thenightingale singing in the sycamore tree beside the front window, their two hearts will beat as one—for the time being. They will eatthe chocolates I packed and life will seem a very sweet and peacefulthing indeed. Nor will any disturbing notion of how my feet felt everreach them, no jarring “you heifer!” float across the states to wherethey sit. Louie to them does not exist—Louie, forever on the runwith, “_Louie_, move these trays!” “_Louie_, bottoms!” “_Louie_, tops!” “_Louie_, cardboards!” “_Louie_, the truck!” “_Louie_, sweepthe floor! How many times I told you that to-day!” “_Louie_, get me abox a' ca'mels, that's a good dope!” “_Louie_, turn out them lights!”“_Louie_, turn on them lights!” “_Louie_, ya leave things settin'round like that!” “_Louie_, where them covers?” and then Louie smasheshis fingers and retires for ten minutes. 

Nor is Ida more than a strange name to those two on the sofa. Noechoes reach them of, “Ida, where them wax papers?” “Ida, where'sFannie?” “Ida, where them picture tops?” “Ida, ain't no more'coffees. ' What'll I use instead?” “Ida! Where's Ida? Mike wants ya bythe elevator. ” “Ida, I jus' packed sixty; ten sixty-two is my number. ”“Ida, Joe says they want 'drops' on the fifth. ” “Ida, ain't no moretrays. ” “Ida, gimme the locker-door key. 'M cold—want ma sweater. (Gee! it 'u'd freeze the stuffin' outa ya in this ice box!)”

Those chocolates appeared in a store window in Watertown, and that'senough. Not for their moonlit souls the clang of the men building anew dipper and roller in our room—the bang of the blows of metal onmetal as they pierce your soul along about 5 of a weary afternoon. Lena's giggles and Ida's “Lee-na, stop your talk and go to work!. .. Louie, stop your whistlin'!. .. My Gawd! girls, don' you know no bettern' to put two kinds in the same box? . .. Hey, Lena, this yereEyetalian wants somethin'; come here and find out what's ailin'her. .. . Fannie, ain't there no more plantations?. .. Who left that dooropen?. .. Louie, for Gawd's sake how long you gonna take with thattruck?. .. Lena, stop your talkin' and go to work. .. . ”

And 'round here, there, and every place, “My Gawd! my feet are likeice!” “Say, len' me some of yo'r cardboards—hey?” “You Pearl White[black as night], got the tops down there?” “Hey, Ida, the Hungariangirl wants somethin'. I can't understand her. .. . ”

Those two sit on the sofa. The moon shines on the nightingale singingin the sycamore tree. Nor do they ever glimpse a vision of littleItalian Pauline's swift fingers dancing over the boxes, nor do theyever guess of wan Louisa's sobs. 

 II

 _286 On Brass_

Sweetness and Light. 

So now appears the candy factory in retrospect. 

Shall we stumble upon a job yet that will make brass seem as a havenof refuge? Allah forbid!

After all, factory work, more than anything so far, has brought outthe fact that life from beginning to end is a matter of comparisons. The factory girl, from my short experience, is not fussing over whather job looks like compared to tea at the Biltmore. She is comparingit with the last job or with home. And it is either slightly better orslightly worse than the last job or home. Any way round, nothing toget excited over. An outsider, soul-filled college graduate with amission, investigates a factory and calls aloud to Heaven: “Can suchthings be? Why do women _stay_ in such a place?”

The factory girl, if she heard those anguished cries, would as like asnot shrug her shoulders and remark: “Ugh! she sh'u'dda seen ——'sfactory where I worked a year ago. ” Or, “Gawd! what does she think aperson's goin' to do—sit home all day and scrub the kitchen?”

And yet the fact remains that some things get too much on even aphilosophical factory girl's nerves. Whereat she merely walks out—ifshe has gumption enough. The labor turnover, from the point of view ofproduction and efficiency, can well be a vital industrial concern. Tothe factory girl, it saves her life, like as not. Praise be the laborturnover!

If it were not for that same turnover, I, like the soul-filled collegegraduate, might feel like calling aloud, not to Heaven, but to thePresident of the United States and Congress and the Church and Women'sclubs: “Come quick and rescue females from the brassworks!” As it is, the females rescue themselves. If there's any concern it's “the bosshe should worry. ” He must know how every night girls depart never tocross those portals again, so help them Gawd. Every morning a newhandful is broken in, to stay there a week or two, if that long, andtake to their heels. Praise be the labor turnover, as long as we havesuch brassworks. 

Before eight o'clock of a cold Monday morning (thank goodness it wasnot raining, since we stood in shivering groups on the sidewalk) Ianswered the Sunday-morning “ad”:

 GIRLS AND WOMEN

 between 16 and 36; learners and experienced assemblers and foot-press operators on small brass parts; steady; half day Saturday all year around; good pay and bonus. Apply Superintendent's office. 

The first prospects were rather formidable—some fifty men and boys, no other girl or woman. Soon two cold females made their appearanceand we shivered together and got acquainted in five minutes, as iswont under the circumstances. One rawboned girl with a crooked noseand frizzled blond hair had been married just two months. She wentinto immediate details about a party at her sister-in-law's the nightbefore, all ending at a dance hall. The pretty, plump Jewess admittedshe had never danced. 

“What?” almost yelled the bride, “Never _danced_? Good Gawd! girl, youmight as well be _dead_!”

“You said it!” I chimed in. “Might as well dig a hole in the groundand crawl in it. ”

“You said it!” and the husky bride and erstwhile (up to the weekbefore) elevator operator at twenty-three dollars a week (she said)gave me a smart thump of understanding. “Girl, you never _danced_?It's—it's the grandest thing in _life_!”

The plump Jewess looked a little out of things. “I know, ” she sighed, “they tell me it 'u'd make me thin, too, but my folks don't let me goout no place. ”

Whereat we changed to polishing off profiteers and the high cost ofliving. The Jewish girl's brother knew we were headin' straight forcivil war. “They'll be comin' right in folks' homes and killen 'embefore a year's out. See if they don't. ” I asked her if she'd everworked in a union shop. “Na, none of that stuff for me! Wouldn't gonear a union. ” Both girls railed over the way people were losing theirjobs. Anyhow, the bride was goin' to a dance that night, you jus' bet. 

At last some one with a heart came out and told the girls we couldstep inside. By that time there were some ten of us, all ages anddescriptions. What would a “typical” factory girl be like, I wonder. Statistics prove she is young and unmarried more than otherwise, buteach factory does seem to collect the motleyest crew of a little ofeverything—old, young, married, single, homely, stupid, bright, pretty, sickly, husky, fat, thin, and so on down the line. Certain itis that they who picture a French-heeled, fur-coated, dolled-upcreature as the “typical factory girl” are far wide of the mark. Theone characteristic which so far does seem pretty universal is that oneand all, no matter what the age or looks, are perfectly willing totell you everything they know on short acquaintance. At first I felt ahesitancy at asking questions about their personal lives, yet I somuch wanted to know what they did and thought, what they hoped anddreamed about. It was early apparent that sooner or later everythingwould come out with scant encouragement, and no amount of questioningever is taken amiss. They in turn ask me questions, and I lie until Ihate myself. 

The plump Jewess was the first interviewed. When she heard the pay shedeparted. The elevator bride and I were taken together, and togetherwe agreed to everything—wages thirteen dollars a week, “with onedollar a week bonus” (the bonus, as was later discovered, had numerousstrings to it. I never did get any). Work began at 7. 45, half hour forlunch, ended at 5. The bride asked if the work was dangerous. “That'sup to you. Goin' upstairs is dangerous if you don't watch where youput your feet. Eh?” We wanted to start right in—I had my apron undermy arm—but to-morrow would be time. I got quite imploring aboutbeginning on that day. No use. 

The bride and I departed with passes to get by with the next morning. That was the last I saw of the bride—or any of that group, except onelittle frozen thing without a hat. She worked three days, and used topull my apron every time she went by and grin. 

The factory was 'way over on the East Side. It meant gettin' up in thedark and three Subways—West Side, the Shuttle, East Side which couldbe borne amicably in the morning, but after eight and three-quarterhours of foot-press work, going home with that 5-6 rush—that mob whoshoved and elbowed and pushed and jammed—was difficult to bear withChristian spirit. Except that it really is funny. What idea of humannature must a Subway guard between the hours of 5 and 6 be possessedof?

At noon I used to open my lunch anxiously, expecting to see nothingbut a doughy mass of crumpled rye bread and jam. Several times on theSubway the apple got shoved into my ribs over a period where it seemedas if either the apple or the ribs would have to give in. But by noonmy hunger was such that any state of anything edible was as nectar andambrosia. 

I am thinking that even a hardened factory hand might remember herfirst day at the brassworks. Up three flights of stairs, through apart of the men's factory, over a narrow bridge to a back building, through two little bobbing doors, and there you were admitted to thatsanctuary where, according to the man who hired you, steady work andadvancement to a rosy future awaited one. 

True, I had only the candy factory as a basis of comparison, as far asworking experience went. But I have been through factories andfactories of all sorts and descriptions, and nothing had I ever seenlike the brassworks. First was the smell—the stale smell of gas andmetal. (Perhaps there is no such smell as stale metal, but you go downto the brassworks and describe it better!) Second, the darkness—asingle green-shaded electric light directly over where any girl wasworking, but there were areas where there were no workers. Up the endof the floor, among the power presses, all belts and machines andwhirring wheels, there were only three or four shaded lights. Windowslined both sides of the floor, but they had never been washed sincethe factory was built, surely. Anyhow, it was dark and rainy outside. The walls once had been white, but were now black. Dim, dirty, unevenboxes containing brass parts filled the spaces between the long tableswhere the foot presses stood. Third, the noise—the clump of the footpresses, the whirring of the pattern cutters—one sounded ever like alusty woodpecker with a metal beak pecking on metal; rollings andrumblings from the floor above; jarrings and shakings from below. 

Two-thirds of the entire floor was filled with long tables holding thefoot presses—tables which years ago were clean and new, tables whichnow were worn, stained, and uneven, and permanently dirty. On eachside of each long table stood five black iron presses, but thereseemed to be never more than one or two girls working at a side. Eachpress performed a different piece of work—cut wick holes, fitted orclamped parts together, shaped the cones, and what not, but with onlytwo general types of operation so far as the foot part went. One typetook a long, firm, forward swing on the pedal; the other a short, hard, downward “kick. ” With the end of the pressure the steel die cutthrough the thin brass cone, or completed whatever the job was. As thepedal and foot swung back to position the girl removed the brass part, dropping it in a large box at her right. She kept a small bin on thetable at the left of the press filled with parts she was to work on. Around the sides of the floor were the table workers—girls adjustingparts by hand, or soldering. 

The other third of the floor was taken up with the machine presses, which mostly clicked away cutting patterns in the brass parts to holdthe lamp chimney. In a far corner were the steaming, bleaching tubswhere dull, grimy brass parts were immersed in several preparations, Idon't know what, to emerge at last shining like the noonday sun. 

The cold little girl with no hat, a strange, somewhat unsociable, newperson, and I stood there waiting one hour. Some one took our names. The experienced feeling when they asked me where I had worked lastand how long was I there, and why did I leave! At the end of an hourthe forelady beckoned me—such a neat, sweet person as she was—and Itook my initial whack at a foot press. If ever I do run an automobilethe edge of first enjoyment is removed. A Rolls-Royce cannot make mefeel any more pleased with life than the first ten minutes of thatfoot press. In ten minutes the job was all done and there I sat for anhour and a half waiting for another. Hard on a person with thefoot-press fever. The times and times later I would gratefully havetaken any part of that hour and a half to ease my weary soul!

Be it known, if I speak feelingly at times of the weariness of a footpress, that, though nothing as to size, I am a very huskyperson—perhaps the healthiest of the eight million women in industry!It was a matter of paternal dismay that I arrived in the world femaleinstead of male. What Providence had overlooked, mortal ability woulddo everything possible to make up for—so argued a disappointedfather. From four years of age on I was taught to do everything a boycould or would do; from jumping off cars while they were moving togoing up in a balloon. A good part of my life I have played tennis andbasketball and hockey, and swum, and climbed mountains, and riddenhorseback, and rowed, and fished. I do not know what it is to have anache or a pain from one end of the year to the other. All of which ismentioned merely because if certain work taxes my strength, whoseldom has known what it is to be weary, what can it do to the averagefactory worker, often without even a fighting physical chance frombirth on?

The jobs on our third floor where the girls and women worked concernedthemselves with lamps—the old-fashioned kind, city folks are apt tothink. Yet goodness knows we seemed during even my sojourn to makemore lamp parts than creation ever had used in the heyday of lamps. Well, all but five per cent of farm women still use kerosene lamps, sothe government tells us. Also fat Lizzie informed me, when I asked herwho in the world could ever use just them lamp cones I made some oneparticular day, “Lor', child, they send them lamps all over theworld!” She made a majestic sweep with both arms. “Some of 'em goes asfar—as far—as _Philadelphia_!” Once we were working on a rush orderfor fifty thousand lamps of one certain kind. Curiosity got the betterof me and I took occasion to see where the boxes were being addressed. It was to a large mail-order house in Chicago. 

The first noon whistle—work dropped—a rush for the washroom. Let noone think his hands ever were dirty until he labors at a foot press ina brassworks. Such sticky, grimy, oily, rough blackness never was—andthe factory supplies no soap nor towels. You are expected to bringyour own—which is all right the second day when you have found it outand come prepared. 

The third floor had seemed dark and dismal enough during the morning;at noon all lights are turned off. Many of the workers went out forlunch, the rest got around in dismal corners, most of them singly, andate by their machines, on the same hard seats they have been on sincea quarter to 8. What a bacchanal festival of color and beauty nowappeared the candy-factory whitewashed lunch room with themarble-topped tables! The airy sociability of it! I wandered aboutwith my lunch in my hand, to see what I could see. Up amid the beltsand power machines sat one of the girls who began that morning—notthe cold, hatless one. 

“You gonna stick it out?” she asked me. 

“Sure. I guess it's all right. ”

“Oh gee! Ain't like no place I ever worked yet. Don't catch mestandin' this long. ”

She did stand it four days. Minnie suggested then she stick it outtill Christmas. “You'll need the money for Christmas y'know, an' youmight not get the next job so easy now. ”

“Damn Christmas!” was all the new girl had to say to that. 

“Sure now, ” said Irish Minnie, “an' she's takin her chances. It's anawful disgrace y'know, to be gettin' presents when y'ain't got none togive back. Ain't it, now? I'd never take no chances on a job so closeto Christmas. ”

I talked to five girls that noon. None of them had been there longerthan a week. None of them planned to stay. 

All afternoon I worked the foot press at one job. My foot-pressenthusiasm weakened—four thousand times I “kicked”—two thousandlamp-wick slots I make in the cones. Many of the first five hundredlooked a bit sad and chewed at. The “boss” came by and saw that I wasnot one hundred per cent perfect. He gave me pointers and I didbetter. Each cone got placed over a slanted form just so; kick, andhalf the slot is made. Lift the cone up a wee bit, twist it round toan exact position, hold it in place, kick, and the other half is cut. The kick must be a stout kick—bing! down hard, to make a clean job ofit. The thing they gave you to sit on! A high, narrow, homemade-looking, wooden stool, the very hardest article of furniture under the bluecanopy of heaven. Some of them had little, narrow, straight backs—justboards nailed on behind. All of them were top heavy and fell over ifyou got off without holding on. By 4. 30 standing up at the candy jobseemed one of the happiest thoughts on earth. What rosy good old daysthose were! Dear old candy factory! Happy girls back there bendingover the chocolates!

Next sat Louisa, an Italian girl who stuttered, and I had to stop mypress to hear her. She stopped hers to talk. She should worry. It'sthe worst job she ever saw, and for thirteen dollars a week why shouldshe work? She talked to me, kicked a few times, got a drink, kicked, talked, stood up and stretched, kicked, talked, got another drink. Sheis married, has a baby a year old, another coming in three months. Shewill stay her week out, then she goes, you bet. Her husband wasgetting fifty dollars a week in a tailor job—no work now fort-t-t-two months. He does a little now and then in the b-b-barberbusiness. Oh, but life was high while the going was good! She leanedway over and told me in a hushed, inspired tone, to leave meawestruck, “When we was m-m-married we t-t-took a h-h-h-honeymoon!” Igasped and wanted details. To West Virginia they'd gone for a month. The fare alone, each way, had come to ten dollars apiece, and thenthey did no work for that month, but lived in a little hotel. Herhusband was crazy of her, and she was of him now, but not when she wasmarried. He's very good to her. After dinner every single night theygo to a show. 

“Every night?”

“Sure, every night, and Sundays two times. ”

It all sounded truly glowing. 

“You married?”

“No. ”

“Well, don' you do it. Wish I wasn't married. Oh gee! Wish I wasn'tmarried. I'm crazy of my husband, but I wish I wasn't married. See—once you married—pisht!—there you are—stay that way. ”

I agreed I was in no hurry about matrimony. 

“Hurry? Na, no hurry; that's right. The h-h-hurrier you are theb-b-b-badder off you get!”

The next morning the Italian girl was late. The forelady gave herlocker to some one else. Such a row! Louisa said: “I got mad, I did. Itold her to go to hell. That's only w-w-w-way anybody gets anything inthis world—get mad and say you go to h-h-hell. Betcha. ”

A little later the forelady, when the Italian was on one of her tripsafter a drink, leaned over and gave me her side of the story. She issuch a very nice person, our forelady—quiet, attractive, neat as apin. Her sister addresses boxes and does clerical work of one sort oranother. Two subdued old maids they are; never worked any place butright on our third floor. “Ain't like what it used to be, ” she toldme. “In the old days girls used to work here till they got married. Weused to have parties here and, say! they was nice girls in them days. Look at 'em now! Such riffraff! New ones comin' in all the time, newones worse each time. Riffraff, that's what they are. It sure looksnice to see a girl like you. ” (What good were the earrings doing?)“We'll make it just as nice here for you as we can. ” (Oh, how guilty Ibegan to feel!)

She looked around to see if the Italian was about. 

“Now you take this Eyetalian girl next to you. Gee! she's some fright. Oughtta heard her this morning. 'Spected me to keep her locker for herwhen she was late. How'd I know she was comin' back? I gave it toanother girl. She comes tearin' at me. 'What the hell you think you'redoin'?' she says to me. Now I ain't used to such talk, and I was forputtin' my hat and coat on right then and there and walkin' out. Imust say I gotta stand all sorts of things in my job. It's awful whatI gotta put up with. I never says nothin' to her. But any girl's afool 'l talk to a person that way. Shows she's got nothin' up here[knocking her head] or she sure'd know better than get the foreladydown on her like that. Gee! I was mad!”

Louisa returned and Miss Hibber moved on. “Some fright, thatforelady, ” remarked Louisa. That night Louisa departed for good. 

The second day I kicked over six thousand times. It seemed a lot whenyou think of the hard stool. It was a toss between which was theworse, the stool or the air. This afternoon, I was sure it must be3. 30. I looked back at the clock—1. 10. It had seemed like two hoursof work and it was forty minutes. No ventilation whatever in thatwhole room—not a crack of air. Wonder if there ever was any since theplace was built decades ago. Once Louisa and I became desperate andgot Tony to open a window. The forelady had a fit; so did Tillie. Bothclaimed they'd caught cold. 

Tony is the Louis of the brassworks. He is young and very lame—oneleg considerably shorter than the other. It makes me miserable to seehim packing heavy boxes about. He told me he must get another job orquit. Finally they did put him at a small machine press. So manymaimed and halt and decrepit as they employed about the works! Numbersof the workers were past-telling old, several were very lame, oneerrand boy had a fearfully deformed face, one was cross-eyed. Iremarked to Minnie that the boss of the works must have a mighty goodheart. Minnie has been working twenty-three years and has had thebloom of admiration for her fellow-beings somewhat worn off in thattime. “Hm!” grunted Minnie. “He gets 'em cheaper that way, I guess. ”

The elevator man is no relation to the one at the candy factory. He isred faced and grinning, most of his teeth are gone, and he alwayswears a derby hat over one eye. One morning I was late. He jerked hishead and thumb toward the elevator. “Come on, I'll give ya a lift up!”and when we reached our floor, though it was the men's side, “ThirdAvenue stop!” he called out cheerily, and grinned at the world. He hadbeen there for years. The boss on our floor had been there foryears—forty-three, to be exact. Miss Hibber would not tell how manyyears she had worked there, nor would Tillie. Tillie said she was bornthere. 

If it were only the human element that counted, everyone would stay atthe brassworks forever. I feel like a snake in the grass, walking off“on them” when they all were so nice. Nor was it for a moment the“dearie” kind of niceness that made you feel it was orders from above. From our floor boss down, they were people who were born to treat abody square. All the handicaps against them—the work itself, thesurroundings, the low pay—had so long been part of their lives, these“higher ups” seemed insensible to the fact that such things werehandicaps. 

To-day was sunny and the factory not so dark—in fact, part of thetime we worked with no electric lights. The crisp early morning airthose four blocks from the Subway to the factory—it sent the springfever through the blood. In the gutter of that dirty East Side streeta dirty East Side man was burning garbage. The smoke curled up lazily. The sun just peeping up over the hospital at the end of the streetmade slanting shafts through the smoke. As I passed by it suddenly wasno longer the East Side of New York City. .. . 

 Now the Four Way Lodge is open, Now the hunting winds are loose, Now the smokes of spring go up to clear the brain. .. . 

Breakfast in a cañon by the side of a stream—the odor of pines. .. . The little bobbing doors went to behind me and there I stood in floorthree, the stale gas and metal smell . .. The whirs of the belts . .. The jarring of the presses. .. . 

Next to me this glorious morning sat a snip of a little thing all inblack—so pretty she was, so very pretty. I heard the boss tell herit's not the sort of work she's been used to, she'll find it hard. Isshe sure she wants to try it? And in the course of the morning I heardthe story of Mame's life. 

Mame's husband died three weeks ago. They had been married one monthand two days—after waiting three years. Shall I write a story of Mameon the sob-sister order to bring the tears to your eyes? It couldeasily be done. But not honestly. Little Mame—how could her foot everreach the press? And when she walked off after a drink, I saw that shewas quite lame. A widow only three weeks. She'd never worked before, but there was no money. She lived all alone, wandered out for hermeals—no mother, no father, no sisters or brothers. She cried everynight. Her husband had been a traveling salesman—sometimes he madeeighty-five dollars a week. They had a six-room apartment and aservant! She'd met him at a dance hall. A girl she was with had daredher to wink at him. Sure she'd do anything anybody dared her to. Hecame over and asked her what she was after, anyhow. That night he leftthe girl he'd taken to the dance hall to pilot her own way back tohome and mother, and he saw Mame to her room. He was swell and tall. She showed me his picture in a locket around her neck. Meanwhile Mamekicked the foot press about twice every five minutes. 

Why had they waited so long to get married? Because of the war. He wasafraid he'd be killed and would leave her a widow. “He asked me topromise never to get married again if he did marry me and died. But, ”—she leaned over my way—“that only meant if he died during thewar, ain't that so? Lookit how long the war was over before he died. ”

He was awful good to her after they got married. He took her to a showevery night—jes swell; and she had given him a swell funeral—you betshe did. The coffin had cost eighty-five dollars—white with realsilver handles; and the floral piece she bought—“Gee! What's yourname?. .. Connie, you oughtta seen that floral piece!” and Mame laidoff work altogether to use her hands the better. It was shaped so, andin the middle was a clock made out of flowers, with the hands at thevery minute and hour he'd died. (He passed away of a headache—verysudden. ) Then below, in clay, were two clasped hands—his and hers. “Gee! Connie, you never seen nothin' so swell. Everybody seen it saidso. ”

Once he bought her a white evening dress, low neck, fish-tail train, pearls all over the front—cost him one whole week's salary, eighty-five dollars! She had diamond earrings and jewels worth atleast one thousand dollars. She had lovely clothes. Couldn't she justput a black band around the arms and go on wearing them? She took alook at my earrings. Gee! they were swell. She had some green onesherself. Next morning she appeared in her widow's weeds withbright-green earrings at least a quarter of an inch longer than mine. 

From the first Mame clung to me morning and night. Usually morningsshe threw her arms around me in the dressing room. “Here's my Connie!”I saw myself forced to labor in the brassworks for life because ofMame's need of me. This need seemed more than spiritual. One day herpocketbook with twelve dollars had been stolen in the Subway. I lenther some cash. Another time she left her money at the factory. I lenther the wherewithal to get home with, etc. One day I was not at work. Somehow the other girls all were down on Mame. I have pondered much onthat. When it came to the needed collection Mame found it hardpickings. She got a penny from this girl, another from that one, untilshe had made up a nickel to get home with. Irish Minnie gave her asandwich and an apple. The girls all jumped on me: “The way you letthat Frenchie work ya! Gee! you believe everything anybody tells ya. ”

“But, ” says I, “she's been a widow only three weeks and I'm terriblesorry for her. ”

“How d'ya know she ever had a husband?” “How d'ya know he's dead?”“How'd ya. .. . ”

The skepticism of factory workers appals me. They suspect everybodyand everything from the boss down. I believed almost everything aboutMame, especially since she paid back all she ever borrowed. No oneelse in that factory believed a word she said. They couldn't “standher round. ”

“How d'ya know she lost her pocketbook?” (Later she advertised and gotit back—a doctor's wife found it on the early Subway. )

“Doctor's wife, ” sniffed Minnie. “Who ever heard of a doctor's wife upat seven o'clock in the mornin'?”

And now I have walked off and left Mame to that assemblage ofunbelievers. At least Mame has a tongue of her own she is only tooglad of a chance to use. It is meat and drink to Mame to have a manlook her way. “Did you see that fella insult me?” and she calls backprotective remarks for half a block. Sentiments that usually bring inmention of the entertained youth's mother and sisters, and wind upwith allusions to a wife, which if he doesn't possess now, he may someday. Once I stopped with Mame while she and Irene phoned a “fella” ofIrene's from a drug-store telephone booth. Such gigglings and goingson, especially since the “fella” was unknown to Mame at the time. Outside in the store a pompous, unromantic man grew more and moreimpatient for a turn at that booth. When Mame stepped out he remarkedcasually that he hoped she felt she'd gotten five cents' worth. Thedressing down Mame then and there heaped upon that startled gentleman!Who was he to insult her? I grew uneasy and feared a scene, but thepompous party took hasty refuge in the telephone booth and closed thedoor. Mame was very satisfied with the impression she must have made. “The fresh old guy!”

Another time Mame sought me out in the factory, her eyes blazing. “Connie, I been insulted, horribly insulted, and I don't see how I canstay in this factory! You know that girl Irene? Irene she says to me, 'Mamie, you plannin' to get married again?'

“'I dunno, ' I says to her, 'but if I do it'll be to some singlefella. '

“'Huh!' Irene says to me, 'You won't get no single fella; you'll haveto marry a widower with two or three children. ' Think of her insultin'me like that! I could 'a' slapped her right in the face!”

I asked Mame one Saturday what she'd be doing Sunday. She sighed. “I'll be spendin' the day at the cemetery, I expect. ”

Monday morning I asked Mame about Sunday. She'd been to church in themorning (Mame, like most of the girls at the brassworks, was aCatholic), a show in the afternoon, cabaret for dinner, had dancedtill 1, and played poker until 4 A. M. “If only my husband was alive, ”said Mame, “I'd be the happiest girl on earth. ”

One night Mame's landlady wanted to go out and play poker. She askedMame to keep her eye and ear out for the safety of the house. Everyfive minutes Mame thought she heard a burglar or somethin'. “Gee! Ihardly slept at all; kep' wakin' up all the time. An' that landladynever got in till six this mornin'!”

“My Gawd!” I exclaimed. “Hope she was lucky after playin' poker thatlong!”

“She sure was, ” sighed Mame. “Gee! I jus' wish ya c'u'd see the swellprize she won!—the most beau-teful statue—stands about three feethigh—of Our Blessed Lady of the Immaculate Conception. ”

Mame's friendship could become almost embarrassing. One day sheannounced she wanted me to marry one of her brothers-in-law. “I gottwo nice ones and we'll go out some Sunday afternoon and you can haveyour pick. One's a piano tuner; the other's a detective. ” I thoughtoffhand the piano tuner sounded a bit more domestic. He was swell, Mame said. 

Mame didn't think she'd stay long in the brassworks. It was allright—the boss she thought was sort of stuck on her. Did he have awife? (The boss, at least sixty years old. ) Also Charlie was makingeyes at her. (Charlie was French; so was Mame. Charlie knew six wordsof English. Mame three words of French. Charlie was sixteen). No, aside from matrimony, Mame was going to train in Bellevue Hospital andearn sixty dollars a week being a children's nurse. She'd heard if yougot on the right side of a doctor it was easy, and already a doctorwas interested in getting Mame in. 

And I've just walked off and left Mame. 

 * * * * *

Kicked the foot press 7, 149 times by the meter to-day and expected todie of weariness. Thumped, thumped, thumped without stopping. As withcandy, I got excited about going on piecework. Asked Miss Hibber whatthe rates were for my job—four and a half cents for one hundred andfifty. Since I had to kick twice for every cone top finished, thatwould have meant around one dollar fifteen cents for the day. Vanishedthe piece-rate enthusiasm. Tillie seemed the only girl on our floordoing piecework. Tillie, who “was born there. ” She was thin and stoopshouldered, wore spectacles, and did her hair according to thepompadour styles of some twenty years ago. The work ain't so bad. Tillie don't mind it. There's just one thing in the world Tilliewants. What's that? “A man!” Evidently Tillie has made no bones of herdesire. The men call back kindly to Tillie as she picks her way up thedark stairs in the morning, “Hello there, sweetheart!” That week hadbeen a pretty good one for Tillie—she'd made sixteen dollarsforty-nine cents. 

“Ain't much, p'raps, one way, but there's jus' this about it, it'ssteady. They never lay anybody off here, and there's a lot. You hearthese girls 'round here talk about earnin' four, five, six dollars aday. Mebbe they did, but why ain't they gettin' it now? 'Shop closeddown, ' or, 'They laid us off. ' That's it. Add it up over a year and mysixteen forty-nine'll look big as their thirty dollars to fortydollars a week, see if it don't. ”

Tillie's old, fat, wheezy mother works on our floor—maybe Tilliereally was born there. 

One day I decided to see what could be done if I went the limit. Suppose I had a sick mother and a lame brother—a lot of factory girlshave. I was on a press where you had to kick four separate times oneach piece—small lamp cones, shaped, slot already in. My job was topunch four holes for the brackets to hold the chimney. The day beforeI had kicked over 10, 000 times. This morning I gritted my teeth andstarted in. Between 10 and 11 I had gotten up to 2, 000 kicks an hour. Miss Hibber went by and I asked her what piece rates for that machinewere. She said six and one-quarter cents for one hundred and fifty. Idid not stop then to do any figuring. Told her rather chestily I couldkick 2, 000 times an hour. “That all? You ought to do much more thanthat!” Between 11 and 12 I worked as I had never worked. It washumanly impossible to kick that machine oftener than I did. Never didI let my eyes or thoughts wander. When the whistle blew at 12 I hadkicked 2, 689. For a moment I figured. It takes about an hour in themorning to get on to the swing. From 11 to 12 was always my bestoutput. After lunch was invariably deadly. From 12. 30 until 2. 30 itseemed impossible to get up high speed. That left at best 2. 30 to 4for anything above average effort. From 4 to 5 it was hard again onaccount of physical weariness. But say I could average 2, 500 an hourduring the day. That would have brought me in, four kicks to eachcone, around two dollars and a quarter a day. The fact of the matterwas that after kicking 8, 500 times that morning I gave up the ghost asfar as that job went. I ached body and soul. By that time I had beenon that one job several days and was sick to death of it. Each cone Ipicked up to punch those four holes in made something rub along mybackbone or in the pit of my stomach or in my head—or in all of themat once. Yet the old woman next me had been at her same job for over aweek. The last place she'd worked she'd done the identical thing sixmonths—preferred it to changing around. Most of the girls took thatattitude. Up to date that is the most amazing thing I have learnedfrom my factory experiences—the difference between my attitude towarda monotonous job, and the average worker's. In practically every casethe girl has actually preferred the monotonous job to one with anyvariety. The muscles in my legs ached so I could almost have shedtears. The day before I had finished at 5 tired out. That morning Ihad wakened up tired—the only time in my life. I could hardly kick atall the first half hour. There was a gnawing sort of pain between myshoulders. Suppose I really had been on piecework and had to keep upat that breaking rate, only to begin the next morning still more wornout? My Gawd!

Most of the girls kick with the same leg all the time. I triedchanging off now and then. With the four-hole machine, using the leftleg meant sitting a little to the right side. Also I tried once usingmy left hand to give the right a rest. Thus the boss observed me. 

“Now see here, m'girl, why don't you do things the way you're taught?That ain't the right way!”

He caught me at the wrong moment. I didn't care whether the earthopened up and swallowed me. 

“I know the right way of runnin' this machine good as you do, ” Ifairly glared at him. “I'm sick and tired of doin' it the right way, and if I want to do it wrong awhile for a change I guess I can!”

“You ain't goin' to get ahead in this world if you don't do things_right_, m'girl. ” And he left me to my fate. 

At noon that day the girls got after me. “You're a fool to work theway you do. You never took a drink all this mornin'—jus' sit therekickin', kickin', kickin'. Where d'ya think ya goin' to land? In acoffin, that's where. The boss won't thank ya for killin' yourself onhis old foot press, neither. You're jus' a fool, workin' like that. ”And that's just what I decided. “Lay off now and then. ” Yes indeed, Iwas going to lay off now and then. 

“I see myself breakin' my neck for thirteen dollars a week, ” Bellachipped in. 

“You said it!” from all the others. 

So I kicked over 16, 000 times that day and let it go as my final swansong. No more breaking records for me. My head thumped, thumped, thumped all that night. After that I strolled up front for a drink anda gossip or back to a corner of the wash room where two or three weresure to be squatting on some old stairs, fussing over the universe. When the boss was up on the other end of the floor, sometimes I justsat at my machine and did nothing. It hurt something within my soul atfirst, but my head and hands and legs and feet and neck and generaldisposition felt considerably better. 

Lunch times suited me exactly at the brassworks, making me feel I wasgetting what I was after. Three of us used to gather around IrishMinnie, put two stools lengthwise on the floor, and squat along thesides. Bella, who'd worked in Detroit for seven dollars a day (herfigures), a husky good-looking person; Rosie, the prettiest littlesixteen-year-old Italian girl; and I. Such conversations! One day theyunearthed Harry Thaw and Evelyn Nesbit and redid their past, present, and probable future. We discussed whether Olive Thomas had reallycommitted suicide or died of an overdose of something. How many nightsa week could a girl dance and work next day? Minnie was past herdancing days. She'd been married 'most twenty years and was gettingfat and unformed-looking; shuffled about in a pair of old white tennisshoes and a pink boudoir cap. (No one else wore a cap at thebrassworks. ) Minnie had worked fifteen years at a power press, elevenyears at her last job. She was getting the generous stipend offourteen dollars a week (one dollar more than the rest of us). She hadearned as much as twenty-five dollars a week in her old job at the tincan company, piecework. Everybody about the factory told her troublesto Minnie, who immediately told them to everybody else. It made for acertain community interest. One morning Minnie would tell me, as Ipassed her machine, “Rosie 'n' Frank have had a fight. ” With that cueit was easy to appear intelligent concerning future developments. Frank was one of the machinists, an Italian. Rosie had let him makecertain advances—put his arm around her and all that—but she told usone lunch time, “he'd taken advantage of her, ” so she just sassed himback now. Bella announced Frank was honeying around her. “Well, watchout, ” Rosie advised, with the air of Bella's greataunt. 

As to dancing, Bella's chum in Detroit used to go to a dance everysingle night and work all day. Sundays she'd go to a show and a dance. Bella tried it one week and had to lay off three days of the next weekbefore she could get back to work. Lost her twenty-one dollars. Nomore of that for Bella. Just once in a while was enough for her. 

They did not talk about “vamping dopes” at the brassworks. Everyoneasked you if you were “keepin' company, ” and talked of fellas andsweethearts and intended husbands. That was the scale. As before, allthe married ones invariably advised against matrimony. Irish Minnietold us one lunch time that it was a bad job, this marrying business. “Of course, ” she admitted, pulling on a piece of roast pork with herteeth, “my husband ain't what you'd call a _bad_ man. ” That was as faras Minnie cared to go. 

Perhaps one reason why the brassworks employed so many crooked anddecrepit was as an efficiency measure. The few males who were wholecaused so many flutterings among the female hands that it seriouslyinterfered with production. Rosie's real cause for turning Frank downwas that she was after Good Lookin'. Good Lookin' would not have beenso good lookin' out along the avenue, but in the setting of our thirdfloor he was an Adonis. Rosie worked a power press. I would miss theclank of her machine. There she would be up in the corner of the floorwhere Good Lookin' worked. Good Lookin' would go for a drink. Rosiewould get thirsty that identical moment. They would carry on ananimated conversation, to be rudely broken into by a sight of the bossmeandering up their way. Rosie would make a dash for her machine, GoodLookin' would saunter over to his. 

 * * * * *

From the start I had pestered the boss to be allowed on a power press, for two reasons: one just because I wanted to—the same reason why asmall boy wants to work at machinery; secondly, I wanted to be able topose at the next job as an experienced power-press worker and sooneror later get a high-power machine. One day the boss was watching meat the foot press. “Y'know, m'girl, I think you really gotintelligence, blessed if I don't. I'm goin' to push you right ahead. I'll make a machinist out of you yet, see if I don't. You stay righton here and you'll be making big money yet. ” (Minnie—eleven years inher last job—fourteen dollars a week now. ) Anyway, one morning hecame up—and that morning foot presses of every description had lostall fascination for me—and he said, “You still want a power press?”

“Bet your life I do!”

And he gave me a power press deserted that morning by one of the boys. Life looked worth living again. All I had to do to work miracles waspress ever so lightly a pedal. The main point was to get my foot offit as quick as I got it on, or there was trouble. I wasn't to get myfingers here or there, or “I'd never play the piano in this life. ” Ifthe belt flew off I wasn't to grab it, or I'd land up at the ceiling. For the rest, I merely clamped a round piece on the top of a nail-likenarrow straight piece—the part that turned the lamp wick up and down. Hundreds and thousands of them I made. The monotony did not wear on methere; it was mixed with no physical exertion. I could have stayed onat the brassworks the rest of my life—perhaps. 

One night I was waiting at a cold, windy corner on Fifth Avenue for abus. None came. A green Packard limousine whirled by. The chauffeurwaved and pointed up the Avenue. In a flash I thought, now if I reallywere a factory girl I'd surely jump at a chance to ride in that greenPackard. Up half a block I ran, and climbed in the front seat, as wasexpected of me. He was a very nice chauffeur. His mistress, “the oldlady, ” was at a party and he was killing time till 11. 30. Would I liketo ride till then? No, I wanted to get home—had to be up too earlyfor joy riding. Why so early? The factory. And before I realized itthere I sat, the factory girl. Immediately he asked me to dinner anynight I said. Now I really thought it would be worth doing; no oneelse I knew had been out to dine with a chauffeur. Where would he takeme? What would he talk about? But my nerve failed me. No, I didn'tthink I'd go. I fussed about for some excuse. I was sort of new in NewYork—out West, it was different. There you could pick up withanybody, go any place. “Good Gawd! girl, ” said the chauffeur, earnestly, “don't try that in New York; you'll get in awful trouble!”All through Central Park he gave me advice about New York and thepitfalls it contained for a Westerner. He'd be very careful about meif I'd go out with him, any place I said, and he'd get me home earlyas I said. But I didn't say. I'd have to think it over. He couldtelephone to me. No, he couldn't. The lady I lived with was veryparticular. Well, anyhow, stormy days he'd see to it he'd be down bythe factory and bring me home. Would I be dressed just the way I wasthen? Just the way—green tam and all. 

The next day while I thumped out lamp parts I tried to screw mycourage up to go out with that chauffeur. Finally I decided to put itup to the girls. I meandered back to the wash room. There on the oldstairs sat Irish Minnie and Annie, fat and ultradignified. They werediscussing who the father of the child really was. I breezed incasually. 

“Vamped a chauffeur last night. ”

“Go-an. ”

“Sure. He asked me to ride home with him an' I did. ”

“Got in the machine with him?”

“Sure!”

“You _fool_! You young _fool_!”

Goodness! I was unprepared for such comment. 

“What did he do to ya?”

“Nothin'. An' he wants me to go to dinner with him. What'll I say?”

Both pondered. “Sure, ” said Minnie, “I b'lieve in a girl gettin' allthat's comin' to her, but all I want to tell ya is, chauffeurs are abad lot—the worst, I tell ya. ”

“You said it!” nodded fat Annie, as if years of harrowing experiencelay behind her. “He was all right to ya the first time so as to lureyou out the next. ”

“But, ” says Minnie, “if ya go to dinner with him, don't you go nearhis machine. Steer clear of machines. Eat all ya can off him, butdon't do no ridin'. ”

“You said it!” again Annie backed her up. Annie was a regular sackslinger. She could have hurled two men off Brooklyn Bridge with onehand. “If you was as big an' strong as me you c'u'd take 'most anychance. I'd like to see a guy try to pull anythin' on me. ” I'd like tosee him, too. 

“Some day”—Minnie wanted to drive her advice home by concreteillustration—“some day a chauffeur'll hold a handkerchief under yournose with somethin' on it. When ya come to, goodness knows whereyou'll be. ”

I began to feel a little as if I'd posed as too innocent. 

“You see, out West—” I began. 

“My Gawd!”—Minnie waved a hand scornfully—“don't be tryin' to tellme all men are angels out West. ”

Just then Miss Hibber poked her head in and we suddenly took ourselvesout. 

“You go easy, now, ” Minnie whispered after me. 

I lacked the nerve, anyhow, and they put on the finishing touches. Abricklayer would not have been so bad. How did I know the chauffeurwas not working for a friend of mine? That, later on, would make itmore embarrassing for him than me. I should think he would want towring my neck. 

It was about time to find a new job, anyhow. But leaving thebrassworks is like stopping a novel in the middle. What about Rosieand good looking Bella and her brother she was trying to rescue fromthe grip of the poolroom? Mame—Mame and her kaleidoscope romances, insults, and adventures? I just hate walking off and leaving it all. And the boss and Miss Hibber so nice to me about everything. 

Before a week is gone Minnie will be telling in an awed voice that sheknows what happened. She told me not to go out with that chauffeur. Iwent, anyhow, and they found my mangled body in the gutter inYonkers. 

 III

 _195 Irons “Family”_

How long, I wonder, does one study or work at anything before onefeels justified in generalizing?

I have been re-reading of late some of the writings of some of thewomen who at one time or another essayed to experience first hand thelife of the working girl. They have a bit dismayed me. Is it exactlyfair, what they do? They thought, because they changed their names andwore cheap clothes, that, presto! they were as workers and could passon to an uninformed reading public the trials of the worker. (Incidentally they were all trials. ) I had read in the past thoseheartrending books and articles and found it ever difficult to holdback the tears. Sometimes they were written by an immigrant, abona-fide worker. The tragedy of such a life in this business-riddenland of ours tore one's soul. 

An educated, cultured individual, used to a life of ease, or easier, if she had wished to make it that, would find the life of the factoryworker well-nigh unbearable. An emotional girl longing for the higherthings of life would find factory life galling beyond words. It is tobe regretted that there are not more educated and culturedpeople—that more folk do not long for the higher things of life—thatfactory work is not galling to everybody. But the fact seems to be, ifwe dare generalize, that there are a very great many persons in thisworld who are neither educated nor “cultured” nor filled withspiritual longings. The observation might be made that all such arenot confined to the working classes; that the country at large, fromFifth Avenue, New York, to Main Street, Gopher Prairie, to MarketStreet, San Francisco, is considerably made up of folk who are noteducated or “cultured” or of necessity filled with unsatiable longingsof the soul. 

It is partly due to the fact that only recently—as geologic time isreckoned—we were swinging in trees, yearning probably for little elsethan a nut to crack, a mate, a shelter of sorts, something of apecompany, and now and then a chance for a bit of a scrap. It is partlydue to the fact that for the great majority of people, the life theylive from the cradle up is not the sort that matures them with agrowing ambition or opportunity to experience the “finer” things oflife. One point of view would allow that the reason we have so feweducated, cultured, and aspiring people is due to a combination ofunfortunate circumstances to do with heredity and environment. Theywould be cultured and spiritual if only. .. . 

The other viewpoint argues that the only reason we have as many culturedand spiritual people as we have is due to a fortunate—“lucky”—combinationof circumstances to do with heredity and environment. These moreadvanced folk would be far fewer in number if it had not happenedthat. .. . 

It is mostly the “educated and cultured” persons who write the moreserious books we read and who tell us what they and the rest of theworld think and feel and do—or ought to do. The rest of the worldnever read what they ought to think and feel and do, and goblithely—or otherwise—on their way thinking and feeling anddoing—what they please, or as circumstances force them. 

After all, the world is a very subjective thing, and what makes lifeworth living to one person is not necessarily what makes it worthliving to another. Certain fundamental things everybody is apt towant: enough to eat (but what a gamut that “enough” can run!); a mate(the range and variety of mates who do seem amply to satisfy oneanother!); a shelter to retire to nights (what a bore if we all had tolive complacently on the Avenue!); children to love and fuss over—butone child does some parents and ten children do others, and somemothers go into a decline if everything is not sterilized twice a dayand everybody clean behind the ears, and other mothers get just asmuch satisfaction out of their young when there is only onetoothbrush, if that, for everybody (we are writing from the mother'sviewpoint and not the welfare of the offspring); some possessions ofone's own, but not all stocks and bonds and a box of jewels in thebank, or a library, or an automobile, or even a house and lot, beforepeace reigns. 

Everyone likes to mingle with his kind now and then; to some it issubjectively necessary to hire a caterer, to others peanuts suffice. Everyone likes to wonder and ponder and express opinions—a prizefight is sufficient material for some; others prefer metaphysics. Everyone likes to play. Some need box seats at the Midnight Frolic, others a set of second-hand tools, and yet others a game of craps inthe kitchen. 

No one likes to be hungry, to be weary, to be sick, to be worried overthe future, to be lonely, to have his feelings hurt, to lose thosenear and dear to him, to have too little independence, to get lickedin a scrap of any kind, to have no one at all who loves him, to havenothing at all to do. The people of the so-called working class aremore apt to be hungry, weary, and sick than the “educated andcultured” and well-to-do. Otherwise there is no one to say—becausethere is no way it can be found out—that their lives by and large arenot so rich, subjectively speaking, as those with one hundred thousanddollars a year, or with Ph. D. Degrees. 

Most folk in the world are not riotously happy, not because they arepoor, or “workers, ” but because the combination making for riotoushappiness—shall we say health, love, enough to do of what one longsto do—is not often found in one individual. The condition of thebedding, of the clothing; the pictures on the wall; the smells in thekitchen—and beyond; the food on the table—have so much, and no more, to do with it. Whether one sorts soiled clothes in a laundry, orreclines on a chaise-longue with thirty-eight small hand-embroideredand belaced pillows and a pink satin covering, or sits in a libraryand fusses over Adam Smith, no one of the three is in a position topass judgment on the satisfaction or lack of satisfaction of the othertwo. 

All of which is something of an impatient retort to those who look atthe world through their own eyes and by no means a justification ofthe _status quo_. And to introduce the statement—which a month agowould have seemed to me incredible—that I have seen and heard as muchcontentment in a laundry as I have in the drawing-room of a FifthAvenue mansion or a college sorority house—as much and no more. Whichis not arguing that no improvements need ever be made in laundries. 

 * * * * *

There was one place I was not going to work, and that was a laundry! Ihad been through laundries, I had read about laundries, and it was toomuch to ask anyone—if it was not absolutely necessary—to work in alaundry. And yet when the time came, I hated to leave the laundry. Ientered the laundry as a martyr. I left with the nickname, honestlycome by without a Christian effort, of “Sunbeam. ” But, oh! I have alarge disgust upon me that it takes such untold effort every workingday, all over the “civilized, ” world to keep people “civilized. ” Thelabor, and labor, and labor of first getting cloth woven and buttonsand thread manufactured and patterns cut and garments made up, andfitted, or not, and then to keep those garments _clean_! We talk withsuch superiority of the fact that we wear clothes and heathen savagesget along with beads and rushes. For just that some six hundred andfifty thousand people work six days a week doing laundry workalone—not to mention mother at the home washboard—or electricmachine. We must be clean, of course, or we would not be civilized, but I do not see why we need be so fearfully sot up about it. 

A new Monday morning came along, and I waited from 7. 40 to 9. 15 in asix-by-nine entry room, with some twenty-five men and women, to answerthe advertisement:

 GIRLS, OVER 18

 with public school education, to learn machine ironing, marking, and assorting linens; no experience necessary; splendid opportunity for right parties; steady positions; hours 8 to 5. 30; half day Saturday. 

What the idea was of advertising for superior education never becameclear. No one was asked how far she had progressed intellectually. Iventure to say the majority of girls there had had no more than therudiments of the three r's. It looked well in print. One of the girlsfrom the brassworks stood first in line. She had tried two jobs sinceI saw her last. She did not try the laundry at all. 

I was third in line. The manager himself interviewed us inside, sincethe “Welfare Worker” was ill. What experience had I? I was experiencedin both foot and power presses. He phoned to the “family” floor—twovacancies. I was signed up as press ironer, family. I wouldn't find itso hard as the brassworks—in fact, it really wasn't hard at all. Hewould start me in at fourteen dollars a week, since I was experienced, instead of the usual twelve. At the end of two weeks, if I wasn'tearning more than fourteen dollars—it was a piecework system, withfourteen dollars as a minimum—I'd have to go, and make room for someone who could earn more than fourteen dollars. 

I wonder if the Welfare Worker would have made the same speech. Thatmanager was a fraud. On our floor, at least, no one had ever beenknown to earn more than her weekly minimum. He was a smart fraud. OnlyI asked too many questions upstairs, he would have had me working likea slave to hold my job. 

By the time clock, where I was told to wait, stood the woman justahead of me in the line. She was the first really bitter soul I hadrun across in factory work. Her husband had been let out of his job, along with all workers in his plant, without notice. After January 1stthey might reopen, but at 1914 wages. There was one child in thefamily. The father had hunted everywhere for work. For one week themother had searched. She had tried a shoe polish factory; they put heron gluing labels. The smell of the glue made her terribly sick to herstomach—for three days she was forced to stay in bed. Three times shehad tried this laundry. Each day, after keeping her waiting in line anhour or so, they had told her to come back the next day. At last shehad gotten as far as the time clock. I saw her several times in theevening line after that; she was doing “pretty well”—“shaking” on thethird floor. Her arms nearly dropped off by evening, but she sure wasglad of the thirteen dollars a week. Her husband had found nothing. 

The third to join our time-clock ranks was a Porto-Rican. She couldspeak no English at all. They put her at scrubbing floors for twelvedollars a week. About 4 that afternoon she appeared on our floor, allagitated. She needed a Spanish girl there to tell the boss she wasleaving. She was one exercised piece of temper when it finallypenetrated just what her job was. 

“Family” occupied two-thirds of the sixth and top floor—the otherthird was the “lunch room. ” Five flights to walk up every morning. Butat least there was the lunch room without a step up at noon. And itwas worth climbing five flights to have Miss Cross for a forelady. Sooner or later I must run into a disagreeable forelady, for theexperience. To hear folks talk, plenty of that kind exist. Miss Crosswas glad I was to be on her floor. She told the manager and me she'dnoticed me that morning in line and just thought I'd made a good pressironer. Was I Eyetalian?

She gave me the second press from the door, right in front of awindow, and a window open at the top. That was joy for me, but let noone think the average factory girl consciously pines for fresh air. Miss Cross ironed the lowers of a pair of pajamas to show me how itwas done, then the coat part. While she was instructing me in suchintricacies, she was deftly finding out all she could about my past, present, and future—married or single, age, religion, and so on. AndI watched, fascinated, crumpled pajama legs, with one mighty press ofthe foot, appear as perfect and flawless as on the Christmas morningthey were first removed from the holly-decorated box. 

“Now you do it. ”

I took the coat part of a pair of pink pajamas, smoothed one arm a bitby hand as I laid it out on the stationary side of the ironing press, shaped somewhat like a large metal sleeve board. With both hands Igripped the wooden bar on the upper part, all metal but the bar. Withone foot I put most of my weight on the large pedal. That locked thehot metal part on the padded, heated, lower half with a bang. A presson the release pedal, the top flew up—too jarringly, if you did notkeep hold of the bar with one hand. That ironed one side of onesleeve. Turn the other side, press, release. Do the other sleeve ontwo sides. Do the shoulders all around—about four presses andreleases to that. Another to one side of the front—two if it is for abig fat man. One under the arm, two or three to the back, one underthe other arm, one or two to the other half of the front, one, two, orthree to the collar, depending on the style. About sixteen clankspressing down, sixteen releases flying up, to one gentleman's pajamacoat. I had the hang of it, and was left alone. Then I combinedironing and seeing what was what. If a garment was very damp—and mostof them were—the press had to be locked several seconds before beingreleased, to dry it out. During those seconds one's eyes were free towander. 

On my left, next the door, worked a colored girl with shell-rimmedspectacles, very friendly, whose name was Irma. Of Irma later. On myright was the most woebegone-looking soul, an Italian widow, Lucia, indeep mourning—husband dead five weeks, with two daughters to support. She could not speak a word of English, and in this country sixteenyears. All this I had from the forelady in between her finding outeverything there was to know about me. Bless my soul, if Lucia did notperk up the second the forelady left, edge over, and direct a volumeof Italian at me. What won't green earrings do! Old Mrs. Reilly calledout, “Ach, the poor soul's found a body to talk to at last!” But, alas! Lucia's hope was short lived. “What!” called Mrs. Reilly, “youain't Eyetalian? Well, you ought to be, now, because you look it, andbecause there ought to be somebody here for Lucy to talk to!” Luciawas diseased-looking and unkempt-looking and she ironed very badly. Everyone tried to help her out. They instructed her with a flow ofEnglish. When Lucia would but shake her head they used the same flow, only much louder, several at once. Then Lucia would mumble to herselffor several minutes over her ironing. At times, late in the afternoon, Miss Cross would grow discouraged. 

“Don't you understand that when you iron a shirt you put the sleevesover the puffer _first_?”

Lucia would shake her head and shrug her shoulders helplessly. MissCross would repeat with vehemence. Then one girl would poke Lucia andpoint to the puffer—“Puffer! puffer!” Another would hold up a shirtand holler “Shirt! shirt!” and Lucia would nod vaguely. The next shirtshe did as all the others—puffer last, which mussed the ironedpart—until some one stopped her work and did a whole shirt for Luciacorrect, from beginning to end. 

Next to Lucia stood Fanny, colored. She was a good-hearted, helpful, young married thing, not over-cleanly and not overstrong. That firstmorning she kept her eye on me and came to my rescue on a new articleof apparel every so often. Next to Fanny stood the three puffers foranyone to use—oval-shaped, hot metal forms, for all gathers, whetherin sleeves, waists, skirts, or what not. Each girl had a largeegg-shaped puffer on her own table as well. Next to the puffers stoodthe two sewing machines, where Spanish Sarah and colored Hattie darnedand mended. 

At the side, behind the machines, stood Ida at her press. All thepresses were exactly alike. Ida was a joy to my eyes. At first glanceshe appeared just a colored girl, but Ida was from Trinidad; her skinwas like velvet, her accent Spanish. As the room grew hot from thepresses and the steam, along about 4, and our feet began to burn andgrow weary, I would look at Ida. It was so easy to picture the exactlikes of her, not more than a generation or two ago, squatting undera palm tree with a necklace of teeth, a ring through her nose, tropicbreezes playing on that velvet skin. (Please, I know naught ofTrinidad or its customs and am only guessing. ) And here stood Ida, thumping, thumping on the ironing press, nine hours, lacking tenminutes, a day, on the sixth floor of a laundry in Harlem, that we inManhattan might be more civilized. 

Once she told me she had lost fifteen pounds in this country. “How?”

“Ah, child, ” she said, “it's tha mother sickness. Don't you ever knowit? Back home in Trinidad are my mother, my father, my two littleboys. Oh, tha sickness to see them! But what is one to do when youmarry a poor man? He must come to this country to find work, and then, after a while, I must come, too. ”

Behind Ida stood two other colored girls, and at the end press a whitegirl who started the day after I did. She stayed only five days, andleft in disgust—told me she'd never seen such hard work. Beyond thelast press were the curtain frames and the large, round padded tablefor ironing fancy table linen by hand. Then began the lunch tables. 

Behind the row of presses by the windows stood the hand ironers whodid the fancy work. First came Ella, neat, old, gray-haired, fearfullythin, wrinkled, with a dab of red rouge on each cheek. After all, onereally cannot be old if one dabs on rouge before coming to work allday in a laundry. Ella had hand ironed all her life. She had been tenyears in her last job, but the place changed hands. She likedironing, she said. Ella never talked to anybody, even at lunch time. 

Behind Ella ironed Anna Golden, black, who wore striped silkstockings. She always had a bad cold. Most of the girls had colds mostof the time—from the steam, they said. Anna had spent two dollars onmedicine that week, which left her fourteen dollars. Anna was the oneperson to use an electric iron. It had newly been installed. Theothers heated their irons over gas flames. Every so often Miss Crosswould call out, “I smell gas!” So did everybody else. After Anna, Lucile, blackest of all and a widow. And then—Mrs. Reilly. 

Mrs. Reilly and Hattie were the characters of the sixth floor. Mrs. Reilly was old and fat and Irish. She had stood up hand ironing solong the part of her from the waist up seemed to have settled downinto her hips. Eleven years had Mrs. Reilly ironed in our laundry. Shewas the one pieceworker in the building. In summer she could make fromtwenty to twenty-five dollars a week, but she claimed she lost a greatpart of it in winter. She said she was anxious to get on timework. Oneafternoon I saw Mrs. Reilly iron just two things—the rest of thewhile, nothing to do, she sat on an old stool with her eyes closed. 

The first afternoon, Mrs. Reilly edged over to me on pretext ofironing out a bit of something on my press. 

“An' how are you makin' out?”

“All right, only my feet are awful tired. Don't your feet never gettired?

”Shure, child, an' what good would it do for my feet to get tired whenthey're all I got to stand on? An' did you ever try settin' nine hoursa day? Shure an' that would be the death of anybody. 

Mrs. Reilly's indoor sport was marrying the sixth floor off. PoorLucia's widow's weeds of five weeks were no obstacle to Mrs. Reilly. She frequently made the whole floor giggle, carrying on an animatedIrish conversation with Lucia over the prospects of a secondmarriage—or rather, a monologue it was, since Lucia never knew shewas being talked to. If ever there was a body with a ”sex complex itwas old Mrs. Reilly! When I asked her once why she didn't get busymarrying off herself, she called back: “The Lord be praised! Anddidn't I get more than enough of the one man I had?”

At least twice a week Mrs. Reilly saw a ghost, and she would tell usabout it in the morning. She laughed then, and we all laughed, but youcould easily picture the poor old fearful soul meeting that inevitable2 A. M. Guest, quaking over it in her lonely bed. Once the ghost wasextra terrifying. “It may have been the banama sauce, ” admitted Mrs. Reilly. And Mrs. Reilly's feet did hurt often. She used sometimes totake off her worn shoes and try tying her feet up in cardboards. 

The other workers on our floor were Mabel and Mary, two colored girlswho finished off slight rough edges in the press ironing and foldedeverything; Edna, a Cuban girl who did handkerchiefs on the mangle;Annie, the English girl, lately married to an American. She had aninclosure of shelves to work in and there she did the final sortingand wrapping of family wash. Annie was the most superior person on ourfloor. 

And Miss Cross. In face, form, neatness, and manners Miss Cross couldhave held her own socially anywhere. But according to orthodoxstandards Miss Cross's grammar was faulty. She had worked always inour laundry, beginning as a hand ironer. She knew the days when hourswere longer than nine and pay lower than fourteen dollars a week. Sheremembered when the family floor had to iron Saturdays until 10 and 11at night, instead of getting off at 12. 45, as we did now. They stoodit in those days; but how? As it was now, not a girl on our floor butwhose feet ached more or less by 4 or 4. 30. Ordinarily we stopped at5. 30. Everyone knew how everyone else felt that last half hour. Duringa week with any holiday the girls had to work till 6. 15 every night, and Saturday afternoon. They all said—we discussed it early onemorning—that in such weeks they could iron scarcely anything thatlast hour, their feet burned so. 

The candy factory was hard—one stood nine hours, but the work wasvery light. 

The brassworks was hard—one sat, but the foot exercise was wearyingand the seat fearfully uncomfortable. 

Ironing was hardest—one stood all day and used the feet for hardpressure besides. Yet I was sorry to leave the laundry!

Perhaps it was just as well for me that Lucia could not talk English. She might have used it on me, and already the left ear was talked offby Irma. Miss Cross stood for just so much conversation, according toher mood. Even if she were feeling very spry, our sixth-floor talkcould become only so general and lively before Miss Cross would call:“Girls! girls! not so much noise!” If it were late in the afternoonthat would quiet us for the day—no one had enough energy to start upagain. 

The first half hour Irma confided in me that she had cravings. “Cravings? Cravings for what?” I asked her. 

“Cravings for papers. ”

It sounded a trifle goatlike. 

“Papers?”

“Yes, papers. I want to read papers on the lecture platform. ”

Whereat I heard all Irma's spiritual longings—cravings. She began inschool to do papers. That was two years ago. Since then she has oftenbeen asked to read the papers she wrote in school before churchaudiences. Just last Sunday she read one at her church in New York, and four people asked her afterward for copies. 

What was it about?

It was about the True Woman. When she wrote it, she began, “DearTeacher, Pupils, and Friends. ” But when she read it in churches sheskipped the Teacher and Pupils and began: “Dear Friends, . .. Now weare met together on this memorable occasion to consider the subject ofthe True Woman. First we must ask” (here Irma bangs down on a helplessnightshirt and dries it out well beyond its time into a nice bunch ofwrinkles) “What is woman? Woman was created by God because DearFriends God saw how lonely man was and how lonesome and so out ofman's ribs God created woman to be man's company and helpmate. .. . ”

“Irma!” Miss Cross's voice had an oft-repeated tone to it. She calledout from the table where she checked over each girl's work without somuch as turning her head. “You ironed only one leg of these pajamas!”

Irma shuffled over on her crooked high heels and returned with thehalf-done pajamas. “That fo'-lady!” sighed Irma, “she sure gets on manerves. She's always hollerin' at me 'bout somethin'. She neverhollers at the other girls that way—she just picks on me. ”

And Irma continued with the True Woman: “There's another thing theTrue Woman should have and that's a good character. .. . ”

“Irma!” (slight impatience in Miss Cross's tone) “you ironed thisnightgown on the wrong side!”

Irma looked appealingly at me. “There she goes again. She makes medownright nervous, that fo'-lady does. ”

Poor, persecuted Irma!

During that first morning Irma had to iron over at least six things. Then they looked like distraction. I thought of the manager'sintroductory speech to me—how after two weeks I might have to makeway for a more efficient person. 

“How long you been here?” I asked Irma. 

“Four months. ”

“What you makin'?”

“Thirteen a week. ”

“Ever get extra?”

“Na. ”

Suspicions concerning the manager. 

Irma had three other papers. One was on Testing Time. What was TestingTime? It might concern chemical tubes. It might be a bit of romance. And she really meant Trysting Time. No, to everybody a time comes whenhe or she must make a great decision. It was about that. 

“Irma! you've got your foot in the middle of that white apron!”

Another paper was on Etee-quette (q pronounced). 

“Irma! you creased one of these pajama legs down the middle! Do itover. ”

I pondered much during my laundry days as to why they kept Irma. Shetold me she first worked down on the shirt-and-collar floor and usedto do “one hundred and ten shirts an hour, ” but the boss got down onher. It took her sometimes three-quarters of an hour to do one boy'sshirt on our floor, and then one half the time she had it to do over. Her ironing was beyond all words fearful to behold (there must be anIrma in every laundry). She was all-mannered slow. She forgot to tagher work. She hung it over her horse so that cuffs and apron stringswere always on the floor. Often she was late. Sometimes Miss Crosswould grow desperate—but there Irma remained. Below, in that littleentryway, were girls waiting for jobs. Did they figure that on thewhole Irma wrecked fewer garments than the average new girl, or what?And the manager had tried to scare me!

The noon bell rings—we dash for the lunch-room line. You can purchasepies and soup and fruit, hash and stew, coffee and tea, cafeteriastyle. There are only two women to serve—the girls from the lowerfloors have to stand long in line. I do not know where to sit, and bymistake evidently get at a wrong table. No one talks to me. I surelyfeel I am not where I belong. The next day I get at another wrongtable. It is so very evident I am not wanted where I am. Ratherdisconcerting. I sit and ponder. I had thought factory girls so muchmore friendly to one another on short acquaintance than “cultured”people. But it is merely that they are more natural. When they feelfriendly they show it with no reserves. When they do not feel friendlythey show that without reserve. Which is where the unnaturalness of“cultured” folk sometimes helps. 

It seems etee-quette at the laundry requires each girl sit at thetable where her floor sits. That second day I was at theshirt-and-collar table, and they, I was afterward told, areparticularly exclusive. Indeed they are. 

At 12. 45 the second bell rings. Miss Cross calls out, “All right, girls!” Clank, the presses begin again, and all afternoon I irongentlemen's underpinnings. During the course of my days in the laundryI iron three sets round for every man in New York and thereby acquirea domestic attitude toward the entire male sex in the radius sendingwash to our laundry. Nobody loves a fat man. But their underclothes dofit more easily over the press. 

I iron and I iron and I iron, and along about 4. 30 the first afternoonit occurs to my cynical soul to wonder what the women are doing withthemselves with the spare time which is theirs, because I am thumpingthat press down eight hours and fifty minutes a day. Not that it isany of my business. 

Also along about five o'clock it irritates me to have to bother withwhat seems to me futile work. I am perfectly willing to take greatpains with a white waistcoat—in one day I learn to make a work of artof that. But why need one fuss over the back of a nightshirt? Will aman sleep any better for a wrinkle more or less? Besides, so soon itis all wrinkles. 

The second day I iron soft work all morning—forever men'sunderclothes, pajamas, and nightshirts. Later, when I am promoted tostarched work, I tend to grow antifeminist. Why can men live and moveand have their beings satisfactorily incased in soft garments, easy toiron, comfortable to wear, and why must women have everything starchedand trying on the soul to do up? One minute you iron a softnightshirt; the next a nightgown starched like a board, and the worstthing to get through with before it dries too much that ever appearsin a laundry. 

After lunch I am promoted to hospital work. All afternoon I irondoctors' and interns' white coats and trousers. It is more interestingdoing that. But a bit hard on the soul. For it makes you think ofsickness and suffering. Yet sickness and suffering white-coated menrelieve. It makes you think, too, of having babies—that being all youknow of hospitals personally. But on such an occasion you nevernoticed if the doctor had on a white coat or not, and surely spent notime pondering over who ironed it. Yet if a doctor wore a coat Irmaironed I think the woman would note it even in the last anguishedmoments of labor. 

Irma did an officer's summer uniform once. I do wish I could haveheard him when he undid the package. While Irma was pounding down onit she was discoursing to me how, besides papers, she had cravings forpoetry. 

“You remember that last snowstorm? I sat at my window and I wrote:

 “Oh, beautiful snow When will you go? Not until spring, When the birds sing. ”

There were several other stanzas. And about then Miss Cross dumped abundle of damp clothes into Irma's box and said, “Iron these next anddo them decent!” I peered suspiciously into the box. It was my ownfamily laundry!

“Hey, Irma, ” I said, cannily, “leave me do this batch, eh?”

I might as well be paying myself for doing up my own wash, and itwould look considerably better than if Irma ironed it. 

The third day my feet are not so weary, and while I iron I mull overideas on women in industry. After all, have not some of us with thegood of labor at heart been a bit too theoretical? Take the welfareidea so scoffed at by many. After all, there is more to be said forthan against. Of course, provided—It is all very well to say laborshould be allowed to look after itself, and none of this paternalism. Of course, the paternalism can be overdone and unwisely done. But, atleast where women workers are concerned, if we are going to wait tillthey are able to do things for themselves we are going to wait, perhaps, too long for the social good while we are airing ourtheories. It is something like saying that children would be betteroff and have more strength of character if they learned to look afterthemselves. But you can start that theory too young and have the childdie on your hands, or turn into a gutter waif. The child needs entirelooking after up to a point where he can begin little by little tolook after himself. And after he has learned to dress himself it doesnot necessarily mean he can select his own food, his hour of retiring, his habits of cleanliness and hygiene. 

I look about at the laundry workers and think: Suppose we decidenothing shall be done for these girls until they demand it themselvesand then have charge of it themselves. In other words, suppose we letwelfare work and social legislation wait on organization. The peoplewho talk that way are often college professors or the upper crust oflabor. They have either had no touch or lost touch with the rank andfile of women workers. It is going to be years and years and years, ifever, before women in this country organize by and large to a pointwhere they can become permanently effective. What organization demandsmore than any other factor is, first, a sense of oppression; second, surplus energy. Women have been used to getting more or less the tagend of things for some thousands of years. Why expect them suddenly, in a second of time, as it were, to rear up and say, “We'll not standfor this and that”? If we are going to wait for working women to feeloppressed enough to weld themselves together into a militant classorganization, capable of demanding certain conditions and gettingthem, we shall wait many a long day. In the meantime, we are puttingoff the very situation we hope for—when women, as well as men, shallhave reached the point where they can play a dignified part in theindustrial scheme of things—by sending them from work at night tooweary and run down to exert themselves for any social purpose. I saythat anything and everything which can be done to make women morecapable of responsibility should be done. But the quickest and sanestway to bring that about is not to sit back and wait for factory womento work out their own salvation. Too few of them have the intelligenceor gumption to have the least idea how to go about it, did it everoccur to them that things might be radically improved. (And the pityof it is that so often telling improvements could be made with solittle effort. )

Nor is it anything but feminist sentimentality, as far as I can see, to argue against special legislation for women. What women can dointellectually as compared with men I am in no position to state. Toargue that women can take a place on a physical equality with man issimply not being honest. Without sentimentalizing over motherhood, itseems allowable to point out the fact that women are potentialmothers, and this fact, with every detail of its complexities, feminists or no to the contrary, is a distinct handicap to women'splaying a part in the industrial field on a par with man. And societypays more dearly for a weary woman than for a tired man. 

Therefore, why not lunch rooms, and attractive lunch rooms, and goodfood, well cooked? Yes, it is good business, and besides it puts awoman on a much more efficient level to herself and society. At ourtables the girls were talking about different lunch-room conditionsthey had come across in their work. One girl told of a glass companyshe had worked for that recently was forced to shut down. She dweltfeelingly on the white lunch room and the good food, and especiallythe paper napkins—the only place she had worked where they gavenapkins. She claimed there was not a girl who did not want to cry whenshe had to quit that factory. “Everybody loved it, ” she said. I triedto find out if she felt the management had been paying for thepolished brass rails, the good food, and the napkins out of theworkers' wages. “Not on your life!” she answered. She had been a fileclerk. 

Take dental clinics in the factories. Four teeth on our floor wereextracted while I was at the laundry. For a couple of days each girlmoaned and groaned and made everybody near her miserable. Then she gotMiss Cross's permission to go to some quack dentist, and out came thetooth. Irma had two out at one dollar each. It was going to cost herforty dollars to get them back in. A person with his or her teeth ingood condition is a far better citizen than one suffering from thetoothache. 

If I had my way I should like to see a rest room in every factorywhere women are employed, and some time, however short, allowed in themiddle of the afternoon to make use of it. 

Eight hours is long enough for any woman to do sustained physicalwork, with no possibility for overtime. 

Nor have we so much as touched on what it means to live on thirteendollars or fourteen dollars a week. 

“But then you have taken away all the arguments for organization!”

Should organization be considered as an end in and of itself, or asone possible means to an end?

Word was passed this morning that “company” was coming! The bustlingand the hustling and the dusting! Every girl had to clean her pressfrom top to bottom, and we swept the floor with lightning speed. MissCross dashed to her little mirror and put powder on her nose. Hattietied a curtain around her head to look like a Red Cross nurse. Everytime the door opened we all got expectant palpitations. We were notallowed to speak, yet ever and anon Hattie or Mrs. Reilly would letout some timely remarks. Whereat we all got the giggles. Miss Crosswould almost hiss, “GIRLS!” whereat we subsided. It was nervewracking. And the company never came! They got as far as the thirdfloor and gave out. But it was not until afternoon that we knewdefinitely that our agony was for naught. 

Lucia's machine got out of order—steam escaped at a fearful rate. While the mechanic was fixing it he discoursed to me on the laundry. He had been there nine months—big, capable-looking six-footer. Out ofthe corner of his mouth he informed me, “Once anybody comes to workhere they never leave!” It surely does seem as if they had no end ofpeople who had worked there years and years. Miss Cross says they usedto have more fun than nowadays, before so many colored girls wereemployed. They gave parties and dances and everyone was chummy witheveryone else. 

To-day, in the midst of hilarity and all unannounced, “company” didappear. We subsided like a schoolroom when the teacher suddenlyre-enters. A batch of women, escorted by one of the management. Hegesticulated and explained. I could not catch his words, for the noiseof the presses, though goodness knows I craned my ears. Theyinvestigated everything. Undoubtedly their guide dwelt eloquently onthe victrola in the lunch room; it plays every noon. On their way outtwo of the young women stopped by my press. “Didn't this girl ironthat nightgown nicely?” one said to the other. I felt it obligatory togive them the “once over. ”

The second the door was closed I dashed for Miss Cross. “Who were themfemales?” I asked her. 

Miss Cross grunted. “Them were Teachers College girls. ” She wrinkledher nose. “They send 'em over here often. And let me tell _you_, Inever seen _one_ of 'em with any class _yet_. .. . They talk aboutcollege girls—pooh! I never seen a college girl yet looked anyclassier than us laundry girls. Most of 'em don't look _as_ classy. Only difference is, if you mixed us all up, they're gettin' educated. ”

One of my erstwhile jobs at the University of California had beenpiloting college girls around through factories in just that fashion. I had to laugh in my sleeve as I suspected the same remarks may havebeen passed on us after our departure!

 * * * * *

We have much fun at our lunch table. A switchboard operator and fileclerk from the office eats with us. She and I “guy” each other a gooddeal during the meal. Miss Cross wipes her eyes and sighs: “Gee!Ain't it fun to laugh!” and Eleanor and I look pleased with ourselves. 

In the paper this morning appeared a picture of one of New York'sleading society women “experiencing the life of the working girl firsthand. ” She was shown in a French bonnet, a bunch of orchids at herwaist, standing behind a perfumery counter. What our table did to Mrs. X!

“These women, ” fusses Miss Cross, “who think they'll learn what it'slike to be a working girl, and stand behind a perfumery counter!Somebody's always trying to find out what it's like to be aworker—and then they get a lot of noteriety writin' articles aboutit. All rot, I say. Pity, if they really want to know what workin'slike, they wouldn't try a laundry. ”

“She couldn't eat her breakfast in bed if she did that!” was mycutting remark. 

“Or quit at three, ” from Annie. 

“Hisst!” I whisper, “I'm a lady in disguise!” And I quirk my littlefinger as I drink my coffee and order Eleanor to peer without to seeif my limousine waits. 

We discuss rich folk and society ladies, and no one envies or isbitter. Miss Cross guesses some of them think they get as weary flyingaround to their parties and trying on clothes as we do in the laundry. I guess she is partly right. 

Then we discuss what a bore it would be not to work. At our table sitMiss Cross, Edna (Miss Cross calls her Edner), the Cuban girl, whorefused to eat with the colored girls; Annie, the English girl, whohad worked in a retail shoe shop in London; Mrs. Reilly, who is alwaysmorose at lunch and never speaks, except one day when she and MissCross nearly came to blows over religion. Each got purple in the face. Then it came out that there was a feud between them—two years or moreit had lasted—and neither ever speaks to the other. (Yet Mrs. Reillygave one dollar, twice as much as the rest of us, toward Miss Cross'sChristmas present. ) Then there are three girls from the officedownstairs. Everyone there had had some experience in being out ofwork or not working. To each of them at such a time life has been awearisome thing. Each declared she would 'most rather work at any oldthing than stay home and do nothing. 

Between the first and second bells after lunch the sixth-floor girlsforegather and sit on the ironing tables, swing our heels, and passthe time of day. To-day I start casually singing, “Jesus Wants Me fora Sunbeam. ” Everyone on our floor knows the song and there the wholelot of us sit, swinging our heels, singing at the top of our lungs, “A_sunbeam_, a _sunbeam_, Jesus wants me for a _sunbeam_, ” which is howI got the name of “Sunbeam” on our floor. Except that Miss Cross, forsome reason of her own, usually called me “Constance. ”

I teach them “My Heart's a Little Bird Cage, ” and we add that to ourrepertoire. Then we go on to “Nearer, My God, to Thee, ” “Lead, KindlyLight, ” “Rock of Ages. ”

It appears we are a very religious lot on our floor. All the coloredgirls are Baptists. Miss Cross is an ardent Presbyterian, Annie is anEpiscopalian, Edna and Mrs. Reilly are Catholics, but Edna knows allthe hymns we daily sing. 

And, lo! before many days I am startled by hearing Luciasing—woebegone Lucia. She sings to no tune whatever and smiles at me, “Sunbeam, Sunbeam, Sunbeam, Sunbeam. ” So she has learned one Englishword in sixteen years. That is better in quality than German Tessiedid. She told me, at the candy factory, that the first thing shelearned in English was “son of a gun. ”

But as a matter of fact Lucia does know two other words. Once I ironeda very starched nightgown. It was a very, very large and gatherednightgown. I held it up and made Lucia look at it. 

Lucia snickered. “Da big-a, da fat-a!” said Lucia. 

Mrs. Reilly let out a squeal. “She's learnt English!” Mrs. Reillycalled down the line. 

“And, ” I announce, “I'll teach her 'da small-a, da thin-a. '”

Thereafter I held up garments to which those adjectives might apply, and tried to “learn” Lucia additional English. Lucia giggled andgiggled and waited every evening to walk down the six flights ofstairs with me, and three blocks until our ways parted. Each time Ipatted her on the back when we started off and chortled: “Hey, Lucia, da big-a, da fat-a!” Lucia would giggle again, and that is all wewould have to say. Except one night Lucia pointed to the moon andsaid, “Luna. ” So I make the most of knowing that much Italian. 

Oh yes, Lucia and I had one other thing in common. One day at thelaundry I found myself humming a Neapolitan love song, from a victrolarecord we have. Lucia's face brightened. The rest of the afternoon Ihummed the tune and Lucia sang the words of that song, much to Mrs. Reilly's delight, who informed the floor that now, for sure, Lucia wasin love again. 

There was much singing on our floor. Irma used often to croon negroreligious songs, the kind parlor entertainers imitate. I loved tolisten to her. It was not my clothes she was ironing. Hattie, down theline, mostly dwelt on “Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam. ” Hattie hadstraight, short hair that stood out all over her head, and a face likea negro kewpie. She was up to mischief seven hours of the nine, norcould Miss Cross often subdue her. Hattie had been on our floor fouryears. One lively day Irma was singing with gusto “Abide With Me. ” Forsome reason I had broken into the rather unfactory-like ballad of“Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms, ” and Lucia wascaroling some Italian song lustily—all of us at one and the sametime. Finally Miss Cross called over, “For land's sakes, two of yougirls stop singing!” Since Irma and I were the only two of the threeto understand her, we made Christian martyrs of ourselves and letLucia have the floor. 

Miss Cross was concerned once as to how I happened to know so manyhymns. Green earrings do not look particularly hymny. The fact was, Ihad not thought of most of the hymns our sixth floor sang since I wasknee high. In those long ago days a religious grandmother took me onceto a Methodist summer camp meeting, at which time I resolved before myMaker to join the Salvation Army and beat a tambourine. So when MissCross asked me how I knew so many hymns, and the negro-revivalistvariety, I answered that I once near joined the Salvation Army. “Youdon't say!” said the amazed Miss Cross. 

One day Miss Cross and Jacobs, a Jew who bossed some department whichbrought him often to our floor, to see, for instance, should they washmore curtains or do furniture covers, had a great set-to on thesubject of religion. Jacobs was an iconoclast. Edna left herhandkerchiefs to join in. I eavesdropped visibly. Jacobs 'lowed therewas no hell. Whereat Miss Cross and Edna wanted to know the sense ofbeing good. Jacobs 'lowed there was no such thing as a soul. MissCross and Edna fairly clutched each other. 

“Then what is there that makes you happy or unhappy, if it ain't yoursoul?” asked Miss Cross, clenchingly. 

“Oh, hell!” grunted Jacobs, impatiently, after having just arguedthere was no such place. 

Jacobs uttered much heresy. Miss Cross and Edna perspired in anguish. Then I openly joined the group. 

Miss Cross turned to me. “I tell you how I feel about Christianity. Ifa lot of these educated college professors and lawyers and peoplelike that, when they read all the books they do and are smart as theyare—if Christianity is good enough for them, it's good enough forme!”

Jacobs was so disgusted that he left. 

Whereat Edna freed her soul of all the things she wanted to say abouthell and punishment for sins. She went too far for Miss Cross. Ednaspoke of thieves and murderers and evildoers in general, and what theyought to get in both this world and the next. Quite a group hadcollected by this time. 

Then Miss Cross turned to us all and said: “We're in no position topass judgment on people that do wrong. Look at us. Here we are, girlswhat have everything. We got nice homes, enough to eat and wear, wehave 'most everything in the world we want. We don't know what it'slike to be tempted, 'cause we're so fortunate. An' I say we shouldn'ttalk about people who go wrong. ”

That—in a laundry. 

And only Edna seemed not to agree. 

 * * * * *

To-day at lunch the subject got around to matrimony. Eleanor said:“Any girl can get married, if she wants to so bad she'll take any oldthing, but who wants to take any old thing?”

“Sure, ” I added, cockily. “Who wants to pick up with anyone they canvamp in the Subway?”

Whereupon I get sat upon and the line of argument was interesting. Thus it ran:

After all, why wasn't a man a girl vamped in the Subway the safestkind? Where did working girls get a chance to meet men, anyhow? Aboutthe only place was the dance hall, and goodness knows what kind of menyou did meet at a dance hall. They were apt to be the kind to makequestionable husbands; like as not they were “sports. ” But the Subway!Now there you were more likely to pick up with the dependable kind. Every girl at the table knew one or several married couples whoseromances had begun on the Subway, and “every one of 'em turned outhappy. ” One girl told of a man she could have vamped the Sunday beforein the Subway, but he was too sportily dressed and she got scared andquit in the middle. The other girls all approved her conduct. Eachexpressed deep suspicion of the “sporty” man. Each supported theSubway romance. 

I withdrew my slur on the same. 

 * * * * *

A guilty feeling came over me as the day for leaving the laundryapproached. Miss Cross and I had become very friendly. We planned todo all sorts of things together. Our floor was such a companionable, sociable place. It didn't seem square to walk off and leave thosegirls, black and white, who were my friends. In the other factories Ijust disappeared as suddenly as I came. After a few days I could notstand it and penned a jiggly note to Miss Cross. Unexpectedly, I wasgoing to have to move to Pennsylvania (that was true, for Christmasvacation). I hated to leave her and the girls, etc. , etc. I was herloving friend, “Constance, ” alias “Sunbeam. ”

 IV

 _In a Dress Factory_

Fingers poke through cold holes in the wool mittens; the old coat withtwo buttons gone flaps and blows about the knees; dirt, old papers, spiral upward on the chill gusts of a raw winter day. Close your eyes, duck your head, and hurry on. Under one arm is clutched the paper bagwith lunch and the blue-checked apron. Under the other the oldbrown-leather bag. In the old brown-leather bag is an old black purse. In the old black purse are fifty-five cents, a key, and a safety pin. In the old brown bag are also two sticks of Black Jack chewing gum, afrayed handkerchief, and the crumpled list of possibilities. If youshould lose the list!

That list was copied from the Sunday _World_—from the “Female HelpWanted, Miscellaneous. ” The future looked bright Sunday. Now afterfour attempts to land jobs had ended in being turned down cold, thefuture did not look bright at all. Because, you understand, we aregoing on the assumption that the old black purse in the old brown bagwith fifty-five cents and a key and a safety pin were all that stoodbetween us and—well, a number of dismal things. Which was fifty-fivecents and a key and a safety pin more than some folk had that Mondaymorning in New York. 

You must know in days of unemployment that it is something of acatastrophe if you do not land the first job you apply for Mondaymorning. For by the time you reach the second place on the list, nomatter how fast you go, it is apt to be filled up from the group whowere waiting there from 7. 30 on, as you had waited at your first hope. The third chance is slimmer still by far, and if you keep on until 10or 11 it is mostly just plain useless. 

And if you do not land a job Monday, that whole week is as good aslost. Of course, there is always a chance—the smallest sort ofhopeless chance—that something can be found later on in the week. Thegeneral happening is that you stake your all on the 7. 30 to 8. 30 waitMonday morning. Often it is 9 before the firm sees fit to announce itwants no more help, and there you are with fifty-five cents and a keyand a safety pin—or less—to do till Monday next. 

Strange the cruel comfort to be felt from the sight of the countlessothers hurrying about hopelessly, hopefully, that raw Monday morning. On every block where a firm had advertised were girls scanning theiralready worn-looking lists, making sure of the address, hastening on. Nor were they deterred by the procession marching away—even if someone called, “No use goin' up there—they don't want no more. ” Perhaps, after all, thought each girl to herself, the boss would want _her_. The boss did not. 

First, early in the morning and full of anticipation I made for thebindery on West Eighteenth Street. That sounded the likeliest of thepossibilities. No need to get out the paper to make sure again of thenumber. It must be where that crowd was on the sidewalk ahead, somethirty girls and as many men and boys. Everyone was prettycheerful—it was twenty minutes to eight and most of us were young. Rather too many wanted the same job, but there were no worries tospeak of. Others might be unlucky—not we. So our little group talked. Bright girls they were, full of giggles and “gee's. ” Finally theprettiest and the brightest of the lot peered in through the streetdoors. “Say, w'at d'ye know? I see a bunch inside! Come on!”

In we shoved our way, and there in the dismal basement-like firstfloor waited as many girls and men as on the sidewalk. “Good night! Afat show those dead ones outside stand!” And we passed the time of daya bit longer. The pretty and smart one was not for such tactics long. “W'at d'ye say we go up to where the firm is and beat the rest of 'emto it!” “You said it!” And we tore up the iron stairs. On the secondflight we passed a janitor. “Where's the bindery?”

“Eighth floor. ”

“My Gawd!” And up seven flights we puffed in single file, conversationimpossible for lack of wind. 

The bright one opened the door and our group of nine surged in. Therestood as many girls and men as were down on the first floor and out onthe sidewalk. 

“My Gawd!” There was nothing else to say. 

We edged our way through till we stood by the time clock. The brightone was right, —that was the strategic point. For at 8. 30 a foreladyappeared at that very spot, just suddenly was—and in a pleasant toneof voice announced, “We don't need any more help, male or female, thismorning!” Two scared-looking girls just in front of me screwed uptheir courage and said, pleadingly, “But you told us Saturday weshould come back this morning and you promised us work!”

“Oh, all right! Then you two go to the coat room. ”

Everyone looked a bit dazed. At least one hundred girls and over thatmany men had hopes of landing a job at that bindery—and they took ontwo girls from Saturday. 

We said a few things we thought, and dashed for the iron stairs. Werushed down pell-mell, calling all the way. By this time a steadyprocession was filing up. “No use. Save your breath. ” Some kept on, regardless. 

From the bindery I rushed to a factory making muslin underwear. By thetime I got there—only six blocks uptown—the boss looked incredulousthat I should even be applying at such an advanced hour, although itwas not yet 9. No, he needed no more. From there to the address of an“ad” for “light factory work, ” whatever it might turn out to be. Asteady stream of girls coming and going. Upstairs a young woman, without turning her head, her finger tracing down a column offigures, called out, “No more help wanted!”

A rush to a wholesale millinery just off Fifth Avenue—the onlymillinery advertising for learners. The elevator was packed going up, the hallway was packed where we got out. The girls already there toldus newcomers we must write our names on certain cards. Also we muststate our last position, what sort of millinery jobs we expected toget, and what salary. The girl ahead of me wrote twenty-eight dollars. I wrote fourteen dollars. She must have been experienced in somebranch of the trade. All the rest of us at our crowded end of theentry hall were learners. The “ad” here had read “apply after 9. 30. ”It was not yet 9. 30. A few moments after I got there, my card justfilled out, the boss called from a little window: “No more learners. All I want is one experienced copyist. ” There was apparently but oneexperienced copyist in the whole lot. Everyone was indignant. Severalgirls spoke up: “What made you advertise learners if you don't wantnone?” “I did want some, but I got all I want. ” We stuffed theelevator and went on down. 

As a last try, my lunch and apron and I tore for the Subway and ParkPlace, down by the Woolworth Building. By the time I reached thatbindery there were only two girls ahead of me. A man interviewed theyounger. She had had a good bit of bindery experience. The man wasnoncommittal. The very refined middle-aged woman had had years ofexperience. She no sooner spoke of it than the man squinted his eyesat her and said: “You belong to the union then, don't you?” “Yes, ” thewoman admitted, with no hesitation, “I do, but that makes nodifference. I'm perfectly willing to work with nonunion girls. I'm agood worker and I don't see what difference it should make. ” The manturned abruptly to me. “What bindery experience have you had?” I hadto admit I had had no bindery experience, but I made it clear I was avery experienced person in many other fields—oh, many other—and sowilling I was, and quick to learn. 

“Nothing doing for you. ”

But he had advertised for learners. 

“Yes, but why should I use learners when I turned away over seventyexperienced girls this morning, ready to do any work for any oldprice?”

I was hoping to hear what else he might say to the union member, butthe man left me no excuse for standing around. 

I ate my lunch at home. 

When the next Sunday morning came, again the future looked bright. Ired-penciled eleven “ads”—jobs in three different dress factories, sewing buttons on shoes. You see, I have to pick only such “ads” asallow for no previous experience—it is only unskilled workers I ameligible to be among as yet; girls to pack tea and coffee, to work foran envelope company, in tobacco, on sample cards; girls to pack hairnets, learners on fancy feathers, and learners to operate book-sewingmachines. 

The rest of the newspaper told much of trouble in the garment trades. I decided to try the likeliest dress factory first. I was hopeful, butnot enough so to take my lunch and apron. 

At the first dress factory address before eight o'clock there wereabout nine girls ahead of me. We waited downstairs by the elevator, asthe boss had not yet arrived. The “ad” I was answering read:“WANTED—Bright girls to make themselves useful around dress factory. ”

Some of us looked brighter than others of us. 

Upstairs in the hall we assembled to wait upon the pleasure of theboss. The woodwork was white, the floor pale blue—it was all veryimpressive. 

Finally, second try, the boss glued his eye on me. 

“Come in here. ” A white door closed behind us, and we stood in alittle room which looked as if a small boy of twelve had knocked ittogether out of old scraps and odds and ends, unpainted. 

“What experience you have had?”

He was a nice-looking, fairly young Jew, who spoke with a considerableGerman accent. 

“None in a dress factory, but . .. ” and I regaled him with the vastamount of experience in other lines that was mine, adding that I haddone a good deal of “private dressmaking” off and on, and alsoassuring him, almost tremblingly, I did so want to land a job—that Iwas the most willing of workers. 

“What you expect to get?”

“What will you pay me?”

“No, I'm asking you. What do you expect to get?”

“Fourteen dollars. ”

“All right, go on in. ”

If the room where the boss had received me could have been the work ofa twelve-year-old, the rest of the factory must have been designed andexecuted by a boy of eight, or a lame, halt, and blind carpenter justtottering to his grave. There was not a straight shelf. There was nota straight partition. Boards of various woods and sizes had been usedand nothing had ever been painted. Such doors as existed had odd waysof opening and closing. The whole place looked as if it had cost aboutseven dollars and twenty-nine cents to throw together. But, ah! thewhite and pale blue of the show rooms!

 * * * * *

The dress factory job was like another world compared with candy, brass, and the laundry. In each of those places I had worked on onefloor of a big plant, doing one subdivided piece of labor amongequally low-paid workers busy at the same sort of job as myself. Ofwhat went on in the processes before and after the work we did, I knewand saw nothing. We packed finished chocolates; we punched slots inalready-made lamp cones; we ironed already washed, starched, anddampened clothes. Such work as we did took no particular skill, thougha certain improvement in speed and quality of work came with practice. One's eyes could wander now and then, one's thoughts could wanderoften, and conversation with one's neighbors was always possible. 

Behold the dress factory, a little complete world of its own on onesmall floor where every process of manufacture, and all of it skilledwork, could be viewed from any spot. Not quite every process—thedesigner had a room of her own up front nearer where the woodwork waswhite. 

“Ready-made clothing!” It sounds so simple—just like that. Mrs. FineLady saunters into a shop, puts up her lorgnette, and lisps, “I'd liketo see something in a satin afternoon dress. ” A plump blonde intight-fitting black with a marcel wave trips over to mirrored doors, slides one back, takes a dress off its hanger—and there you are! “Somuch simpler than bothering with a dressmaker. ”

But whatever happened to get that dress to the place where the blondecould sell it? “Ready-made, ” indeed! There has to be a start someplace before there is any “made” to it. It was at that point in ourdress factory when the French designer first got a notion into herhead—she who waved her arms and gesticulated and flew intoFrench-English rages just the way they do on the stage. “_Mon Dieu!Mon Dieu!_”—gray-haired Madame would gasp at our staid and portly Mr. Rogers. Ada could say “My Gawd!” through her Russian nose to him andit had nothing like the same wilting effect. 

Ready-made—yes, ready-made. But first Madame got her notion, and thenshe and her helpers concocted the dress itself. A finished article, ithung inside the wire inclosure where the nice young cutter kepthimself and his long high table. The cutter took a look at thefinished garment hanging on the side of his cage, measured a bit withhis yardstick, and then proceeded to cut the pattern out of paper. Whereupon he laid flat yards and yards of silks and satins on histable and with an electric cutter sliced out his parts. Onemistake—one slice off the line—_Mon Dieu!_ it's too terrible tothink of! All these pieces had to be sorted according to sizes andcolors, and tied and labeled. (Wanted—bright and useful girl righthere. )

Next came the sewing machine operators (electric power)—a long narrowtable, nine machines at a side, but not more than fourteen operatorswere employed—thirteen girls and one lone young man. They said thaton former piece rates this man used to make from ninety dollars to onehundred dollars a week. The operators were all well paid, especiallyby candy, brass, and laundry standards, but they were a skilled lot. Avery fine-looking lot too—some of the nicest-looking girls I've seenin New York. Everyone had a certain style and assurance. It was goodfor the eyes to look on them after the laundry thirteen-dollar-a-weektype. 

When the first operators had done their part the dresses were handedover to the drapers. There were two drapers; they were getting aroundfifty dollars a week before the hard times. One of the drapers was asattractive a girl as I ever saw any place—bobbed hair, deep-set eyes, a Russian Jewess with features which made her look more like anItalian. She spoke English with hardly any accent. She dressed veryquietly and in excellent taste. All day long the two draped dresses onforms—ever pinning and pinning. The drapers turned the dresses overto certain operators, who finished all machine sewing. The next workfell to the finishers. 

In that same end of the factory sat the four finishers, getting “abouttwenty dollars a week, ” but again no one seemed sure. Two wereItalians who could talk little English. One was Gertie, four weeksmarried—“to a Socialist. ” Gertie was another of the well-dressedones. If you could know these dress factory girls you would realizehow, unless gifted with the approach of a newspaper reporter—and Ilack that approach—it was next to impossible to ask a girl herselfwhat she was earning. No more than you could ask a lawyer what hisfees amounted to. The girls themselves who had been working longtogether in the same shop did not seem to know what one another'swages were. It was a new state of affairs in my factory experience. 

The finishers, after sewing on all hooks and eyes and fasteners anddoing all the remaining handwork on the dresses, turned them over tothe two pressers, sedate, assured Italians, who ironed all day longand looked prosperous and were very polite. 

They brought the dresses back to Jean and her helper—two girls whoput the last finishing touches on a garment before it went into theshowroom—snipping here and there, rough edges all smoothed off. Itwas to Jean the boss called my second morning, very loud so all couldhear: “If you find anything wrong mit a dress, don't _look_ at it, don't _bodder wid_ it—jus' t'row it in dere faces and made dem do itover again! It's not like de old days no more!” (Whatever he meant bythat. ) So—there was your dress, “ready-made. ”

Such used to be the entire factory, adding the two office girls; themodel, who was wont to run around our part of the world now and thenin a superior fashion, clad in a scanty pale-pink-satin petticoatwhich came just below her knees and an old gray-and-green sweater;plus various male personages, full of business and dressed in theirbest. Goodness knows what all they did do to keep the wheels ofindustry running—perhaps they were salesmen. They had the generalappearance of earning at least ten to twenty thousand dollars a year. It may possibly have risen as high as two thousand. 

And Peters—who was small though grown, and black, and who cleaned upwith a fearful dust and snitched lead pencils if you left them around. 

At present, in addition, there were the sixteen crochet beaders, because crochet beading is stylish in certain quarters—this“department” newly added just prior to my arrival. But before thebeaders could begin work the goods had to be stamped, and before theycould be stamped Mr. Rogers (he was middle-aged and a dear and anItalian and his name wasn't “Rogers, ” but some unpronounceable thingthe Germans couldn't get, so it just naturally evolved into somethingthat began with the same letter which they could pronounce) had toconcoct a design. He worked in the cage at a raised end of thecutting table. He pricked the pattern through paper with a machine, ata small table outside by the beaders, that was always piled high witha mess of everything from spools to dresses, which Mr. Rogerspatiently removed each time to some spot where some one else foundthem on top of something she wanted, and less patiently removed themto some other spot, where still less patiently they were found in theway and dumped some place else. Such was life in one factory. And Adawould call out still later: “Mr. Rogers, did you see a pile of dresseson this table when you went to work?”

Whereat in abject politeness and dismay Mr. Rogers would dash from“inside” to “outside” and explain in very broken English that therehad been some things on the table, but “vaire carefully” he had placedthem—here. And to Mr. Rogers's startled gaze the pile haddisappeared. 

If a dress had to be beaded, Mr. Rogers took the goods after thecutter finished his job, and he and his helpers stamped the patternson sleeves, front and back, skirt, by rubbing chalk over the paper. Upon the scene at this psychological moment enters the bright girl tomake herself useful. The bright girl “framed-up” the goods for thebeaders to work on. (In fact, you noted she entered even earlier, byhelping the cutter tie the bundles according to size and color. )

“Frame-up” means taking boards the proper length with broad tapetacked along one edge. First you pin the goods lengthwise, pins closetogether. Then you find side boards the desired length and pin thegoods along the sides. Then with four iron clamps you fasten thecorners together, making the goods as tight as a drum. There is a realknack to it, let me tell you—especially when it comes to queerlyshaped pieces—odd backs or fronts or sleeves. Or where you have askirt some six or eight feet long and three broad. But I can frame!Ada said so. 

When I got a piece framed (Now I write those six words and grin) . .. “_when_” . .. Two little skinny horses I had to rest the frames upon. The space I had in which to make myself useful was literally aboutthree by four feet just in front of the shelves where the thread andbeads were kept. That is, I had it if no one wanted to get anything inthe line of thread or beads, which they always did want to get. Whereupon I moved out—which meant my work might be knocked on thefloor, or if it was bigger I had to move the work out with me. Or Icrawled under it and got the thread or beads myself. If it were askirt I was framing up I earned the curses, though friendly, of theassemblage. No one could pass in any direction. The beaders were shutin their quarters till I got through, or they crawled under. Or Ipoked people in the back with the frames while I was clamping them. Ifought and bled and died over every large frame I managed to gettogether, for the frame was larger than the space I had to work in. Until in compassion they finally moved me around the corner into thedressmaking quarters, which tried Joe's soul. Joe was the Italianforeman of that end of things. He was nice. But he saw no reason why Ishould be moved up into his already crowded space. Indeed, I was onlya little better off. The fact of the matter was that the more useful Ibecame the more in everybody's way I got. Indeed, it can be taken as atribute to human nature that everyone in that factory was not acrabbed nervous wreck from having to work on top of everyone else. Itwas almost like attempting dressmaking in the Subway. The boss attimes would gaze upon my own frantic efforts, and he claimed: “Everytime I look at you the tears come in my eis. ” And I would tell him, “Every time I think about myself the tears come in mine. ” About everyother day he appeared with a hammer and some nails and would poundsomething some place, with the assurance that his every effort spelledindustrial progress and especial help to me. 

“All I think on is your comfort, yes?”

“Don't get gray over it!”

Nor will I forget that exhibition of the boss's ideas of scientificmanagement. Nothing in the factory was ever where anyone could findit. It almost drove me crazy. What was my joy then when one day theboss told me to put the spools in order. There was a mess ofevery-colored spool, mixed with every other color, tangled ends, dust, buttons, loose snappers, more dust, beads, more spools, more dust. Acertain color was wanted by a stitcher. There was nothing to do butpaw. The spool, like as not, would be so dusty it would take blowingsand wipings on your skirt before it could be discovered whether thecolor was blue or black. I tied my head in tissue paper and sat downto the dusty job of sorting those spools. Laboriously I got all theblacks together and in one box. Laboriously all the whites. Thatexhausted all the boxes I could lay hands on. I hunted up the boss. “Ican't do that spool job decent if I ain't got no boxes to put thedifferent colors in. ”

“Boxes, boxes! What for you want boxes?”

“For the spools. ”

“'Ain't you got no boxes?”

“'Ain't got another one. ”

He hustled around to the spool shelves where I was working. 

“_Ach_, boxes! Here are two boxes. What more you want?”

Majestically, energetically, he dumped my black spools out of one box, my white spools out of the other—dumped them back with a flourishinto the mess of unassorted dust and colors. 

“Here are two boxes! What more you want?”

What redress had I for such a grievance except to wail at him: “MyGawd! my Gawd! I jus' put those spools in them boxes!”

“_Ach_, so!” says the boss. “Vell, put um back in again. ”

With the sweat of my life's blood I unearthed a ragged empty box here, another there, no two sizes the same. After three days of using everyminute to be spared from other jobs on those shelves, I had everysingle spool where it belonged and each box labeled as to color. Howwondrous grand it looked! How clean and dusted! I made the bosshimself gaze upon the glory of it. 

“_Ach_, fine!” he beamed. 

Two days later it was as if I had never touched a spool. The boxeswere broken, the spools spilled all over—pawing was again in season. Not yet quite so much dust, but soon even the dust would be as ofyore. 

“One cause of labor unrest is undoubtedly the fact that the workersare aware that present management of industry is not always 100 percent efficient. ”

 * * * * *

So then, I framed up. Nor was it merely that I worked underdifficulties as to space. Another of the boss's ideas of scientificmanagement seemed to be to employ as few bright and useful girls aspossible. He started with three. He ended with just one. From dawn todewy eve I tore. It was “Connie, come here!” (Ada, the beadworkforelady. ) “Connie, come here!” (The cutter. ) “Connie, thread, thread, yes? There's a good girl!” (The beaders. ) “Connie, changeable beads, yes? That's the girl!” “Connie, unframe these two skirts quick as youcan!” “Connie, never mind finishing those skirts; I got to get this'special' framed up right away!” “Connie, didn't you finish unframingthose skirts?” “Connie, tissue paper, yes? Thanks awfully. ” “Connie, did you see that tag I laid here? Look for it, will you?”

But the choice and rare moment of my bright and useful career was whenthe boss himself called, “Oh, Miss Connie, come _mal_ here, yes?” Andwhen I got _mal_ there he said, “I want you should take my shoes tothe cobblers _so fort_ yes?. .. And be sure you get a check . .. And goquick, yes. ” Whereupon he removed his shoes and shuffled about in apair of galoshes. 

I put on the green tam. I put on the old brown coat with now threebuttons gone and the old fur collar, over my blue-checked apron, andwith the boss's shoes under my arm out I fared, wishing to goodness Iwould run into some one I knew, to chuckle with me. Half an hour laterthe boss called me again. 

“I think it is time you should bring my shoes back, yes?” I went. Thecobbler said it would be another five minutes. Five minutes to do whatI would within New York! It was a wondrous sensation. Next to thecobbler's a new building was going up. I have always envied the folkswho had time to hang over a railing and watch a new building going up. At last—my own self, my green tam, my brown coat over theblue-checked apron, chewing a stick of Black Jack, hung over therailing and for five whole minutes and watched the men on the steelskeleton. All the time my salary was going on just the same. 

I was hoping the boss would tip me—say, a dime—for running hiserrands. Otherwise I might never get a tip from anyone. He did not. Hethanked me, and after that he called me “dearie. ”

Ada's face wore an anxious look when I got back. She was afraid Imight not have liked running errands. Running errands, it seemed, wasnot exactly popular. I assured her it was “so swell watchin' theriveters on the new buildin'” I didn't care about the shoes. 

The first day in any new job seems strange, and you wonder if you everwill get acquainted. In the dress factory I felt that way for severaldays. Hitherto I had always worked with girls all round me, and it wasno time before we were chatting back and forth. In the dress factory Iworked by myself at chores no one else did. Also, the other girls hadthe sort of jobs which took concentration and attention—there wascomparatively little talk. Also, the sewing machines inside and theriveting on that steel building outside made too much noise for easyconversation. 

At lunch time most of the girls went out to eat at various restaurantsround about. They looked so grand when they got their coats and hatson that I could never see them letting me tag along in my old greentam and two-out-of-five buttoned coat. My wardrobe had all fitted inappropriately to candy and brass and the laundry, but not todressmaking. So I ate my lunch out of a paper bag in the factory withsuch girls as stayed behind. They were mostly the beaders. And theywere mostly “dead ones”—the sort who would not talk had they beengiven a bonus and share in the profits for it. They read the _DailyNews_, a group of some five to one paper, and ate. 

By Thursday of the first week I was desperate. How was I ever to “getnext” to the dress factory girls? During the lunch hour Friday Igulped down my food and tore for Gimbel's, where I bought five newbuttons. Saturday I sewed them on my coat, and Monday and all the nextweek I ate lunch with Ada and Eva and Jean and Kate at a Yiddishrestaurant where the food had strange names and stranger tastes. Butat least there was conversation. 

Ada I loved—our forelady in the bead work—young, good-looking, intelligent. She rather took me under her wing, in gratitude for whichI showed almost immediate improvement along those lines whereon shelabored over me. My grammar, for instance. When I said “it ain't, ” Adawould say, “Connie, Connie, _ain't_!” Whereat I gulped and said“isn't, ” and Ada smiled approval. Within one week I had picked upwonderfully. At the end of that week Ada and I were quite chummy. Sheasked me one day if I were married. No. Was she? “You don't think I'dbe working like this if I was, do you?” When I asked her what shewould be doing if she didn't have to work, she answered, “Oh, lots ofthings. ” Nor could I pin her to details. She told me she'd get marriedto-morrow only her “sweetheart” was a poor man. But she was crazyabout him. Oh, she was! The very next day she flew over to where I wasframing up. “I've had a fight with my sweetheart!”

It was always difficult carrying on a conversation with Ada. She wasbeing hollered for from every corner of the factory continually, andin the few seconds we might have had for talk I was hollered for. Especially is such jumpiness detrimental to sharing affairs of theheart. I know only fragments of Ada's romance. The fight lasted all offour days. Then he appeared one evening, and next morning, shebeamingly informed me that “her sweetheart had made up. Oh, but he's_some_ lover, _I_ tell you!”

Ada was born in Russia, but came very young to this country. She spokeEnglish without an accent. Never had she earned less than twentydollars a week, starting out as a bookkeeper. When crochet beadingfirst became the rage, about five years ago, she went over to that andsometimes made fifty dollars and sixty dollars a week. Here asforelady, she made forty dollars. Twenty dollars of that she gave eachweek to her mother for board and lodging. Often she had gone on summervacations. For three years she had paid for a colored girl to do thehousework at home. I despaired at first of having Ada so much as takenotice of the fact that I was alive. What was my joy then, at the endof the first week, to have her come up and say to me: “Do you knowwhat I want? I want you to come over to Brooklyn and live with me andmy folks. ”

Oh, it's wretched to just walk off and leave folks like that!

That same Saturday morning the boss said he wanted to see me afterclosing time. There seemed numerous others he wanted to see. Then Idiscovered, while waiting my turn with these others, that practicallyno one there knew her “price. ” There was a good deal of resentmentabout it, too. He had hired these girls and no word about pay. Theother girls waiting that morning were beaders. I learned one trick ofthe trade which it appears is more or less universal. They had lefttheir former jobs to come to this factory in answer to an “ad” forcrochet beaders. If after one week it was found they were getting lessthan they had at the old place, they would go back and say they hadbeen sick for a week. Otherwise they planned to stay on at thisfactory. Each girl was called in alone, and alone bargained with theboss. Monday, Sadie, just for instance, ahead of me in the Saturdayline, reported the conversation she had had with the boss:

“Well, miss, what you expect to get here?”

“What I'm worth. ”

“Yes, yes—you're worth one hundred dollars, but I'm talking justplain English. What you expect to get?”

“I tell you what I'm worth. ”

“All right, you're worth one hundred dollars; you think you'll getthirty dollars. I'll pay you twenty dollars. ”

(Sadie had previously told me under no consideration would she remainunder twenty-five dollars, but she remained for twenty dollars. )

My turn. I thought there was no question about my “price. ” It wasfourteen dollars. But perhaps seeing how I had run my legs almost off, and pinned my fingers almost off all week, the boss was goingvoluntarily to raise me. 

“What wages you expect to get here?”

Oh, well, since he thus opened the question we would begin all new. Ihad worked so much harder than I had anticipated. 

“Sixteen dollars a week. ”

“Ho—sixteen dollars!—and last Monday it was fourteen dollars. You'regoing up, yes?”

“But the work's much harder 'n I thought it 'ud be. ”

“So you go from fourteen dollars to sixteen dollars and I got you hereto tell you you'd get twelve dollars. ”

Oh, but I was mad—just plain mad! “You let me work all week thinkin'I was gettin' fourteen dollars. It ain't fair!”

“Fair? I pay you what I can afford. Times are hard now, you know. ”

I could not speak for my upset feelings. To pay me twelve dollars forthe endless labor of that week when he had allowed me to think I wasgetting fourteen dollars! To add insult to injury, he said, “Next weekI want you should work later than the other girls evenings, and makeno date for next Saturday” (I had told him I was in a hurry to get offfor lunch this Saturday) “because I shall want you should workSaturday afternoon. ”

Such a state of affairs is indeed worth following up. .. . 

Monday morning he came around breezily—he really was a cordial, kindly soul—and said; “Well, dearie, how are you this morning?”

I went on pinning. 

“Good as anybody can be on twelve dollars a week. ”

“_Ach_, forget it, forget it! Always money, money! Whether a persongets ten cents or three hundred dollars—it's not the money thatcounts”—his hands went up in the air—“it's the _service_!”

Yet employers tell labor managers they must not sentimentalize. 

A bit later he came back. “I tell you what I'll do. You stay lateevery night this week and work Saturday afternoon like I told you youshould, and I'll pay you for it!”

To such extremes a sense of justice can carry one! (Actually, he hadexpected that extra work of me gratis!)

During the week I figured out that in his own heart that boss hadfigured out a moral equivalent for a living wage. There was nothing hewould not do for me. Did he but come in my general direction, I wasgiven a helping hand. He joked with me continually. The hammer andnails were always busy. I was not only “dearie, ” I was “sweetheart. ”But fourteen dollars a week—that was another story. 

Ada was full of compassion and suggested various arguments I shoulduse next week on the boss. It was awful what he paid me, Ada declared. She too would talk to him. 

The second week I got closer to the girls. Or, more truthfully put, they got closer to me. At the other factories I had asked most of thequestions and answered fewer. Here I could hardly get a question inedgewise for the flood which was let loose on me. I explained in eachfactory that I lived with a widow who brought me from California tolook after her children. I did some work for her evenings and Saturdayafternoon and Sunday, to pay for my room and board. Not only was Iasked every conceivable question about myself, but at the dressfactory I had to answer uncountable questions about the lady I livedwith—her “gentlemen friends, ” her clothes, her expenses. It was likepulling teeth for me to get any information out of the girls. 

In such a matter as reading, for example. Every girl I asked was fondof reading. What kind of books? Good books. Yes, but the names. I got_We Two_ out of Sarah, and Jean was reading Ibsen's _Doll's House_. Itwas a swell book, a play. After hours one night she told me the story. Together with Ada's concern over my grammar it can be seen that I leftthe dress factory in intellectual advance over the condition in whichI entered. 

The girls I had the opportunity of asking were not such “movie”enthusiasts, on the whole. Only now and then they went to “a show. ”Less frequently they spoke of going to the Jewish Theater. No one wasparticularly excited over dancing—in fact, Sarah, who looked theblond type of the dance-every-night variety, thought dancing“disgusting. ” Shows weren't her style. She liked reading. Whenever Igot the chance I asked a girl what she did evenings. The answerusually was, “Oh, nothing much. ” One Friday I asked a group of girlsat lunch if they weren't glad the next day was Saturday and theafternoon off. Four of them weren't glad at all, because they had togo home and clean house Saturday afternoons, and do other householdchores. “Gee! don't you hate workin' round the house?”

I wonder how much of the women-in-industry movement is traceable tojust that. 

The first day I was at the dress factory a very dirty butpleasant-faced little Jewish girl said to me, “Ever try workin' athome? Ain't it just awful?” She had made thirty-two dollars a weekbeading at her last place—didn't know what she'd get here. 

I had hoped to hear murmurings and discussions about the conditions ofthe garment trades and the unions—not a word the whole time. Paperswere full of a strike to be called the next week throughout the city, affecting thousands of waist and dress makers. It might as well havebeen in London. Not an echo of interest in it reached our factory. Iasked Sarah if she had ever worked in a union shop. “Sure. ” “Anydifferent from this?” “Different? You bet it's different. Bosswouldn't dare treat you the way you get treated here. ” But as usual Iwas yelled for and got no chance ever to pin Sarah to details. 

A group of girls in the dressing room exploded one night, “Gee! theysure treat you like dogs here! No soap, no towels—nothing. ” Thehours were good—8. 30 to 12. 15; 1 to 5. 15. One Saturday Ada and theboss asked the beaders to work in the afternoon. Not one stayed. Toomany had heard the tales of girls working overtime and not being paidanything extra. 

 * * * * *

Wednesday I went back after my last week's pay. When the cashiercaught sight of me she was full of interest. “I was writing you aletter this very day. The boss wants you back awful badly. He's outjust now for lunch. Can't you wait?”

Just then the boss stepped from the elevator. “_Ach_, here you are!Now, dearie, if it's just a matter of a few dollars or so—”

I was leaving town. Much discussion. No, I couldn't stay on. Well, ifI insisted—yes, he'd get my pay envelope. My, oh, my, they missed me!Why so foolish as to leave New York? Now, as for my wages, they couldeasily be fixed to suit. .. . All right, all right, he'd get my last payenvelope. 

And there was my pay envelope with just twelve dollars again. “Whatabout my overtime?”

Overtime? Who said anything about overtime? He did himself. He'dpromised me if I worked every night that week late I'd get paid forit. Every single night I had stayed, and where was my pay for it?

He shook his finger at my time card. 

Show him one hour of overtime on that card!

I showed him where every night the time clock registered overtime. 

Yes, but not once was it a full hour. And didn't I know overtimenever counted unless it was at least a full hour?

No, he had never explained anything about that. I'd worked each nightuntil everything was done and I'd been told I could go. 

Well, of course he didn't want to rob me. I really had nothing comingto me. Each night I'd stayed on till about 6. But they would figure itout and see what they could pay me. They figured. I waited. At lengthmajestically he handed out fifty-six cents. 

 * * * * *

The fat, older brother in the firm rode down in the elevator withme—he who used to move silently around the factory about four times aday, squinting out of his beady eyes, such light as shown therebespeaking 100 per-cent possession. He held his fat thumbs in thepalms of his fat hands and benignly he was wont to survey his realm. Mine! Mine! Mine! his every inch of being said. Nor could hisproportion of joy have been greater if he had six floors of his own tosurvey, instead of one little claptrap back room. It did make him sohappy. He wore a kindly and never-changing expression, and he neverspoke. 

Going down in the elevator, he edged over to my corner. He pinched myarm, he pinched my cheeks. _Ach_, but he'd miss me bad. Nice girl, Iwas. 

Evidently he, too, had evolved a moral equivalent for a living wage. Little kindly personal attentions were his share for anything notadequately covered by twelve dollars and fifty-six cents. 

 V

 _No. 536 Tickets Pillow Cases_

Ah, one should write of the bleachery _via_ the medium of poetry! Ifthe thought of the brassworks comes in one breath and the bleachery inthe next, the poetry must needs be set to music—the Song of theBleachery. What satisfaction there must be to an employer who growsrich—or makes his income, whatever it may be—from a business whereso much light-heartedness is worked into the product! Let those whoprefer to sob over woman labor behind factory prison bars visit ourbleachery. Better still, let them work there. Here at least is onespot where they can dry their tears. If the day ever dawns when theconditions in that bleachery can be referred to as typical of Americanindustrial life, exist the agitator, the walking delegate, the closedand open shop fight. 

I can hear a bleachery operator grunting, “My Gawd! what's the womanravin' over? Is it _our_ bleachery she's goin' on about?” Most of theworkers in the bleachery know no other industrial experience. In thatcommunity, so it seems, a child is born, attends school up to theminimum required, or a bit beyond, and then goes to work in thebleachery—though a few do find their way instead to the overallfactory, and still fewer to the shirtwaist factory. No other openingsexist at the Falls. 

There is more or less talk nowadays about Industrial Democracy. Someof us believe that the application of the democratic principle toindustry is the most promising solution to industrial unrest andinefficiency. The only people who have written about the idea ordiscussed it, so far, have been either theorizers or propagandistsfrom among the intellectuals, or enthused appliers of the principle, more or less high up in the business end of the thing. What doesIndustrial Democracy mean to the rank and file working under it? Is itone of those splendid programs which look epoch-making in spirit, butnever permeates to those very people whom it is especially designed toaffect?

It was to find out what the workers themselves thought of IndustrialDemocracy that I boarded a boat and journeyed seventy miles up theHudson to work in the bleachery, where, to the pride of thoseresponsible, functions the Partnership Plan. 

What do the workers think of working under a scheme of IndustrialDemocracy?

What do the citizens of the United States think of living under ascheme of Political Democracy?

The average citizen does not think one way or the other about it threehundred and sixty-five days in the year. Even voting days the rank andfile of us do not ponder overlong on democracy _versus_ autocracy. Indeed, if it could be done silently, in the dead of night, and thenewspapers would promise not to say a word about it, perhaps we mightchange to a benevolent autocracy, and if we could silence all orators, as well as the press, what proportion of the population would bevitally concerned in the transition? Sooner or later, of course, alterations in the way of doing this and that would come about, thespirit of the nation would change. But through it all—autocracy, ifit were benevolent, or democracy—there would be little consciousconcern on the part of the great majority. Always provided the pressand orators would keep quiet. 

From my own experience, the same could be said of IndustrialDemocracy. Autocracy, democracy, the rank and file of the workers, especially the women workers, understand not, ponder not. 

“Say, ” chuckled Mamie, “I could 'a' died laughin' once. A fella camethrough here askin' everybody what we thought of the Partnership Plan. My Gawd! when he got to me I jus' told him I didn't understand thefirst thing about it. What ud he do but get out a little book andwrite what I said down. Never again! Anybody asks me now what I thinkof the Partnership Plan, and I keep my mouth shut, you bet. ”

Once an enthused visitor picked on me to ask what I thought of workingunder the Partnership Plan. After he moved on the girls got thegiggles. “Say, these folks that come around here forever asking whatwe think about the Partnership Plan! Say, what any of us knows aboutthat could be put in a nutshell. ”

And gray-haired Ella Jane, smartest of all, ten years folding pillowcases, said: “I don't know anything about that Partnership Plan. All Iknow is that we get our share of the profits and our bonuses, and Ican't imagine a nicer place to work. They do make you work for whatyou get, though. But it's all white and aboveboard and you knownobody's trying to put something over on you. ”

But the general spirit of the place? Could that be traced to anythingelse but the special industrial scheme of things? One fact at least iscertain—the employing end is spared many a detail of management; theshift in responsibility is educating many a worker to the problems ofcapital. And production is going up. 

 * * * * *

Have you ever tried to find a spare bed in a town where there seems tobe not a spare bed to be had? I left my belongings in an ice creamstore and followed every clue, with a helpful hint from the onepoliceman, or the drug store man, or a fat, soiled grandmother whoturned me down because they were already sleeping on top of oneanother in her house. In between I dropped on a grassy hillside andwatched Our Bleachery baseball team play a Sunday afternoon game withthe Colored Giants. We won. 

And then I took up the hunt again, finally being guided by the Lord tothe abode of the sisters Weston—two old maids, combined age onehundred and forty-nine years, who took boarders. Only there were nomore to take. The Falls was becoming civilized. Improvements werebeing installed in most of the houses. Boarders, which meant mainlyschool-teachers, preferred a house with Improvements. The abode of thesisters Weston had none. It was half a company house, with a pump inthe kitchen which drew up brown water of a distressing odor. 

The sisters Weston had worked in the overall factory in their earlieryears, hours 7 to 6, wages five dollars a week, paid every five to sixweeks. Later they tried dressmaking; later still, boarders. I belongedto the last stage of all—they no longer took boarders, they took aboarder. Mr. Welsh from the electrical department in the bleachery, whose wife was in Pennsylvania on a visit to her folks, being sicklyand run down, as seemed the wont of wives at the Falls, took his mealsat our boarding house, when he was awake for them. Every other weekMr. Welsh worked night shift. 

My belongings were installed in the room assigned me, and the youngerof the sisters Weston, seventy-three, sat stiffly but kindly in achair. “Now about the room rent. .. ?” she faltered. Goodness! yes! Myrelief at finding a place to sleep in after eleven turn-downs was sogreat that I had completely neglected such a little matter as what theroom might cost me. 

“What do you charge?” I asked. 

“What do you feel you can pay? We want you should have some money lefteach week after your board's paid. What do you make at thebleachery?”

My conscience fidgeted within me a bit at that. “I'd rather youcharged me just what you think the room and board are worth to you, not what you think I can pay. ”

“Well, we used to get eight dollars a week for room and board. It'sworth that. ”

It is cheaper to live than die in the Falls at that rate. Three hotmeals a day I got: breakfast, coffee, toast, two eggs, mush, laterfruit; dinner, often soup, always meat, potatoes, vegetables, coffee, and a dessert; supper, what wasn't finished at dinner, and tea. Alwaysthere was plenty of everything. Sometimes too much, if it werehome-canned goods which had stood too many years on the shelves, dueto lack of boarders to eat the same. But the sisters Weston meant thebest. 

“How d'ya like the punkin pie?” the older, Miss Belle, would ask. 

The pumpkin pie had seemed to taste a trifle strange, but we laid itto the fact that it was some time since we had eaten pumpkin pie. “Ittastes all right. ”

“Now, there! Glad to hear you say it. Canned that punkin ourselves. Put it up several years ago. Thought it smelled and looked a bitspoiled, but I says, guess I'll cook it up; mebbe the heat 'n' all'llturn it all right again. There's more in the kitchen!”

But it suddenly seemed as if I must get to work earlier that noon thanI had expected. “Can't ya even finish your pie? I declare I'm scaredthat pie won't keep long. ”

Mr. Welsh got sick after the first couple of meals, but bore onbravely, nor did the matter of turned string beans consciously worryMr. Welsh. The sisters themselves were always dying; their faithfulmorning reports of the details of what they had been through the nightbefore left nothing to the imagination. “Guess I oughtn't ta 'a' etfour hot cakes for supper when I was so sick yesterday afternoon. Isure was thinking I'd die in the night. .. . 'Liza, pass them bakedbeans; we gotta git them et up. ”

 * * * * *

At six o'clock in the morning the bleachery whistle blows three timesloud enough to shake the shingles on the roofs of the one-hundred-year-oldhouses and the leaves on the more than one-hundred-year-old treesabout the Falls. Those women who have their breakfasts to get andhouses to straighten up before they leave for work—and there are anumber—must needs be about before then. Seven o'clock sees folks onall roads leading to the bleachery gate. At 7. 10 the last whistleblows; at 7. 15 the power is turned on, wheels revolve, work begins. 

It must be realized that factory work, or any other kind of work, in asmall town is a different matter from work in a large city, if for noother reason than the transportation problem. Say work in New YorkCity begins at 7. 45. That means for many, if not most, of the workers, an ordeal of half an hour's journey in the Subways or “L, ” shoving, pushing, jamming, running to catch the shuttle; shoving, pushing, jamming, running for the East Side Subway; shoving, pushing, jamming, scurrying along hard pavements to the factory door; and at the end ofa day of eight or nine hours' work, all that to be done over again toget home. 

Instead, at the Falls, it meant a five minutes' leisurely—unless oneoverslept—walk under old shade trees, through the glen along a pathlined with jack-in-the-pulpits, wild violets, moss—the same fiveminutes' walk home at noon to a hot lunch, plenty of time in which toeat it, a bit of visiting on the way back to the factory, and aleisurely five minutes' walk home in the late afternoon. No one hasmeasured yet what crowded transportation takes out of a body in thecities. 

New York factories are used to new girls—they appear almost daily insuch jobs as I have worked in. At the Falls a strange person in townis excitement enough, a strange girl at the bleachery practically anunheard-of thing. New girls appear now and then to take the places ofthose who get married or the old women who must some time or otherdie. But not strange girls. Everyone in the bleachery grew up witheveryone else; as Ella Jane said, you know their mothers and theirgrandmothers, too. 

It so happened that a cataclysmic event had visited the Falls the weekbefore my appearance. A family had moved away, thereby detaching aworker from the bleachery—the girl who ticketed pillow cases. TheSunday I appeared in town, incidentally, seven babies were born. Thatevent—or those events—plus me, minus the family who moved away andan old man who had died the week before, made the population of theFalls 4, 202. Roughly, half that number either worked at the bleacheryor depended on those who worked there. Who or what the other halfwere, outside the little group of Main Street tradespeople, remained amystery. Of course, there were the ministers of the gospel and theirfamilies—in the same generous overdose—apportioned to most smalltowns. The actual number working in the bleachery was about sixhundred and twenty men and women. 

Odd, the different lights in which you can see a small town. Thechances are that, instead of being a worker, I might have spent theweek end visiting some of the “_élite_” of the Falls. In that case weshould have motored sooner or later by the bleachery gate and pastnumerous company houses. My host, with a wave of the hand, would havedispatched the matter by remarking, “The town's main industry. Thepoor devils live in these houses you see. ”

Instead, one day I found myself wandering along the street of thewell-to-do homes. What in the world. .. ? Who all ever lived way uphere? Whatever business had they in our Falls? Did they have anyone totalk to, anything to do? I laid the matter before Mamie O'Brien. 

“Any rich folk living around here?”

“Guess so. Some swell estates round about—never see the people much. ”

“Are they stuck up?”

“Dunno—na. Saw one of 'em at the military funeral last week. Shewasn't dressed up a bit swell—just wore a plaid skirt. Didn't looklike anybody at all. ”

In other words, we were the town. It was the bleachery folk you saw onthe streets, in the shops, at the post office, at the movies. Thebleachery folk, or their kind, I saw at the three church services Iattended. If anyone had dared sympathize with us—called us “poordevils”!

 * * * * *

The first morning at the bleachery the foreman led me to the narrowspace in the middle of three large heavy tables placed “U” shape, said, “Here's a girl to ticket, ” and left me. The foreman knew who Iwas. Employment conditions at the bleachery were such that it wasnecessary to make sure of a job by arranging matters ahead of timewith the manager. Also, on a previous occasion I had visited thebleachery, made more or less of an investigation, and sat in on aBoard of Operatives' meeting. Therefore, I left off my earrings, bought no Black Jack, did not feel constrained to say, “It ain't, ”though saw no reason why I too should not indulge in “My Gawd!” if Ifelt like it. I find it one of the most contagious expressions in thelanguage. The girls did not seem to know who I was or what I was. Notuntil the second day did the girl who stood next to me ask my name—aformality gone through within the first five minutes in any New Yorkjob. I answered Cornelia Parker. She got it Miss Parks, and formallyintroduced me around the table—“Margaret, meet Miss Parks—MissWhite, Miss Parks. ” Also all very different from New York. About theonly questions asked by any girl were, “You're from New York?” and, “Where did you work before you came here?” Some wondered if I wasn'tlonesome without my folks. I didn't have any folks. There was none ofthe expressed curiosity of the New York worker as to my past, present, and future. Not until the last few days did I feel forced to volunteernow and then enough information so that they would get my name and memore or less clear in their minds and never feel, after theirheart-warming cordiality, that I had tried “to put anything over onthem. ” Whether I was Miss Parks or Mrs. Parker, it made no differenceto them. It did to me, for I felt here at last I could keep up thecontacts I had made; and instead of walking off suddenly, leaving goodfriends behind without a word, I could honestly say I was off to thenext job, promise everyone I'd write often and come again to theFalls, and have everyone promise to write me and never come to NewYork without letting me know. I can lie awake nights and imagine whatfun it is going to be getting back to the Falls some day and waitingby the bridge down at the bleachery for the girls to come out at noon, seeing them all again. Maybe Mrs. Halley will call out her, “Hi! look'ose 'ere!”

 * * * * *

At our bleachery, be it known, no goods were manufactured. We tookpiece goods in the rough, mostly white, bleached, starched, andfinished it, and rolled or folded the finished stuff for market. InDepartment 10, where most of the girls worked, the west end of the bigthird floor, three grades of white goods were made into sheets andpillow cases, ticketed, bundled, and boxed for shipping. Along theentire end of the room next the windows stood the operating machines, with rows of girls facing one another, all hemming sheets or makingpillow cases. There were some ten girls who stood at five heavytables, rapidly shaking out the hemmed sheets, inspecting them forblemishes of any kind, folding them for the mangle, hundreds andhundreds a day. At other tables workers took the ironed sheets, ticketed them, tied them in bundles, wrapped and labeled and stackedthe bundles, whereupon they sooner or later were wheeled off to oneside and boxed. Four girls worked at the big mangle. Besides themangle, one girl spent her day hand-ironing such wrinkles as appearednow and then after the mangle had done its work. 

So much for sheets. There were three girls (the term “girl” is usedloosely, since numerous females in our department will never see fiftyagain) who slipped pillow cases over standing frames which poked outthe corners. After they were mangled they were inspected and folded, ticketed, bundled, and wrapped at our three U-shaped tables. Alsothere, one or two girls spent part time slipping pieces of dark-bluepaper under the hemstitched part of the pillow cases and sheets, sothat the ultimate consumer might get the full glory of her purchase. 

The first week Nancy, a young Italian girl (there were only twonationalities in the Falls—Italians and Americans), and I ticketedpillow cases. At the end of that time I had become efficient enough sothat I alone kept the bundler busy and Nancy was put on other work. Ticketing means putting just the right amount of smelly paste on theback of a label, slapping it swiftly just above the center of the hem. There are hundreds of different labels, according to the size andquality of the pillow cases and the store which retails them. My bestrecord was ticketing about six thousand seven hundred in one day. Thecases come folded three times lengthwise, three times across, sixty ina bundle. As fast as I ticketed a bundle I shoved them across to the“bundler, ” who placed six cases one way, six the other, tied thebundle of twelve at each end with white tape, stacked them in layersof three until the pile was as high as possible for safety, when itwas shoved across to the wrapper. How Margaret's fingers flew! She hadeach dozen in its paper, tied and labeled, in the wink of an eye, almost. 

In our department there were three boys who raced up and down withtrucks; one other who wrapped the sheets when he did not have his armgayly around some girl; and the little man to pack the goods in theirshipping boxes and nail them up. There were two forewomen—pretty, freckled-faced Tess and the masculine Winnie. Over all of us was“Hap, ” the new boss elected by Department 10 as its representative onthe Board of Operatives. It is safe to say he will be re-elected aslong as death or promotion spare him. Hap is a distinct success. Henever seems to notice anybody or anything—in fact, most of the timeyou wonder where in the world he is. But on Hap's shoulders rests theoutput for our entire department. The previous “boss” was the kind whofelt he must have his nose in everything and his eye on everybody. Themonth after Hap and his methods of letting folks alone came intopower, production jumped ahead. 

But Hap spoke up when he felt the occasion warranted it. The manglegirls started quitting at 11. 30. They “got by” with it until thematter came to Hap's notice. He lined the four of them up and, whilethe whole room looked on with amused interest, he told them what waswhat. After that they stayed till 12. 

Another time a piece-rate girl allowed herself to be overpaid twodollars and said nothing about it. Hap called her into the office. 

“Didn't you get too much in your envelope this week?”

“I dunno. I 'ain't figured up yet. ”

“Don't you keep track of your own work?”

“Yes, but I 'ain't figured up yet. ”

“Bring me your card. ”

The girl reddened and produced a card with everything up to date andtwo dollars below the amount in her pay envelope. 

“You better take a week off, ” said Hap. But he repented later in theafternoon and took it back, only he told her to be more careful. 

It was the bundler who took me under her wing that first day—prettyMamie O'Brien—three generations in the Falls. There was no talk ofvamping, no discussions of beaus. Everyone told everything she haddone since Saturday noon. 

“Hey, Margaret, didjagototha movies Saturday night?”

“Sure. Swell, wasn't it?”

“You said it. I 'ain't ever saw sweller. .. . ”

“I seen Edna's baby Sunday. Awful cute. Had on them pink shoes Amymade it. .. . ”

“Say, ain't that awful about Mr. Tinney's grandchild over toWelkville! Only lived three hours. .. . ”

“They're puttin' in the bathtub at Owenses'. .. . ”

“What dya know! After they got the bathroom all papered at Chases'they found they'd made a mistake and it's all got to be ripped down. Bathtub won't fit in. ” (“Improvements” were one of the leading topicsof conversation day in and day out at the Falls. )

“Ain't that new hat of Jess Tufts a fright? I 'ain't never saw herlook worse. ”

Back and forth it went—all the small gossip of the small town whereeveryone knows everything about everyone else from start to finish. Itwas all a bit too mild for Mamie, as I later learned—indeed, I beganto learn it that day. It was no time before Mamie was asking myopinion on every detail of the Stillman case: Did I think Mrs. Stokeswould get her divorce? Did I consider somebody or other guilty of somecrime or other? Somebody gets the electric chair to-morrow? Wasn't itthe strangest thing that somebody's body hadn't been recovered yet?Whatdyaknow about a father what'll strangle his own child? A man gotdrowned after he'd been married only two days. And did I think Dempseyor Carpentier would win the fight? “Gee! Wouldn't you give your hat tosee that fight?”

Meanwhile I was nearly drowning myself and the labels in paste, at thesame time trying to appear intelligent about a lot of things Ievidently was most uninformed about; working up an enthusiasm for theDempsey-Carpentier fight which would have led anyone to believe mysole object in working was to accumulate enough cash to pay the priceof admission. And all this time I was feasting my eyes on fresh-facedgirls in summer wash dresses, mostly Americans, some Italians; norouge whatever; not a sign of a lipstick, except on one girl; littleor no powder; a large, airy, clean, white room, red-and-white stripedawnings at the windows; and wherever the eye looked hillsides solidwith green trees almost close enough to touch (the bleachery was builtdown in a hollow beside a little river). Oh, it was too good to betrue, after New York!

Pretty gray-haired, pink-cheeked (real genuine pink-cheeked) Mrs. Halland I were talking about the bleachery on our way to work one morning. Mrs. Hall had been a forelady in a New York private dressmakingestablishment. She had what is called “style and personality. ” Herwages in New York had been thirty-five dollars a week, and she hadmuch variety and responsibility, which she loved. Circumstancesbrought her to the Falls. She had never worked in a factory; the veryidea had appalled her, yet she must work. One day she went up toDepartment 10 to see what it was all like. “Why, ” she said, “it tookmy breath away! I felt as if I was in one of those lovely rooms wherethey did Red Cross work during the war. Of course I get only a smallamount a week and it's the same thing over and over again, and afterwhat I was used to in New York that's hard. But it never seems like Iwas in a factory, somehow. ”

Just so. There was never the least “factory atmosphere” about theplace. It used to make me think of a reception, the voice of themachines for the music, with always, always the sound of much talk andlaughter above the whir. Sometimes—especially Mondays, with everyonetelling everyone else what she had done over the week end, and forsome reason or other Fridays, the talk was “enough to get you crazy, ”Margaret used to say. “Sure it makes my head swim. ” Nor was thelaughter the giggling kind, indulged in when the forelady was notlooking. It was the riotous variety, where at least one of a groupwould “laugh till she most cried”; nor did it make the leastdifference, whether the forelady was one foot or one hundred away. Like as not the forelady was laughing with the rest. Only once did Iever see authority exerted to curb merriment. On that occasion thingsreached a climax. All those not directly concerned with the jokebecame so curious as to what it was all about that one by one thegirls left their machines and gathered up one end of the room to laughwith the rest, until production, it was apparent, was at a standstill. Winnie went out and told Hap. Hap merely stepped inside the room, andevery girl did “sure get busy. ” It was the only time even Hap so muchas paid the least attention to what went on. All day there was talk, all day laughter, all day visiting a bit here and there, back andforth. Yet in the month of April production had reached the highestpoint ever, and the month I was there was expected to surpass April. It is significant that with all the fun, the standard of efficiencyand production in our bleachery was such that out of eighteen likeindustries in the country, we were one of the only two running fulltime. Thirteen were shut down altogether. 

That first day I asked Mamie what time work began in the morning. Mamie giggled. “I dunno. Say, Margaret, what time does work begin inthe morning?” “Seven-fifteen, I think. ” Under the Partnership Plan Iknew that each operative was allowed a week's vacation on full pay. But every time late, after fifteen times, deducted so many minutesfrom the vacation, just as any time off without sufficient cause meantthat much less vacation. 

“Ever been late?” I asked Mamie. 

More giggles. “Say, Margaret, she wants to know if I was ever late!”To me: “Ninety-seven times last year—no vacation at all for mine. AskMargaret how many time she's been late. ”

Still more giggles. Margaret giggled, I giggled. Margaret had beenlate one hundred eighteen times. Some of the girls were latepractically every day; they were like small boys who would not for theworld have anyone think they would try to do in school what wasexpected of them. Yet there were several girls who were to come intotheir full week off—the names and dates were posted on the bulletinboard; others were given five days, three days, down to a few whoseallotment out of a possible week was one-half day. But several of themost boastful over their past irregular record, and who were receivingno vacation at all, claimed they were going to be on time every daythis coming year—“Sure. ” This was the first year the vacation withpay had been granted. I thought of Tessie at the candy factory—Tessiewho had been sent speedily home by the pop-eyed man at the doorbecause she was ten minutes late, due to taking her husband to thehospital. Verily, there is no “factory atmosphere” about thebleachery, compared with New York standards. The men, they say, takethe whole matter of punctuality and attendance more seriously than thewomen. 

The second day I began my diary with, “A bleachery job is no job atall. ” That again was by contrast. Also, those first two days were theonly two, until the last week, that we did not work overtime at ourtable. When orders pour in and the mangle works every hour and extrafolders are put on and the bundles of pillow cases pile up, then, nomatter with what speed you manage to slap on those labels, you neverseem to catch up. Night after night Nancy, Mamie, Margaret, and Iworked overtime. From 7. 15 in the morning till 6 at night is a longday. Then for sure and certain we did get tired, and indeed by the endof a week of it we were well-nigh “tuckered out. ” But the more ordersthat came in the more profits to be divided fifty-fifty betweenCapital and Labor. 

(The Handbook on the Partnership Plan reads: “Our profit sharing is a50-50 proposition. The market wage of our industry is paid to Laborand a minimum of 6% is paid to Capital. After these have been paid, together with regular operating expenses, depreciation reserve, taxes, etc. , and after the Sinking Funds have been provided for by settingaside 15% of the next profits for Labor and 15% for Capital, theremaining net profits are divided 50% for Capital and 50% for theoperatives, and the latter sum divided in proportion to the amount ofeach one's pay for the period. .. . A true partnership must jointlyprovide for losses as well as for the sharing of profits. .. . TheseSinking Funds are intended to guarantee Capital its minimum return of6% during periods when this shall not have been carried, and toprovide unemployment insurance for the operatives, paying half wageswhen the company is unable to furnish employment. ”)

In the candy factory back in New York, Ida, the forelady, would hollerfrom the end of the room, “My Gawd! girls, work faster!” At thebleachery, when extra effort was needed, the forelady passed a letteraround our table from a New York firm, saying their order must befilled by the end of that week or they would feel justified incanceling the same. Every girl read the letter and dug her toes in. Noone ever said, “You gotta work overtime to-night!” We just mutuallydecided there was nothing else to do about it, so it was, “Let's workovertime to-night again. ” It was time-and-a-half pay for overtime, tobe sure, but it would be safe to assert it was not alone for the timeand a half we worked. We felt we had to catch up on orders. A fewtimes only, some one by about four o'clock would call: “Oh, gee! I'mdead; I've been workin' like a horse all day. I jus' can't workovertime to-night. ” The chances were if one girl had been working likea horse we all had. Such was the interrelation of jobs at our table. 

Except, indeed, Italian Nancy. Whether it was because Nancy was young, or not overstrong, or not on piece rates, or a mixture of the three, Nancy never anguished herself working, either during the day orovertime. One evening she spent practically the entire overtime hour, at time and a half, washing and ironing a collar and cuffs for one ofthe girls. Nor did any of our table think it at all amiss. 

During the day Nancy was the main little visitor from our table. Sheambled around and brought back the news. If interesting enough fromany quarter, another of us would betake herself off for more details. One day Nancy's young eyes were as big as saucers. 

“Say, whatdyaknow! That Italian girl Minna, she's only fifteen andshe's got a gold ring on with a white stone in it and she says she'sengaged!” We sent Nancy back for more details. For verification shebrought back the engagement ring itself. “Whatdyaknow! Only fifteen!”(Nancy herself was a year beyond that mature age. ) “The man she'sgoin' to marry is awful old, twenty-five! Whatdyaknow!” At a previoustime Nancy had regaled our table with an account of how, out of asense of duty to a fellow-countryman, she had announced to this sameMinna that she simply must take a bath. “Na, ” said Minna, “too earlyyet. ” That was the end of May. 

We were all, even I after the third day, on piecework at our table, except Nancy. Most of the girls in Department 10 were on piecework. There was one union in the bleachery; that was in another departmentwhere mostly men were employed—the folders. They worked time rates. With us, as soon as a girl's record warranted it, she was put on piecerates. Nancy and most of those young girls were still, after one ortwo years, on time rates—around eleven dollars a week they made. There was one case of a girl who did little, day in and day out, buther hair. She was the one girl who used a lipstick. They had taken heroff time rates and put her on piecework. She was a machine operator. The last week I was there her earnings were a little over two dollarsfor the week. She was incorrigible. Some of the machine operators madearound thirty dollars a week. The mangle girls earned aroundtwenty-five dollars. Old Mrs. Owens, standing up and inspectingsheets at the table behind me, made from twenty dollars to twenty-fivedollars. (Mrs. Owens had inspected sheets for thirteen years. I askedher if she ever felt she wanted to change and try something else. “No, sir, ” said Mrs. Owens; “a rolling stone gathers no moss. ”) Mamie, bundler, made around sixteen dollars; Margaret, at our table, went ashigh once as twenty-five dollars, but she averaged around twentydollars. My own earnings were twelve dollars and fifty-three cents thefirst week, fifteen dollars and twenty-three cents the second, eightdollars and twenty-seven cents the third. All the earnings at ourtable were low that last week—Margaret's were around twelve dollars. For one thing, there was a holiday. No wonder employers groan overholidays! The workers begin to slacken up about two days ahead and ittakes two days after the day off to recover. Then, too, we indulged intoo much nonsense that last week. We laughed more than we worked, andpaid for it. The next week Mamie and Margaret claimed they were goingto bring their dinners the whole week to work that noon hour and makeup for our evil days. But as gray-haired Ella Jane said, she laughedso much that week she claimed she had a stomach ache. “We'll be a longtime dead, once we die. Why not laugh when you get a chance?”

Why not?—especially in a small town where it is well to take eachchance for fun and recreation as it comes—since goodness knows whenthe next will show itself. Outside of the gayety during workinghours, there was little going on about the Falls. Movies—of course, movies. Four times a week the same people, usually each entire family, conscientiously change into their best garments and go to the moviepalace. The children and young people fill the first rows, the grownfolk bring up the rear. Four times a week young and old get fed onsociety dramas, problem plays, bathing girl comedies. Next day it isalways:

“Sadie, did ya saw the show last night? Wasn't it swell where sherecognized her lover just before he got hung?”

Just once since movies were has the town been taken by storm, and thatwas while I was there. It was “The Kid” that did it. Many that day atthe bleachery said they weren't going—didn't like CharlieChaplin—common and pie-slinging; cheap; always all of that. Sweet-faced Mamie, who longs to go through Sing Sing some day—“That'swhere they got the biggest criminals ever. Wonder if they let you seethe worst ones”—Mamie, who had thrilled to a trip through the insaneasylum; Mamie, who could discuss for hours the details of how a fatherbeat his child to death; Mamie, to whom a divorce was meat and asuicide drink—Mamie wasn't going to see Charlie Chaplin. All thatpie-slinging stuff made her sick. 

Usually a film shows but once at the Falls. “The Kid” ran Mondaymatinée. Monday night the first time in history the movie palace wasfilled and over two hundred turned away. Tuesday night it was shownto a third full house. Everyone was converted. 

As for dancing, once a week, Friday nights, there was a dance at the“Academy. ” Time was when Friday night's dance was an event, and themale contingent from the largest near-by city was wont to attend. Butit cost twenty-four cents to journey by trolley from the largestnear-by city to the Falls, fifty cents to attend the dance. Unemployment at the largest near-by city meant that any dancingindulged in by its citizens was at home, minus car fare. Also, themusic for dancing at the Falls was not favorably commented upon. Sosometimes there were six couples at the dance, once in a great whiletwenty. The youths present were home talent, short on thrills for thefair ones present. 

Indeed, the problem of the Falls was the problem of every smalltown—where in the world could an up-and-doing girl turn for a beau?The only young men in the place were those married still younger andanchored there, or the possessors of too little gumption to get out. Those left hung over the rail at the end of the Main Street bridge andeyed every female passer-by. It was insult heaped on boredom, from thegirls' point of view, that a Falls youth never so much as tipped hishat when spoken to. “Paralysis of the arms is here widespread, ” Bessput it. “You oughta see 'em in winter, ” Margaret giggled one Sundaywhile four of us were walking the streets for diversion. “If you wantto know where the gallants of the Falls are in winter, look for asunny spot. They collect in patches of sun, like some kind of bugs oranimals. ”

As for reading, “Do you like to read?”

“Crazy 'bout readin'. ”

“What, for instance?”

“Oh, books, movie magazines. Don't ever remember the names ofanything. Swell stories. Gee! I cried and cried over the last one. .. . ”

Or, “Do much reading?”

“Na, never git time to read. ”

My old maids never so much as took the newspaper. They figured that ifnews was important enough they'd hear about it sooner or later, andmeanwhile there was much to keep up with at the Falls. 

“Can't hardly sleep nights, got so much on my mind, ” the seventy-sixerwould say. 

One night she just got nervous fidgets something awful, worrying lesther brother might not get to the Baptist chicken dinner after all, when he'd gone and paid seventy-five cents for his ticket. 

Sunday there was church to attend, the Catholics flourishing, theEpiscopalians next, four other denominations tottering this way andthat. I heard the Baptist minister preach that every word in the Biblewas inspired by God, ending with a plea for the family altar. 

“Christian brethren, I'm a man who has seen both sides of life. Icould have gone one way. It is by the grace of God and the familyaltar that I stand before you the man I am. ”

There were thirty-one people in the congregation who heard his youngthough quavering words, eight of them children, two the organist andher husband, nine of the remainder women over sixty. 

The Methodist, that morning, preached on the need of a revival at theFalls, and Mr. Welsh, the electrician, whose wife was resting up inPennsylvania, thought he was right. Sunday baseball—that day ourbleachery team played the Keen Kutters—pained Mr. Welsh. TheMethodist minister before this one had been a thorn in the flesh ofhis congregation. He frankly believed in amusements, disgraced them bysaying out loud at a union service that he favored Sunday baseball. Another minister got up and “sure made a fool of him, ” thank goodness. Where was the renegade now? Called to a church in a large Middle Westcity where they have no more sense than to pay him twice what he wasgetting at the Falls. 

That night I heard a visiting brother at the Methodist church pleadfor support for foreign missions, that we might bring the light of theideal Christian civilization under which we live to the thirstysavages in dark places. He poured his message to an audience oftwenty-one, ten of them gray-haired women, one a child. 

All the ministers prayed long for Harding and were thankful he was achild of God. 

Three of us girls rowed up the lake one night and cooked our supperand talked about intimate things. It was a lake worth traveling milesto see. It was one block from the post office. Mamie had been to thelake twice in all her life. It was good for canoeing, rowing, fishing, swimming, and, best of all, just for the eyesight. Yet to the greatmajority it did not exist. 

The bleachery, through its Partnership Plan, ran a village club houseon Main Street. The younger boys, allowing only for school hours, worked the piano player from morn till night. There was a gymnasium. Suppers were given now and then. It was supposed to be for the use ofthe girls certain days, but they took little or no advantage of it. 

Otherwise, and mostly, when the weather permitted, up and down thestreet folk sat on their front porches and rocked or went inside andplayed the victrola. 

“Gawd! If I could shake the Falls!” many a girl sighed. Yet they hadno concrete idea what they would shake it for. Just before I came thebleachery girls were called into meeting and it was explained to themthat Bryn Mawr College was planning a two months' summer school forworking girls. Its attractions and possibilities were laid forth indetail. It was explained that Vassar College and a woman's club weremaking it possible for two bleachery girls to go, with all expensespaid. Out of 184 eligible girls four signed up as being interested. One of those later withdrew her name. The two chosen were Bess andMargaret, as fine girls as ever went to any college. There was muchexcitement the Saturday morning their telegrams came, announcing BrynMawr had passed favorably upon their candidacy. Bess especially wasbeside herself. “Oh, it's what I've longed to have a chance to do allmy life!” She had clutched a _New Republic_ under her arms for dayscontaining an article about the summer school. Both Margaret and Besshad spent a couple of years at West Point during the war as servants, for a change. They had worked for the colonel's wife and loved it. “Gee! the fun we had!”

Yet it was no time before Main Street characteristics came to thefront. 

Only four girls had so much as expressed an interest in the Bryn Mawrscheme. Within a week after the two girls received the telegrams, tongues got busy. Margaret looked ready to cry one afternoon. 

“Hey! what's the matter?”

“My Gawd! This place makes you sick. Can't no one let a person getstarted enjoyin' themselves but what they do their best to spoil itfor you!” Her hands were wrapping pillow case bundles like lightning, her head bent over her work. “Don't I know I ain't nothin' but afactory girl? Don't I know I probably won't ever be nothin' but one?Can't a person take a chance to get off for two months and go to thatcollege without everybody sayin' you're tryin' to be stuck up and getto be somethin' grand and think you won't be a factory girl no more? Idon't see anything I'm gettin' out of this that's goin' to make meanything but just a factory girl still. I'm not comin' back and put onany airs. My Gawd! My Gawd! Why can't they leave you alone?”

I asked two of the Falls men I knew if their sex would have acted thesame as the girls, had it been two men going off for a two months'treat. “You bet, ” they answered. “It's your darn small-town jealousy, and not just female at all. ”

Suppose, then, on top of all the drawbacks of small-town life, thegirls had to work under big-city factory conditions? At least therewas always the laughter, always the talk, always the visiting back andforth, at the bleachery. 

My last day on the job witnessed a real event. Katie Martin was to bemarried in ten days. Therefore, she must have her tin shower at thebleachery. Certain traditions of that sort were unavoidable. AtChristmas time the entire Department 10 was decorated from end to enduntil it was resplendent. Such merrymaking as went on, such presentsas were exchanged! And when any girl, American or Italian, was to bemarried, the whole department gave her a tin shower. 

Katie Martin inspected and folded sheets. She was to marry the brotherof young Mrs. Annie Turner, who ticketed sheets. Annie saw to it thatKatie did not get to work promptly that noon. When she did appear, allout of breath and combing back her hair (no one ever wore a hat towork), there on two lines above her table hung the “shower. ” The restof us had been there fifteen minutes, undoing packages, giggling, commenting. Except old Mrs. Brown's present. It was her firstexperience at a tin shower and she came up to me in great distress. “Can't you stop them girls undoin' all her packages? 'Tain't right. She oughta undo her own. I jus' won't let 'em touch what I brought!”Ever and again a girl would spy Mrs. Brown's contribution. “Hey!Here's a package ain't undone. ” “No, no, don't you touch it! Ain't tobe undone by anybody but her. ” Poor Mrs. Brown was upset enough fortears. 

There were a few other packages not to be undone by anybody but her, because their contents were meant to, and did, cause peals of laughterto the audience and much embarrassment to Katie. On the lines hungfirst an array of baby clothes, all diminutive size, marked, “Forlittle Charlie. ” Such are the traditions. Also hung seven kitchenpans, a pail, an egg-beater and gem pans; a percolator, a doubleboiler and goodness knows what not. On the table stood six cake tins, more pots and pans, salt and pepper shakers, enough of kitchenware tostart off two brides. Everybody was pleased and satisfied. Charlie, the groom-to-be, got a friend with a Ford to take the shower home. 

The last night of all at the Falls I spent at my second Board ofOperatives' meeting, held the first Friday night of each month. TheBoard of Operatives is intended to represent the interests of theworkers in the bleachery. The Board is elected annually by secretballot by and from the operatives in the eleven different departmentsof the mill. Margaret and Bess went, too, on request from above, thatthey might appear more intelligent should anyone ask at Bryn Mawrabout the Partnership Plan. (“My land, what _would_ we tell them?”they wailed. ) The Board meetings are officially set down as open toall the operatives, only no one ever heard of anyone else everattending. The two girls were “fussed” at the very idea of beingpresent, and dressed in their best. 

The president, elected representative from the starch room, called themeeting to order from his position at the head of the table in theVillage Club House. Every member of the Board shaves and puts on hisSunday clothes, which includes a white collar, for the Board meeting. It is no free show, either. They are handed out two dollars apiece forattending, at the end of the meeting, the same idea as if it were WallStreet. The secretary reads the minutes of the Board of Management. (“The Board of Management was set up by the Board of Directors inJuly, 1919, as a result of a request from the Board of Operatives formore than merely 'advisory' power which the Board of Operatives thenenjoyed in reference to matters of mill management, wages, workingconditions, etc. The Board of Management consists of six members, three of whom are the treasurer, the New York agent, and the localmanager, and three of whom are elected by the Board of Operatives fromtheir number. .. . The Board of Management is authorized to settle andadjust such matters of mill management as may arise. .. . ”) The Companystatement, up to March 31, 1921, was read. There followed a reportfrom the Housing Committee—first a financial statement. Then itseemed somebody wanted to put somebody else out of a house, and therewere many complications indeed arising therefrom, which took muchdiscussion from everyone and bitter words. It looked as if it wouldhave to be taken to court. The conclusion seemed to be that the Boardfelt that its executive secretary, chosen by the management, thoughpaid out of the common funds, had exceeded his authority in makingstatements to tenants. We girls rather shivered at the acrimony of thediscussion. Had they been lady board members having such a row, halfof them would have been in tears. Next, old Mrs. Owens, who shooksheets behind me, wanted to buy a certain house on a certainavenue—company house, of course. Third, one Mr. Jones on AcademyStreet wants us to paper his kitchen—he will supply the paper. Andthere followed other items regarding paint for this tenant, new floorfor that, should an old company boarding house be remodeled for a newclub house or an apartment house; it was decided to postpone roofing along row of old company houses, etc. 

The operative from the folding and packing room was chairman of theHousing Committee, a strong union enthusiast. The representative fromthe mechanical department reported for the Recreation and EducationCommittee; all the night school classes had closed, with appropriatefinal exercises, for the season: the children's playground would beready for use July 1st. The man from the “gray” room and singe housereported for the Working Conditions Committee. Something aboutwatchmen and a drinking fountain, and wheels and boxes in the starchroom; washing facilities for shovelers; benches and back stairs. 

The Finance Committee reported a deficit on the mechanical andelectrical smoker. Much discussion as to why a deficit and who oughtto pay it, and what precedent were they setting, and all and all, butit was ordered paid—this time. Webster's bills were too high forpapering and painting company houses. He was a good worker, hisplaster and his paper stuck where they belonged, which hadn't been therule before. But it was decided he was too costly even so, and theywere going back to the company paperers—perhaps their work wouldstick better next time. A report from the Board of Directors wasdiscussed and voted upon. .. . The minutes of the Board of Operativeswere posted all through the mill. Did anyone read them? If so, or ifnot so, should the Board of Management minutes also be posted? It wasvoted to postpone posting such minutes, though they were open to anyoperative, as in the past. 

Under Old Business was a long discussion on health benefits andold-age pensions. For some months now the bleachery has been concernedon the subject of old-age pensions. Health benefits have been inoperation for some time. The question was, should they pay the secondweek for accident cases, until the state started its payments thethird week?

Under New Business the resignation of the editors of _Bleachery Life_was read and accepted. Acrimonious discussion as to the running of the_Bleachery Life_. Again we girls shivered. It was announced a certainrich man who recently died had left the Village Club House fivehundred dollars—better write no letter of thanks until they got themoney. Should the new handbook be printed by union labor atconsiderably greater expense, or by an open shop? Unanimously voted byunion labor. More health-benefit discussions under New Business. Itwas voted to increase the Board of Management by two additionalmembers—one operative, one from the employing side. Election then andthere by a secret ballot. The operative from the “gray” room and singehouse was elected over the man from the office force by two votes. Some further housing discussions, and at 11. 15 P. M. The meetingadjourned. 

“Say, I'm for coming every time. ” Perhaps we three girls will havestarted the style of outside attendance at the meetings. 

Whether a wider participation of operatives, a deeper understanding ofIndustrial Democracy and the Partnership Plan, develops or not, certainly they are a long step on the way to some sort of permeationof interest. For the next morning early, my last morning, as I startedwork, I heard toothless old Mrs. Holley call over to aged Mrs. Owens, whose husband even these days is never sober: “Hi, Mrs. Owens, what doye know habout hit! Hain't it grand we got out over five million fivehundred thousand yards last month?”

“I say it's grand, ” grinned Mrs. Owens. “More 'n a million over whatwe done month before. ”

“Hi say—over fifteen million the last three months. Hi say we're somebleachery, that's what _hi_ say!”

 VI

 _No. 1470, “Pantry Girl”_

Perhaps, more strictly speaking, instead of working with the workingwoman, it was working with the working man. Hotel work is decidedlyco-educational! Except, indeed, for chambermaids and laundry workers, where the traditionally female fields of bed-making and washing havenot been usurped by the male. Even they, those female chambermaids andlaunderers, see more or less of working menfolk during the day. So itmight be thought then that hotel work offers an ideal field for thegrowth of such normal intercourse between the sexes as leads to happymatrimony. No need to depend on dance halls or the Subway to pick up a“fella. ” No need for external administrations from wholesome socialworkers whose aim is to enable the working man or woman to seesomething of the opposite sex. 

Yet forever are there flies in ointments. Flossie was one of the saladgirls in the main kitchen. Flossie was Irish, young, most of her teethgone. Her sister had worked at our hotel two years earlier, then hadsent for Flossie to come from Ireland. The sister was now married. 

Innocently, interestedly, I asked, “To a man she knew here at thehotel?”

Flossie cast a withering eye upon me. “The good Lord save us! I shouldsay not! And what decent girl would ever be marryin' the likes of aman who worked around a hotel? She couldn't do much worse! Just steerclear of hotel men, I'm tellin' ya. They're altogether too wise to besafe for any girl. ”

We were eating supper. The table of eight all nodded assent. 

Too wise or not too wise—at least there is a—cordiality—apredisposition toward affection on the part of male hotel workerswhich tends to make one's outside male associates seem fearfullyformal, if not stiffly antagonistic. If one grows accustomed to beingcalled “Sweetheart, ” “Darling” on first sight, ending in the eveningby the time-clock man's greeting of, “Here comes my little bunch oflove!”—is it not plain that outside in the cruel world such words asa mere “How-do-you-do” or “Good morning” seem cold indeed?

What happens when a girl works three years in this affectionateatmosphere and then marries a plumber who hollers merely “say” at her?

 * * * * *

Behind the scenes in a hotel—what is it all about? To find that out Ipoked around till the employment-office entrance of one of New York'sbiggest and newest hotels was discovered. There had been no “ad. ” inthe Sunday paper which would give a hint that any hotel neededadditional help. We took our chances. Some twenty men waited in alittle hallway, two women inside the little office. One of the womenweighed at least two hundred and fifty, the other not a pound overninety. Both could have been grandmothers, both wanted chamber work. The employment man spied me. 

“What do you want?”

“A job. ”

“What kind of a job?”

“Anything but bein' chambermaid. ”

“What experience have you had in hotel work?”

“None, but lots in private homes. I'd like a job around the kitchensome place. ”

“Ever try pantry work?”

“Not in a hotel, but lots in private families. I can do that swell!”(What pantry work meant I hadn't the least idea—thought perhapswashing glasses and silverware. )

He put on his coat and hat and dashed upstairs. He always put on hiscoat _and_ hat to go upstairs. In a few moments he dashed hurriedlyback, followed by another man whose teeth were all worn down in thefront. I learned later that he was an important steward. 

He asked me all over again all the questions the first man had asked, and many more. He was in despair and impatient when he found I had nota single letter of recommendation from a single private family I hadworked for. I could have written myself an excellent one in a fewmoments. Could I bring a letter back later in the day?

“Can you fix salads?”

“Sure!”

“You think you could do the job?”

“_Sure!_”

“Well, you look as if you could. Never mind the letter, but get one tohave by you—comes in handy any job you want. Now about pay—I can'tpay you what you been used to getting, at least not first month. ” (I'dmentioned nothing as to wages. ) “Second month maybe more. First monthall I can pay you is fifty and your meals. That all right?”

As usual, my joy at landing a job was such that any old pay wasacceptable. 

“Be back in two hours. ”

Just then the employment man called out to the hall filled withwaiting men, “No jobs for any men this morning. ” I don't know whatbecame of the old women. 

I was back before my two hours were up, so anxious to begin. Theemployment man put on his hat and coat and dashed upstairs after mysteward. Just incidentally, speaking of hats and coats, it can bementioned that all this was in the middle of one of the hottestsummers New York ever knew. 

The steward led the way up one flight of iron stairs and into the mainkitchen. Wasn't I all eyes to see what was what! If anyone is lookingfor a bit of muck-raking about the hinterland of restaurants, let himnot bother to read farther. Nothing could have been cleaner than thekitchen conditions in our hotel. And orders up and down the line wereto serve _nothing_ which was not absolutely as it should be. 

In a corner of the main kitchen the steward turned me over to Bridget, who was to take me here, there, and the other place. By 11. 30 A. M. , Iwas back where I started from, only, thanks to aged Bridget and hernone-too-sure leadings, I was clad in a white cap and white all-overapron-dress, and had had my lunch. Thereupon the steward escorted meto my own special corner of the world, where, indeed, I was to be lordof all I surveyed—provided my gaze fell not too far afield. 

That particular corner was down one short flight of stairs from themain kitchen into a hustling, bustling, small and compact, oftencrowded, place where were prepared the breakfasts, lunches, anddinners of such folk who cared more for haste and less for style thanthe patrons of the main dining rooms. Our café fed more persons in aday than the other dining rooms combined. Outside we could seat fivehundred at a time, sixty-five of those at marble counters, the rest atsmall tables. But our kitchen quarters could have been put in onecorner of the spacious, airy upstairs main kitchen. 

Through the bustle of scurrying and ordering waiters I was led to asmall shelved-off compartment. Here I was to earn my fifty dollars amonth from 1. 30 P. M. To 9 P. M. Daily except Sunday, with one-half houroff for supper. I was entitled to eat my breakfast and lunch at thehotel as well. 

This first day, I was instructed to watch for two hours the girl Iwas to relieve at 1. 30. Her hours were from 6 in the morning to 1. 30, which meant she got the brunt of the hard work—all of the breakfastand most of the lunch rush. To me fell the tail end of the lunchrush—up to about 2. 15, and supper or dinner, which only occasionallycould be spoken of as “rush” at all. I discovered later that we bothgot the same pay, although she had to work very much harder, and alsoshe had been at our hotel almost two years, though only nine months atthis special pantry job. Before that she had made toast, and toastonly, upstairs in the main kitchen. 

The first question Mary asked me that Monday morning was, “YouSpanish?” No, I wasn't. Mary was a Spanish grass widow. Ten years shehad been married, but only five of that time had she lived with herhusband. Where was he? Back in Spain. “No good. ” She had come on tothis country because it was too hard for a woman to make her way inSpain. She spoke little English, but with that little she showed thatshe was kindly disposed and anxious to help all she could. She herselfhad a stolid, untidy efficiency about her, and all the while, poorthing, suffered with pains in her stomach. 

By the time 1. 30 came around I knew what I had to do and could be leftto my own devices. To the pantry girl of our café fell various andsundry small jobs. But the end and aim of her life had to be speed. 

To the left of my little doorway was a small, deep sink. Next to thesink was a very large ice chest. On the side of the ice chest nextthe sink hung the four soft-boiled-egg machines—those fascinatingcontrivances in which one deposited the eggs, set the notch at two, three, four minutes, according to the desires of the hurried guestwithout, sank the cup-shaped container in the boiling water, and nevergave the matter another thought. At the allotted moment the eggs werehoisted as if by magic from out their boilings. Verily are the wondersof civilization manifold! The sink and the protruding ice chest filledthe entire left side of my small inclosure. Along the entire right andfront was a wide work-shelf. On this shelf at the right stood theelectric toasting machine which during busy hours had to be kept goingfull blast. 

“Toast for club!” a waiter sang out as he sped by, and zip! thealready partially toasted bread went into the electric oven to be doneso crisply and quickly that you could call out to that waiter, “Toastfor club” before he could come back and repeat his ominous, “Toast forclub!” at you. People who order club sandwiches seem always to be in aspecial hurry. 

In the front corner just next the toaster stood the tray of breadsliced ready to toast, crusts off for dry or buttered toast, crusts onfor “club, ” very thin slices for “toast Melba. ” Directly in front, andnext the bread tray, came the tray filled with little piles of grahamand milk crackers, seven in a pile. What an amazing number of folkorder graham or milk crackers in a café! It seems unbelievable to onewho has always looked upon a place furnishing eatables outside a homeas a chance to order somewhat indigestible food prepared entirelydifferently from what any home could accomplish. Yet I know it to be afact that people seat themselves at a table or a counter in a more orless stylish café and order things like prunes or rhubarb and grahamor milk crackers, and perhaps top off, if they forget themselves sofar, with a shredded-wheat biscuit. 

It is bad enough if a man feels called upon to act that way before 2P. M. When he puts in an order for such after 6 in the evening—thenindeed it is a case for tears. I would get the blues wonderingwhatever could ail adult humanity that it ordered shredded-wheatbiscuits after dark. 

Just above the counter holding the bread and crackers was the counteron which were placed the filled orders for the waiters to whisk away. It was but a step from there to my ice box. The orders it was mybusiness to fill were for blackberries, blueberries, prunes, slicedoranges, rhubarb, grapefruit, whole oranges, apples, sliced peachesand bananas, muskmelons, and four kinds of cheese. These pretty wellfilled the upper half of the ice chest, together with the finishedsalads I kept ahead, say three of each, lettuce and tomato, hearts oflettuce, plain lettuce, and sliced tomatoes. 

In the lower half stood the pitchers of orange and grape juice, jamsand jellies for omelettes to be made down the line, olives, celery, lettuce, cucumbers, a small tub of oranges and a large bowl of slicedlemons. The lemons, lemons, lemons I had daily to slice to completethe ice-tea orders! The next pantry-girl job I fill will be in winterwhen there is no demand for ice tea. I had also to keep on hand a bowlof American cheese cut the proper size to accompany pie, and togetherwith toast and soft-boiled eggs and crackers and a crock of Frenchdressing set in ice. Such was my kingdom, and I ruled it alone. 

During slack hours it was easy, too easy. In rush hours you had tokeep your head. Six waiters might breeze by in a line not one secondapart, each calling an order, “Half a cantaloupe!” “Two orders ofbuttered toast!” “Combination salad!” (that meant romaine and lettuceleaves, shredded celery, sliced cucumbers, quartered tomatoes, greenpepper, watercress, which always had to be made up fresh); “Slicedpeaches!” (they could never be sliced in advance); “One order orangejuice!” “Toast for club!” then how one's fingers sped!

The wonder of it was no one ever seemed to lose his patience or histemper. That is, nobody out our way. Maybe in the café there was somemillionaire hastily en route to a game of golf who cursed the universein general and the clumsy fingers of some immigrant pantry girl inparticular. (Not so fearfully clumsy either. )

Between 2 and 2. 30 the rush subsided, and that first day I caught mybreath and took time to note the lay of the land. 

My compartment came first, directly next the dishes. Next me was abeautiful chef with his white cap set on at just the chef angle. Hewas an artist, with a youngster about fifteen as his assistant. Someday that youngster will be a more beautiful chef than his master andmore of an artist. His master, I found out in my slack hours thatfirst afternoon, was French, with little English at his command, though six years in this country. I know less French than he doesEnglish, but we got to be good friends over the low partition whichseparated us. There was nothing at all fresh or affectionate aboutthat French chef. I showed my gratitude for that by coming over in theafternoon and helping him slice hot potatoes for potato salad while myfloor got washed. Every day I made him a bow and said, “_Bon jour, Monsieur le Bon Chef_, ” which may be no French at all. And every dayhe made me a bow back and said, “_Bon jour_” something or other, whichI could tell was nice and respectful, but—I can't write it down. Monsieur Le Bon Chef made splendid cold works of art in jellies, andsalads which belonged to another realm than my poor tomatoes andlettuce. Also, he and his assistant—the assistant was Spanish—madewonder sandwiches. They served jellied soups from their counter. Poorhumble me would fill “One order graham crackers, little one!” But toMonsieur Le Bon Chef it would be “Two Cream of Cantaloupes!” “Onechicken salad!” “One (our hotel) Plate!” (What a creation of a littleof everything that was!) Monsieur Le Bon Chef taught me some tricks ofthe trade, but this is no treatise on domestic science. 

I will tell you about Monsieur Le Bon Chef, though by no means did Ilearn this all my first afternoon. I only picked up a little here andthere, now and then. He came to this country a French immigrant fromnear Toulouse six or so years ago, his heart full of dreams as to theopportunities in America. Likely as not we might now have to add that, after many searchings, he landed a job peeling potatoes at fifteendollars a month. Monsieur Le Bon Chef was no Bon Chef at all when helanded—knew none of the tricks of “chefness” to speak of. His firstday in America he sought out an employment office. Not a word ofEnglish could he speak. While the employment agent was just about toshake his head and say, “Nothing to-day, ” a friend, or at least acountryman, dashed up. “I have a job for you, ” said the countryman, and he led my Bon Chef to New York's most aristocratic hotel. MonsieurLe Bon Chef could not know there was a cooks' strike on. Down to thekitchen they led him, and for some weeks he drew ten dollars a daywages and his room and board right there at the hotel. To fall fromToulouse into a ten-dollar-a-day job! And when one knew scarce morethan how to boil potatoes!

Of course, when the strike was over, there were no such wages paid asten dollars a day. Nothing like that was he earning these six yearslater when he could make the beauteous works of art in jelly. I askedhim if he liked his work. He shrugged his shoulders and brushed oneside of his rather bristly blond mustache. “Na—no like somuch—nothing in it but the moaney—make good moaney. ” He shruggedhis shoulders again and brushed up the other side of his mustache. “Nogood work just for tha moaney. ” You see he really is an artist. He wasmy quiet, nice friend, Monsieur Le Bon Chef. Indeed, one night he gaveme a wondrously made empty cigar box with a little lock to it. “OohLa-la!” I cried, and made a very deep bow, and said in what I'm surewas correct French—because Monsieur Le Bon Chef said it was—“Thankyou very much!”

So then, all there was on our side of the kitchen was my littlecompartment and the not quite so little compartment of Monsieur Le BonChef, whose confines reached around the corner a bit. Around thatcorner and back a little way were two fat Porto-Rican women who washedglasses and spoke no English. Beyond them, at the right of the stairsgoing up to the main kitchen, were clean dishes. They came ondumb-waiters from some place either above or below. 

At the left of the stairs were some five chefs of as manynationalities—Italian, Spanish, South American, French, Austrian, whofilled hot orders, frying and broiling and roasting. Around the cornerand opposite the Bon Chef and me were first the two cashiers, then myspecial friends, the Spanish dessert man and the Greek coffee and teaman. That is, they were the main occupants of their long compartment, but at the time of lunch rush at least six men worked there. Countingthe chore persons of various sorts and not counting waiters, we hadsome thirty-eight working in or for our café—all men but the two fatPorto-Rican glass washers and me. 

Bridget, the dear old soul, came down that first afternoon to see howI was getting along. I had cleaned up spick and span after the Spanishwoman—and a mess she always managed to leave. The water was out ofthe egg-boiling machine and that all polished; the heat turned off inthe toasting machine and that wiped off; lemons sliced; celery“Julietted”; and I was peeling a tubful of oranges—in the way thesteward had showed me—to be sliced by Spanish Mary for breakfast nextmorning. 

“I'm sure gettin' along swell, ” I told Bridget. 

“God bless ye, ” said my dear old guide, and picked her way upstairsagain. 

It was plain to see that down our way everybody's work eased upbetween 3. 30 and 5. Then everyone visited about, exchanged newspapers, gossiped over counters. We changed stewards at three. Kelly, theeasy-going, jovial (except at times) Irishman, took himself off, and anarrow-shouldered, small, pernickety German Jew came on for the restof my time. When we closed up at nine he went to some other part ofthe hotel and stewarded. 

My first afternoon Schmitz sauntered about to see what he could findout. Where did I live, what did I do evenings, what time did I get upmornings, what did I do Sundays? One question mark was Schmitz. Onething only he did not ask me, because he knew that. He always couldtell what nationality a person was just by looking at him. So? Yes, and he knew first thing what nationality I was. So? Yes, I was aTurk. But the truth of it was that at the hotel I was part Irish andpart French and part Portuguese, but all I could talk was the Irishbecause my parents had both died while I was very young. Another day, my Greek friend, the coffee man, said he was sure there was a littleGreek in me; and an Austrian waiter guessed right away I was a bitAustrian; and every Spaniard in the kitchen—and the hotel was full ofthem—started by talking a mile-a-minute Spanish at me. So acosmopolitan, nondescript, melting-pot face is an asset in the laborworld in our fair land—all nationalities feel friendly because theythink you are a countryman. But a Turk—that stretched boundaries abit. 

For every question Schmitz asked me I asked him one back. His wife anddaughter, sixteen, were in France for three months, visiting thewife's parents. As Schmitz's pernicketyness became during the nextdays more and more impossible to ignore, I solaced my harassedfeelings with the thought of how much it must mean to Mrs. Schmitz tobe away from Mr. Schmitz and his temperament and disposition for threeblessed months. Perhaps the daughter, sixteen, had spoken of thatphase of the trip to Mrs. Schmitz. Mrs. Schmitz, being a dutiful wifewho has stood Mr. Schmitz at least, we surmise, some seventeen years, replied to such comments of her sixteen-year-old daughter, “Hush, Freda!”

At five minutes to five Schmitz graciously told me I might go up to mysupper, though the law in the statute books stood five. Everybodyupstairs in the main kitchen, as I made my way to the serviceelevator, spoke kindly and asked in the accents of at least tendifferent nationalities how I liked my job. Hotel folk, male andfemale, are indeed a friendly lot. 

The dining room for the help is on the ballroom floor, which is ashort flight of steps above the third. It is the third floor which iscalled the service floor, where our lockers are, and the chambermaids'sleeping quarters, and the recreation room. 

There are, it seems, class distinctions among hotel help. The chefseat in a dining room of their own. Then, apparently next in line, cameour dining room. I, as pantry girl, ranked a “second officer. ” We hadround tables seating from eight to ten at a table, table cloths andcafeteria style of getting one's food. The chefs were waited upon. Inour dining room ate the bell boys, parlor maids, laundry workers, seamstresses, housekeepers, hotel guards and police, the employmentman, pantry girls—a bit of everything. To reach our dining room wehad to pass through the large room where the chambermaids ate. Theyhad long bare tables, no cloths, and sat at benches without backs. 

As to food, our dining room but reflected the state of mind any andevery hotel dining room reflects, from the most begilded andbemirrored down. Some thought the food good, some thought it awful, some thought nothing about it at all, but just sat and ate. One thingat least was certain—there was enough. For dinner there was alwayssoup, two kinds of meat, potatoes, vegetables, dessert, ice tea, milk, or coffee. For supper there was soup again, meat or fish, potatoes, asalad, and dessert, and the same variety of drinkables to choose from. Once I was late at lunch and ate with the help's help. The woman whodished up the vegetables was in a fearful humor that day. People hadbeen complaining about the food. “They make me sick!” she grunted. “They jus' oughta try the —— Hotel. I worked in their help's dinin'room for four years and we hardly ever seen a piece of meat, and asfor eggs—I'm tellin' ya a girl was lucky if she seen a egg them fouryears. ”

The people in our dining room were like the people in every diningroom: some were sociable and talked to their neighbors, some were notsociable at all. There was no regular way of seating. Some meals youfound yourself at a table where all was laughter and conversation. Thenext meal, among the same number of people, not one word would bespoken. “Pass the salt” would grow to sound warm and chummy. 

Half an hour was the time allowed everyone for meals. With a friendlycrowd at the table that half hour flew. Otherwise, there was no way ofusing up half an hour just eating. And then what?

After a couple of days, some one mentioned the recreation room. Indeed, what's in a name? Chairs were there, two or three settees, apiano, a victrola, a Christy picture, a map of South America, thedying soldier's prayer, and three different sad and colored picturesof Christ. Under one of these was pinned a slip of paper, and inhomemade printing the worthy admonition:

“No cursing no stealing when tempted look on his kindly face. ”

There were all these things, but no girls. Once in a while a forlornbunch of age would sit humped in a chair, now and then a victrolarecord sang forth its worn contents, twice the piano was heard. Aftersome ten days my large fat friend from the help's pantry informed methat she and I weren't supposed to be there—the recreation room wasonly for chambermaids and like as not any day we'd find the doorlocked. Sure enough, my last day at the hotel I sneaked around in themiddle of the afternoon, as usual, to see what gossip I could pick up, and the door was locked. But I made the recreation room pay for itselfas far as I was concerned. Every day I managed to pick up choicemorsels of gossip there that was grist to my mill. 

After my first supper I could find nothing to do or no one to talk to, so back I went to work—feeling a good deal like teacher's pet. Aboutfour o'clock it was my business to tell Schmitz what supplies we wereout of and what and how much we'd need for supper. When I got backfrom supper there were always trays of food to be put in the icechest, salads to be fixed, blackberries to dish out, celery to wash, and the like. By the time that was done supper was on in our café. That is, for some it was supper; for others, judging by the looks ofthe trays which passed hurriedly by my compartment, stopping onlylong enough for sliced lemon for the ice tea, it was surely dinner. Dinner _de luxe_ now and then! Such delectable dishes! How did anybodyever know their names enough to order them?

From 6 to 7. 30 was the height of the supper rush. What a variablething our patrons made of it! Some evenings there would be a regularrun on celery salads, then for four nights not a single order. Camembert cheese would reign supreme three nights in succession—notanother order for the rest of the week. Sometimes it seemed as if thewhole of creation sat without, panting for sliced tomatoes. The nextnight stocked up in advance so as to keep no one waiting—not a humanbeing looked at a tomato. 

At eight o'clock only stragglers remained to be fed, and my job was toclear out the ice chest of all but two of each dish, send it upstairsto the main kitchen, and then start scrubbing house. Schmitz let it beknown that one of the failings of her whose place I was now filling, the one who was asked to leave the Friday night before the Mondaymorning I appeared, was that she was not clean enough. At first, ayear and a half ago, she was cleanly and upright—that is, he spoke ofsuch uprightness as invariably follows cleanliness. But as time woreon her habits of cleanliness wore off, and there were undoubtedlycorners in the ice box where her waning-in-enthusiasm fingers failedto reach. But on a night when the New York thermometer ranges uptoward the nineties it is a pure and unadulterated joy to laborinside an ice box. I scrubbed and rinsed and wiped until Schmitzalmost looked approving. Only it was congenital with Schmitz that henever really showed approval of anything or anybody. Schmitz was thekind (poor Mrs. Schmitz with her three months only of freedom) whoalways had to change everything just a little. There would echo downthe line an order, “One Swiss cheese, little one” (that referred tome, not the cheese). Schmitz would stroll over from where he wastrying to keep busy watching everyone at once, enter the very confinesof my compartment, and stand over me while I sliced that Swiss cheese. It was always either too big, in which case he took the knife from myhands and sliced off one-sixteenth of an inch on one end; or toosmall, in which case Schmitz would endeavor to slice a new piecealtogether. The chances were it would end in being even smaller thanthe slice I cut. In that case, Schmitz would say, “Led it go, anyway. ”And then, because he would always be very fair, he stood and explainedat length why the piece was too big, if it were too big, or too small, if too small. “You know, it's dis vay—” My Gawd! not once, but everynight. There was always one slice too many or too few on thesliced-tomato order. Schmitz would say, “There must be five slices. ”The next time I put on five slices Schmitz stuck that nose of hisaround the waiter's shoulder. 

“Hey, vhat's dat? Only five slices? De guests won't stand for dat, youknow. Dey pay good money here. Put anoder slice on. ”

I was wont to get fearfully exasperated at times. 

“But, ” I remonstrated, “last time I had on six and you told me to puton five!”

“Yes, yes, but I expect you to use your common sense!”

That was his invariable comeback. And always followed by his patient:

“You see, it's dis vay—If you put on too much the hotel, vhy, deylose money, and of course you see it's dis vay: naturally” (that was apet word of Schmitz's), “naturally the hotel don't vant to losemoney—you can see dat for yourself. Now on the odder hand if youdon't put on enough, vhy of course you see it's dis vay, naturally aguest vants to get his money's vorth, you can see dat foryourself—you've just got to use your common sense, you can see datfor yourself. ” Not once, but day after day, night after night. Poor, poor Mrs. Schmitz! Verily there are worse things than first-degreemurder and intoxication. 

But for all that Schmitz deigned not to allow it to be known that myscrubbings found favor in his sight, my own soul approved of me. Theshelves and the sink I scrubbed. Then every perishable article in myice chest or elsewhere got placed upon trays to go upstairs. By thistime it was two minutes to nine. Schmitz, always with his handsclasped behind him, except when he was doing over everything I did, said, “You can go now. ”

Upstairs among the lockers on the third floor the temperature was likethat of a live volcano, only nothing showed any signs of exploding. Fat women who could speak little or no English were here and therepuffily dismantling, exchanging the hotel work-uniform for streetgarments. Everyone was kindly and affectionate. One old Irishwomancame up while I was changing my clothes. 

“Well, dearie, and how did it go?”

“Sure it went swell. ”

“That's good. The Lord bless ye. But there's one bit of advice I mustbe giving ye. There's one thing you must take care of now. I'm tellin'ye, dearie, you must guard your personality! I'm tellin' ye, there 'rethe men y' know, but guard y' personality!”

I thanked her from the bottom of my heart and said I'd guard it, surest thing she knew. 

“Oh, the good Lord and the Virgin Mary bless ye, child!” And shepatted me affectionately on the back. 

Indeed, I had been getting affectionate pats most of the time, thoughthe majority of them were from the male help. The composite impressionof that first day as I took my way home on the sticky Subway was thatthe world was a very affectionate place, nor was I quite sure justwhat to do about it. 

The second morning I was given a glimpse of what can be done about it. As I was waiting for the elevator on the service floor to be takendown to work, a very attractive girl came along and immediately webecame chummy. She had been at the hotel three weeks; her job was tocut fruit. Had she done this sort of work long? Not in this country, but in Europe. Just one year had she been in America. At that momenttwo youths passed. I saw nothing, but quick as a flash my new friendflared up, “You fresh guy—keep your hands to yourself!” So evidentlythat's the way it's done. I practiced it mentally. “Lots o' fresh guysround here, ” I sniffed. “You said it, ” muttered the still ruffledfruit cutter. 

Downstairs, Kelly was waiting with a welcoming nod—Kelly, theunpernickety steward. Everyone was as friendly as if we had beenfeeding humanity side by side these many years. During the rush thewaiters called out as they sped by: “Hi there, little one!” “There'sthe girlie!” “Ah there, sweetheart!” Verily the world is anaffectionate place. If a waiter had an order to give he passed thetime of day as he gave it and as he collected his order. 

“And how's the little girl to-day?”

“Tiptop—and yourself?”

“A little low in spirits I was to-day until I seen you'd come—an'then. You love me as much as you did yesterday?”

“Move on there. W'at y' a-doin' talkin' to my girl! Now, honey, I'mtellin' you this here guy is too fresh for any lady. I'd like oneorder of romaine lettuce, bless your sweet heart, if it won't betirin' your fingers too much. That's the dearie—I'm back in amoment. ”

Across the way, arms resting on the counter, head ducked under theupper shelf, leaned a burly redheaded helper to the Greek. 

Every time the pantry girl looked his way he beamed and nodded andnodded and beamed. “How you lak?” “Fine!” More beams and nods. Soon awaiter slipped a glass of ice coffee, rich in cream and sugar, undermy counter. Beams and nods fit to burst from the assistant coffee manacross the way. Beams and nods from the pantry girl. Thus every day. Our sole conversation was, “How you lak?” “Fine!” He said the restwith coffee. 

With the lunch rush over, Kelly sneaked around my entrance and jerkedhis head sidewise. That meant, naturally, that I was to approach andharken unto what he had to say. When Kelly imparted secrets—and muchof what Kelly had to impart was that sort of information where he feltcalled upon to gaze about furtively to make sure no one wasover-hearing—when he had matters of weight then to impart he talkeddown in his boots and a bit out of the corner of his mouth. 

“Say, kid”—Kelly jerked his head—“want to tell you about this eatin'business. Y'know, ain't no one supposed to eat nothin' on this floor. If the boss catches ya, it's good-by dolly. Sign up over the doorsayin' you'll be dismissed _at once_ if you eat anything—see? But I'mgivin' ya a little tip—see? I don't care how much ya eat—it'snothin' to me. I say eat all ya got a mind to. Only for Gawd's sakedon't let the Big Boss catch ya. ” (The Big Boss was the little chiefsteward, who drew down a fabulous salary and had the whole placescared to death. ) “See—pull a cracker box out so and put what ya gotto eat behind it this way, then ya can sit down and sorta take yourtime at it. If the boss does come by—it's behind the cracker box andyou should worry! Have a cup of coffee?”

I was full up of coffee from my gentleman friend across the way, sodeclined Kelly's assistance in obtaining more. Every day, about 2. 30, Kelly got in a certain more or less secluded corner of my compartmentand ate a bit himself. “Been almost fired a couple of times for doin'this—this place is full o' squealers—gotta watch out all the time. Hell of a life I say when a fella has to sneak around to eat a bit offood. ”

That second afternoon, Kelly stopped in the middle of a gulp ofcoffee. 

“Say, w'at t' hell's a girl like you workin' for, anyhow? Say, don'tyou know you could get married easy as—my Gawd! too easy. Say, youcould pick up with one of these waiters just like that! They're goodsteady fellas, make decent pay. You could do much worse than marry awaiter. I'm tellin' ya there's no sense to a girl like you workin'. ”

That was an obsession with Kelly. He drilled it into me daily. Kellyhimself was a settled married man. Of his state we talked often. Iasked Kelly the very first day if he ever went to Coney Island. 

“Ustta—'ain't been for ten years. ”

“Why not for ten years?”

Kelly looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. “Got married tenyears ago. ”

“Well, and w'at of it? Don't you have no more fun?”

“You said it! I'm tellin' ya there's no more fun. Gee! I sure don'tknow myself these ten years. I was the kind of a fella”—here Kellywas moved in sheer admiration to do a bit of heavy cursing—“I was thekind of fella that did everything—I'm tellin' ya, _everything_. Betthere ain't a thing in this world I 'ain't done at least once, andmost of 'em a whole lot more 'n that. An' now—look at me now! Get upat four every mornin', but Sundays, get down here at six” (Kelly was asuburbanite), “work till three, git home, monkey with my tools a bitor play with the kids, eat dinner, sit around a spell, go to bed. ”

A long pause. “Ain't that a hell of a life, I'm askin' ya?”

Another pause in which Kelly mentally reviewed his glowing past. Heshook his head and smiled a sad smile. “If you could 'a' seen me tenyears ago!”

Kelly told me the story of his life more or less in detail some dayslater. I say advisedly “more or less. ” Considering the reputation hehad given himself, I am relieved to be able to note that he must haveleft some bits out, though goodness knows he put enough in. ButKelly's matrimonial romance must be told. 

Kelly went with a peach of a girl in the years gone by—swellestlittle kid—gee! he respected that girl—never laid hands on her. Shewanted to go back to the old country for a visit, so he paid her waythere and back—one hundred and sixty-five dollars it had cost him. Coming home from a ball where Kelly had been manager—this at 4A. M. —a remark of the girl's led Kelly to suspect she was not thestainless bit of perfection his love had pictured. So after threeyears of constant devotion Kelly felt that he had been sold out. Heturned around and said then and there to his fair one, “You go tohell!” He never laid eyes on her again. 

A few years later Kelly met an American girl. He went with her threeyears, was making seventy-five dollars a month, had saved eighthundred and seventy-six dollars, and in addition possessed one hundredand ten dollars in life insurance. So he asked the lady to marry him. Y' know w'at she said to Kelly? Kelly leaned his shaggy mop of hair myway. She said, “I won't marry nobody on seventy-five dollars a month!”Again Kelly's manhood asserted itself. Do you know w'at Kelly said toher? He says, says he, once more, “You go to hell!” He quit. 

Whereupon Kelly drew out every cent he possessed and sailed forEurope. When he landed again in New York City, d' y'know how muchmoney Kelly had in his pocket? Thirty-five cents. Then he went Westfor seven or eight years, and tore up the country considerable, Kellydid. He came back to New York again, again minus cash. A few daysafter his return the girl of eight years before met him by appointmentat the Grand Central Station. What d' y'know? She asked Kelly to marryher—just like that. Heck! by that time Kelly didn't give a darn oneway or the other. She bought the ring, she hired the minister, she didthe whole business. Kelly married her—that's the wife he's got rightnow. 

One of Kelly's steady, dependable waiters approached about 5 P. M. “Say, girl, I like you!” Of course, the comeback for that now, asalways, was, “Aw go-an!”

“Sure, I like you. Say, how about goin' out this evening with me?We'll sure do the old town!”

“I say, you sound like as if you got all of twenty-five cents in yourpocket!”

He leaned way over my counter. 

“I got twenty-five dollars, and it's yours any time you say the word!”

It's words like that which sometimes don't get said. 

For supper that night I sat at a table with a housekeeper, a parlormaid, and a seamstress, and listened to much talk. Mainly, it was adiscussion of where the most desirable jobs were to be had in theirrespective lines. There was complete unanimity of opinion. Clubsheaded the list, and the cream of cream were men's clubs. Thehousekeeper and parlor maid together painted a picture which wouldlead one to conclude that the happiest women in all New York City werethe housekeepers in men's clubs. The work was light, they were welltreated—it was a job for anyone to strive for. The type of men orwomen in clubs, they remarked, was ahead of what you'd draw in anyhotel. 

The parlor maid, an attractive, gray-haired woman—indeed, all threewere gray-haired—was very pleased with her job at our hotel. Sheslept there and loved it. The rooms were so clean—your towels werechanged daily just as for the guests. Sure she was very contented. Ifher mother were only alive—she died two years ago—she'd be thehappiest woman in the world, she just knew it. But every singlemorning she woke up with an empty feeling in her heart for thelongings after her mother. 

 * * * * *

My diary of Thursday of that first week starts: “The best day sinceI've been trying jobs—Glory be, it was rich!” And pages follow as tothe wonders of that one day—wonders to me, who was after what theworkers themselves think about the universe in general. 

When I found how hard the Spanish woman I relieved at 1. 30 had towork, how much more rushed she was from 6 to 1. 30 than ever I was from1. 30 to 9, and when I learned, in addition, that she received no morepay for all her extra labors, I told her I would come early every dayand help her during the rush. This is all good psychology and I giveit for what it is worth. The first few days, this Thursday being oneof them, she was very grateful—spoke often of how much it helped tohave me there early. My last morning during my two weeks of the hoteljob I was so rushed with final errands to do before leaving New Yorkthat it was impossible for me to arrive at work before 1. 30, myregular and appointed time. The Spanish woman knew it was my last day. But she was so put out to think I had not arrived early that shewhisked out of that compartment the second I arrived, only taking timeto give me one fearful and unmistakable glare. Kelly caught theremnants of it as she swung by him. He sauntered over to my counter. “Say, the nerve of some people!”

That Thursday noon, I ate with the workers in the help's kitchen. Somuch talk! First there was a row on fit to rend the rafters. One ofthe Irish girls plumped herself down to eat and raved on about Lizzie, an Armenian girl, and something or other Lizzie had done or hadn'tdone with the silverware. Everyone was frank as to what each thoughtabout Lizzie. Armenian stock was very low that day. Just then Lizzieappeared, a very attractive, neat girl who had been friendly and kindto me. I had no idea it was she about whose character such blusterouswords were being spoken. With Lizzie and the Irish girl face toface—Heaven help us! I expected to see them at each other's throats. Such talk! Finally another Irish girl turned to the Armenian. “Whyt'hell do you get so mad over it all, now?” Lizzie stopped, gave thesecond Irish girl a quizzical look. Slowly a smile spread over herface. She gave a little chuckle. “Ho! Why t'hell?” We all laughed andlaughed, and the fight was off. 

It seems Lizzie was known far and wide for her temper. She had beenfired from waiting on the chefs because she let it loose in theirdining room one night. Now they were trying her out up at our end ofthe service floor. Minnie, the oldest Irish woman at our table and ina decidedly ruffled mood that day, claimed it was the Armenian inher. “They're all like that. Shure, I got a Armenian helper—that kidover there. Wait till he says one word more to me. I'll bust a plateon his head and kick his prostrate form into the gutter. It'll be ahappy day in my life!”

They all asked me about my work and how I liked it. Evidently mine wasa job high in favor. “Shure you're left alone and no one to be underyour feet or botherin' with y' every minute of the day. You're yo'rown boss. ”

The talk got around to the strike at the Hotel McAlpin of a few yearsago. It was for more pay. The strike was lost. I asked why. “Shure, they deserved to lose it. Nobody hung together. ”

We discussed domestic service. Every day at that hotel I wondered whyany girl took work in a private home if she could possibly get a hoteljob. Here was what could be considered by comparison with other jobs, good pay, plus three nourishing meals a day, decent hours, and beforeand after those hours freedom. In many cases, also, it meant a placeto sleep. There was a chance for talk and companionship with one'skind during the day. Every chance I got I asked a girl if she likedworking in a private home, or would change her hotel job if she got achance. The only person who was not loud in decrying private servicewas Minnie during this special Thursday lunch. But Minnie was so soreon the world that day. I do believe she would have objected to theVirgin Mary, had the subject come up. Minnie had worked years inprivate families and only six years in hotels. She wished she'd neverseen the inside of a hotel. 

That same night at the supper table the subject came up again beforean entirely different crowd. Three at the table had tried domesticservice. Never again! Why? Always the answer was the same. “Aw, it'sthe feeling of freedom ya never get there, and ya do get it in ahotel. ” One sweet gray-haired woman told of how she had worked someyears as cook in a swell family where they kept lots of servants. Shegot grand wages, and naïvely she added, you get a chance to make lotson the side, o' course. I asked her if she meant tips from guests. Ohno! She meant what you made off tradespeople. Don't you see, if yougot the butcher bill up so high, you got so much off the butcher, andthe same with the grocer and the rest. She had a sister not cookinglong who made over one hundred dollars a month, counting what she gotoff tradespeople. It is a perfectly accepted way of doing, mentionedwith no concern. 

But on the whole, that supper table agreed that domestic service was agood deal like matrimony. If you got a good family, all right; but howmany good families were there in the world? One woman spoke of workingwhere they'd made a door mat of her. Barely did she have food enoughto eat. There were four in the family. When they had chops the lady ofthe house ordered just four, which meant she who cooked the chops gotnone. 

After lunch this full Thursday I rushed to assist Mary. I loved goingdown the stairs into our hot scurry of excitement. Indeed, it wasseeing behind the scenes. And always the friendly nods from everyone, even though the waiters especially looked ready to expire in pools ofperspiration. At Monsieur Le Bon Chef's counter some sticky waiter hadordered a roast-beef sandwich. The heat had made him skeptical. “Callthat beef?” The waiter next him glared at him with a chuckle. “An'must we then always lead in the cow for you to see?” A large Irishmanbreezed up to my Bon Chef. “Two beef à la modes. Make it snappy, chief. Party's in a hurry. Has to catch the five-thirty train”—thisat one o'clock. Everyone good-natured, and the perspiration literallyrolling off them. 

Most of the waiters were Irish. One of them was a regular dude—suchimmaculateness never was. He was the funny man of the place, andshowed off for my special benefit, for I made no bones of the factthat he amused me highly. He was a very chippy-looking waiter—pugnose, long upper lip. When he ordered ice coffee he sneaked up on theGreek à la Bill Hart, ready to pull a gun on him. He had two names athis disposal and used one or the other with every order, no matter whothe chef was. In a very deep tone of voice, it was either, “James, custard pie!” or, “Dinsmore, one veal cutlet. ” But to me it wasalways: “Ah there, little one! Toast, I say _toast_. Dry, little one. Ah yes! There be them who out of force of habit inflicted upon themtake even their toast dry. You get me, little one?”

He was especially immaculate this Thursday. I guessed he must betaking at least three ladies out that evening. He looked at me out ofthe corner of his eyes. “_Three_, little one, this hot night? Wintertime, yes, a man can stand a crowd about him, but not to-night. No. To-night, little one, I take but one lady. It allows for morecirculation of air. And you will be that One?”

The Greek this hot Thursday became especially friendly. He twirled hisheavy black mustache and carried on an animated broken-Englishconversation most of the afternoon. Incidentally, he sent over one icecoffee with thick cream and two frosted chocolates. 

The little Spaniard next to him, he who served pies and ice cream andmore amazing desserts—he, too, became very friendly. There wasnothing the least fresh about the little Spaniard. He mostly leaned onhis counter, in moments of lull in trade, and when I so much as lookedhis way, he sighed heavily. Finally he made bold to converse. Ilearned that he had been two years in this country, eight months athis present job. When I asked him how he spent his off time, hereplied in his very broken English that he knew nobody and wentnowhere. “It is no pleasure to go alone. ” He rooms with an Americanfamily on the East Side. They are very nice. For some years he hadbeen in the printing trade in South America; there was something to ajob like that. But in New York he did not know enough English to be aprinter, and so, somehow, he found himself dishing pies and ice creamat our hotel. 

Later on that day he asked me, “Why are you so happy?”

Indeed I was very cheerful and made no secret of it. I had sung everysong I knew and then whistled them all as I worked. But Schmitz, whosurely had never smiled in all his life, could stand it no longer. “You better not make so much noise, ” he said. “You see, it's disvay—” Poor Schmitz, he had a miserable time of it that afternoon. Formy expressions of contentment with the world had spread. Unconsciouslya chef would whistle a bit here as he mixed his gravy ingredients, another there as he minced chicken, yet another in still anotherdirection as he arranged a bowl of vegetables. Schmitz's head swirledfirst in one direction, then in another. Aching he was to reduce theuniverse to his perpetual state of gloom. But chefs he stood in aweof. He dared silence only me, and every so often I forgot. 

So the Spaniard asked me why I was so happy. I had no reason. Only agreat multitude of reasons why there was no excuse to be anythingelse, but I did not go into that. He would know, though. 

“What did you do last night?”

“Ho!” I laughed at him, “rode home on the top of a bus!”

A bit later a piece of folded paper landed almost in my Frenchdressing. It was a note from the Spaniard: “Will you go riding with meto-night?” I wrote on the bottom of the paper: “Not to-night. Perhapsnext week, yes?” A few moments later a folded menu landed on thefloor. On the back was written: “I will be very pleased whenever youcan or wish. Could it be Sunday? I hope you wouldn't take it amiss myasking you this. Frank. ”

I really wanted to take that bus ride with Frank. It still worries methat I did not. He was such a lonesome person. 

Then there was the tall, lean, dark Irish waiter I called Mr. O'Sullivan. He was a continual joy to my heart and gave me cause formany a chuckle. A rebel, was Mr. O'Sullivan. I heard Kelly call himdown twice for growling at what he considered inexcusable desires inthe matter of food or service on the part of patrons by telling Mr. O'Sullivan it was none of his —— business. But I loved to listen toMr. O'Sullivan's growlings, and once he realized that, he used to stopat my counter, take extra long to collect three slices of lemon, andtell me his latest grievance. To-night, this Thursday, he wassputtering. 

“Shure and de y'know what now? I've two parties out there want fingerbowls. _Finger bowls!_” sputtered Mr. O'Sullivan. 

“Shure an' it's a long ways from the sight of finger bowls them twowas born. It had better be a pail apiece they'd be askin' for. Fingerbowls indeed!” Mr. O'Sullivan had gotten down to a mumble. “Shure an'they make me _sick_!”

Mr. O'Sullivan knew that I gave ear to his sentiments upon suchmatters as old parties, male or female, who must needs order specialkinds of extra digestible bread, and usually that bread must inaddition be toasted. While it was toasting, Mr. O'Sullivan voiced hisviews on Old Maids with Indigestion. Much of it does not bearrepeating. When the toast was done, Mr. O'Sullivan would hold out hisplate with the napkin folded ready for the toast. “Shure an yo'r thesweetest child my eyes ever looked upon” (Mr. O'Sullivan would sayjust the same thing in the same way to a toothless old hag of ninety). “Mind you spare yo'rself now from both bein' an old maid and sufferin'to the point where y' can't eat plain white bread!”

This particular Thursday I had even found some one to talk to in therecreation room when I sneaked up at three o'clock. There came a timewhen Schmitz's patience was strained over my regular disappearancefrom about 3 to 3. 30. There was absolutely nothing for me to do justthen in my own line, so I embraced that opportunity daily to take myway to the recreation room and see what pickings I could gather up. But one afternoon Schmitz's face bore an extra-heavy frown. “Say, whatyou do every day that keeps you from your work all this time? Don'tyou know that ain't no way to do? Don't you understand hotel work isjust like a factory? Everybody must be in his place all day and not gowandering off!”

“Ever work in a factory?” I asked Schmitz. 

He deigned no answer. 

“Well, then, I'm telling _you_ I have, and hotel work ain't like afactory at _all_. ”

“Vell, you see it's dis vay—naturally—”

This Thursday up in the recreation room I found an ancient scrubwoman, patched and darned to pieces, with stringy thin hair, and the fat, jovial Irishwoman from the help's pantry. The three of us had as giddya half hour as anyone in all New York. We laughed at one another'sjokes till we almost wept, and forgot all about the thermometer. Thefat Irishwoman had worked at the hotel two years, the scrubwomanalmost that long. Both “lived out. ” They, too, informed me I had oneof the best jobs in the hotel—nobody messin' in with what you'redoin'—they leave y'alone. The fat one had worked some time in thelinen room, but preferred pantry work. The linen room was too muchresponsibility—had to count out aprons and towels and things in pilesof ten and tie them, and things like that—made a body's head swim. 

Realizing Schmitz's growing discomfort, I finally had to tear myselfaway. The fat Irishwoman called after me, “Good-by, dear, and Godbless y'. ”

Upstairs at supper that night I had the luck to land again at atalkative table. We discussed many things—Ireland, for one. One girlwas she who had come two years ago from Ireland and did salads in themain kitchen. Such a brogue! An Irish parlor maid had been long yearsin this country. The two asked many questions of each other abouttheir life in the Old Country. “Shure, ” sighed one, “I love everystick and every stone and tree and blade of grass in Ireland!”“Shure, ” sighed the other, “an' that's just the way I feel about it, too!”

Everyone at the table liked working at our hotel. According to them, the hotel was nice, the girls nice, hours nice. 

The subject of matrimony, as ever, came up. Not a soul at the tablebut what was ag'in' it. Why should a woman get married when she cansupport herself? All she'd get out of it would be a pack of kids toclean up after, and work that never ended. Of course, the concessionwas eventually made, if you were sure you were gettin' a good man—But how many good men were there in the world? And look at thedivorces nowadays! Why try it at all? One girl reported asstatistically accurate that there was one divorce in the United Statesto every four marriages. “You don't say!” was the chorus. 

The subject changed to summer hotels. One woman had worked last summeras a waitress at one of the beaches. That was the swellest jobever—just like a vacation! All summer she had two tables only to waiton, two persons at a table. Each table had tipped her five dollars aweek. Next summer we all must try it. 

The minutes flew by too fast that supper. Before I knew it, 5. 30 hadcome around, and by the time I was downstairs again it was fiveminutes past my appointed half hour. Poor, poor Schmitz! And yet luckySchmitz. It must have caused his soul much inner satisfaction to havea real honest-to-goodness grievance to complain about. (You see, hecould not go up for his supper until I came down from mine. ) Schmitzupbraided me, patiently, with explanations. Every single night fromthen on, when at five he would tell me I could go upstairs, he alwaysadded, “And be sure you're back at half past five!” In naturaldepravity of spirit, it was my delight one night to be able to sneakdown at about 5. 25 without being seen by Schmitz. Then I shrank into acorner of my compartment, out of his line of vision, and worked busilyon my evening chores. At 5. 30, Schmitz began his anxious scanning ofour large clock. By 5. 40 he was a wreck and the clock had nearly beenglared off its hinges. Then it was a waiter called out to me the firstevening order. With the crucified steps of a martyr, a ten-minute-hungrymartyr at that, Schmitz made his way over to fill that order. Andthere I was, busily filling it myself! Of course, I hope I have madeit clear that Schmitz was the kind who would say, “I knew she wasthere all along. ”

The rush of this particular Thursday night! More lettuce had to besent for in the middle of the evening, more tomatoes, moreblackberries, more cantaloupes, more bread for toast. There was nostopping for breath. In the midst of the final scrubbings andcleanings came an order of “One combination salad, Sweetheart!” Thatdone and removed and there sounded down the way, “One cantaloupe, Honey!” Back the waiter came in a moment. “The old party says it's tooripe. ” There were only two left to choose from. “Knock his slats inif he don't like that, the old fossil. ” In another moment the waiterwas back again with the second half. “He says he don't want nocantaloupe, anyhow. Says he meant an order of Philadelphia creamcheese. ”

But nine o'clock came round and somehow the chores were all done andSchmitz nodded his regal head ever so little—his sign for, “Madam, you may take your departure, ” and up I flew through the almostdeserted main kitchen, up the three flights to the service floor, downfour flights to the time-clock floor (elevators weren't always handy), to be greeted by my friend the time-clock man with his broad grin andhis, “Well, if here ain't my little bunch o' love!”

If he and Schmitz could only have gotten mixed a bit in the originalkneading. .. . 

By Saturday of that week I began my diary: “Goodness! I couldn't standthis pace long—waiters are too affectionate. ” I mention such a matterand go into some detail over their affection here and there, becauseit was in no sense personal. I mean that any girl working at my job, provided she was not too ancient and too toothless and too ignorant ofthe English language, would have been treated with equal enthusiasm. True, a good-looking Irishman did say to me one evening, “I keepthinkin' to myself durin' the day, what is there about you that'sdifferent. I shure like it a lot what it is, but I just can't put myfinger on it. ” I used as bad grammar as the next; I appeared, Ihoped, as ignorant as the next. Yet another Irishman remarked, “Idon't know who you are or where you came from or where you got youreducation, but you shure have got us all on the run!” But any girlwith the least wits about her would have had them on the run. She wasthe only girl these men got a chance to talk to the greater part ofthe day. 

But what if a girl had a couple of years of that sort of thing? Ordoes she get this attention only the first couple of weeks of thecouple of years, anyhow? Does a waiter grow tired of expressing hisaffection before or after the girl grows tired of hearing it? I couldnot help but feel that most of it was due to the fact that perhapsamong those waiters and such girls as they knew a purely friendlyrelationship was practically unknown. Sex seemed to enter in the firstten minutes. Girls are not for friends—they're to flirt with. It wasfor the girl to set the limits; the man had none. 

But eight and one-half hours a day of parrying the advances ofaffectionate waiters—a law should be passed limiting the cause forsuch exertion to two hours a day, no overtime. Nor have I taken thegentle reader into my confidence regarding the Spanish chef in themain kitchen. He did the roasting. I had to pass his stove on my wayto the elevators. At which he dropped everything, wiped his hands onhis apron, and beamed from ear to ear until I got by. One day hedashed along beside me and directed an outburst of Spanish into myear. When I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders and got it intohis head that I was not a countrywoman, his dismay was purelytemporary. He spoke rather flowery English. Would I walk up the stairswith him? No, I preferred the elevator. He, did too. I made the mostof it by asking him questions too fast for him to ask me any. He was atailor by trade, but business had been dull for months. In despair hehad taken to roasting. Some six months he had been at our hotel. Hemuch preferred tailoring, and in two months he would be back at histrade in a little shop of his own, making about fifty to seventy-fivedollars a week. And then he got in his first question. 

“Are you married?”

“No. ”

“Could I then ask you to go out with me some evening?”—all this withmany beams and wipings of hands on his apron. 

Well, I was very busy. 

But one evening. Oh, just one evening—surely one evening. 

Well, perhaps—

To-night, then?

No, not to-night. 

To-morrow night?

No, no night this week or next week, but perhaps week after next. 

Ah, that is so long, so long!

There was no earthly way to get to the stairs or elevators except byhis stove. I came to dread it. Always the Spanish ex-tailor droppedeverything with a clatter and chased after me. I managed to pass hisconfines at greater and greater speed. Invariably I heard his panting, “Listen! Listen!” after me, but I tore on, hoping to get an elevatorthat started up before he could make it. 

One day the Spaniard, this tall thin roaster with the black mustache, was waiting as I came out of the locker room. 

“Listen! Listen!” he panted, from force of habit. “Next week is stillso very long off. ”

It so happened it was my last day at the hotel. I told him I wasleaving that night. 

“Oh, miss!” He looked really upset. “Then you will go out to-nightwith me. Surely to-night. ”

No, I had a date. 

To-morrow night. 

No, I had another date. 

Sunday—oh, Sunday, just one Sunday. 

Sunday I had two dates. 

I should be able to flatter my female soul that at least he forgot theseasoning that night in his roasts. 

Downstairs that first Saturday the little quiet Spaniard of the piesand ice cream screwed up his courage, crossed over to my precinct, leaned his arms on my front counter, and said, “If I had a wife likeyou I would be happy all the rest of my life!”

Having delivered himself of those sentiments, he hastily returned tohis pies and ice cream. 

The Greek coffee man would take me to a show that night. 

Saturday, to my surprise, was a slack day in the café business. Tradeis always light. Sunday our kitchen closed shop. Another reason why myjob held allurements. I was the only girl to get Sunday off. Also, because we were the only department in the hotel to close downaltogether, it seems we were wont to have an annual picnic. Alas thatI had to miss it!

Plans were just taking shape, too, for this year's event. Last yearthey motored over to Long Island. Much food, many drinks. It was arosy memory. This year Kelly wanted a hay ride. Kelly, he of thehighly colored past, even so contended there was nothing in the worldlike the smell of hay. 

There was no fun to the supper that Saturday night. I sat at a tablewith a deaf girl, two dirty men, and a fat, flabby female with popeyes, and not a one of them acted as if he possessed the ability tospeak. Except the deaf girl, who did tell me she couldn't hear. 

So I ate hastily and made for the recreation room. For the first timethe piano was in use. A chambermaid, surrounded by four admiringfellow-workers, was playing “Oh, they're killin' men and women for awearin' of the green. ” That is, I made out she meant it for that tune. With the right hand she picked out what every now and then approachedthat melody. With the left she did a tum-te-dum which she leftentirely to chance, the right hand and its perplexities needing herentire attention. During all of this, without intermission, her footconscientiously pressed the loud pedal. 

Altogether there were seven in the chambermaid's audience. I sat downnext to a little wrinkled auburn-haired Irish chambermaid whose facelooked positively inspired. She beat time with one foot and bothhands. “Ain't it jus' grand!” she whispered to me. “If I c'u'd jus'play like that!” Her eyes sought the ceiling. When the player hadfinished her rendition there was much applause. One girl left theclouds long enough to ask, “Oh, Jennie, is it really true you nevertook a lesson?” Jennie admitted it was true. “Think of that, now!” thelittle woman by me gasped. 

The chambermaid next gave an original interpretation of “Believe me ifall those endearing young charms. ” At least it was nearer that thananything else. I had to tear myself away in the middle of what fiveout of seven people finally would have guessed was “Way down upon theSuwanee River. ” The faces of the audience were still wreathed in thatexpression you may catch on a few faces at Carnegie Hall. 

Monday there was a chambermaids' meeting. Much excitement. They hadbeen getting seven dollars a week. The management wished to change andpay them by the month, instead—thirty dollars a month. There wassomething underhanded about it, the girls were sure of that. Inaddition there was a general feeling that everyone was in for more orless of a cut in wages about September. A general undertone ofsuspicion that day was over everything and everybody. Severalchambermaids were waiting around the recreation room the few momentsbefore the meeting. They were upset over that sign under the pictureof Christ, “No cursing no stealing when tempted look on his kindlyface. ” As long as they'd been in that hotel they'd never heard nocursin' among the girls, and as for stealin'—well, they guessed theguests stole more than ever the girls did. There were too manysquealers around that hotel, that was the trouble. One girl spoke upand said it wasn't the hotel. New York was all squealers—worst “race”she ever knew for meanness to one another—nothin' you'd ever see inthe Irish!

I thought back over the dinner conversation that noon. An Irish girlasked me what my hurry was, when my work didn't begin till 1. 30. Itold her I helped out the Spanish woman and remarked that I thought itwrong that she didn't get more pay than I. “Say, ” said the Irish girl, “you jus' look out for your own self in this world and don't you goround worryin' over no one else. You got number one to look out forand that's all. ”

The excitement of the day was that the Big Boss for the first timetook note of the fact I was alive. He said good evening and thoughthe'd look in my ice chest. My heart did flutter, but I knew I wassafe. I had scrubbed and polished that ice chest till it creaked andgroaned the Saturday night before. The brass parts were blinding. Butthere was too much food in it for that hour of the night. He calledSchmitz—Schmitz was abject reverence and acquiescence. It was, ofcourse, Kelly's fault for leaving so much stuff there when he went at3. And Kelly was gruff as a bear next day. Evidently the Big Bossspoke to him about sending stuff upstairs after the lunch rush wasover. He almost broke the plates hurling things out of the ice box at2. 30. And the names he called Schmitz I dare not repeat. He swore andhe swore and he _swore_! And he stripped the ice box all but bare. 

How down on prohibition were Kelly and many of those waiters! Perhapsall the waiters, but I did not hear all express opinions. A waiter wastalking to Kelly about it in front of my counter one day. “How can wekeep this up?” the waiter moaned. “There was a time when if you gotdesperate you could take a nip and it carried you over. But I ask you, how can a man live when he works like this and works and then goeshome and sits around and goes to bed, and then gets up and goes backand works and works, and then goes home and sits around? You put adollar down on the table and look at it, and then pick it up and putit in your pocket again. Hell of a life, I say, and I don't see how wecan keep it up with never a drink to make a man forget his troubles!”

Kelly put forth that favorite claim that there was far more evil-doingof every sort and description since prohibition than before—and thenadded that everyone had his home-brew anyhow. He told of how the chefsand he got to the hotel early one morning and started to make up sixgallons of home-brew down in our kitchen. Only, o' course, “somedirty guy had to go an' squeal” on 'em and Kelly 'most lost his job, did Kelly. 

I had a very nice Italian friend—second cook, he called himself—whoused to come over to the compartment of Monsieur Le Bon Chef and talkover the partition to me every afternoon from four to half past. Healso was not in the least fresh, but just talked and talked about manythings. His first name in Italian was “Eusebio, ” but he found it moreconvenient in our land to go under the name of “Vwictor. ” He came froma village of fifty inhabitants not far from Turin, almost on the Swissborder, where they had snow nine months in the year. Why had hejourneyed to America? “Oh, I donno. Italians in my home town have toolittle money and too many children. ”

Victor was an intelligent talker. I asked him many questions about thelabor problem generally. When he first came to this country sevenyears ago he started work in the kitchen of the Waldorf-Astoria. Inthose days pay for the sort of general unskilled work he did wasfifteen to eighteen dollars a month. Every other day hours were from 6A. M. To 8. 30 P. M. ; in between days they got off from 2 to 5 in theafternoon. Now, in the very same job, a man works eight hours a dayand gets eighteen dollars a week. Victor at present drew twenty-twodollars a week, plus every chef's allotment of two dollars and fortycents a week “beer money. ” (It used to be four bottles of beer a dayat ten cents a bottle. Now that beer was a doubtful bestowal, thehotels issued weekly “beer money. ” You could still buy beer at tencents a bottle, only practically everyone preferred the cash. )

But Victor thought he was as well off seven years ago on eighteendollars a month as he would be to-day on eighteen dollars a week. Then, it seems, he had a nice room with one other man for four dollarsa month, including laundry. Now he rooms alone, it is true, but hepays five dollars a week for a room he claims is little, if any, better than the old one, and a dollar a week extra for laundry. Thenhe paid two to three dollars for a pair of shoes, now ten or twelve, and they wear out as fast as the two-dollar shoes of seven yearsbefore. Now fifty dollars for a suit no better than the one he used toget for fifteen dollars. Thus spoke Victor. 

Besides, Victor could save nothing now, for he had a girl, and youknow how it is with women. It's got to be a present all the time. Youcan't get 'em by a store window without you go in and buy a waist or ahat or goodness knows what all a girl doesn't manage to want. He wentinto detail over his recent gifts. Why was he so generous as all thatto his fair one? Because if he didn't get the things for her he wasafraid some other man would. 

Nor could Victor understand how people lived in this country withoutplaying more. Every night, every single night, he must find somecountryman and play around a little bit before going to bed. “Thesefellas who work and work all day, and then eat some dinner, and thengo home and sit around and go to bed. ” No, Victor preferred death tosuch stagnation. If it was only a game of cards and a glass of wine(prohibition did not seem to exist for Victor and his countrymen) orjust walking around the streets, talking. _Anything_, so long as itwas _something_. 

Victor was a union man. Oh, sure. He was glowing with pride andadmiration in the union movement in Italy—there indeed theyaccomplished things! But in this country, no, the union movement wouldnever amount to much here. For two reasons. One was that workingpeople on the whole were treated too well here to make good unionists. Pay a man good wages and give him the eight-hour day—what kind of aunion man will he make? The chances are he won't join at all. 

But the main reason why unions would never amount to much here wascentered in the race question. Victor told of several cooks' strikeshe had been in. What happens? A man stands up and says something, theneverybody else says, “Don't listen to him; he's only an Irishman. ”Some one else says something, and everyone says, “Don't pay anyattention to him; he's only an Italian. ” The next man—he's only aRussian, and so on. 

Then pretty soon what happens next? Pretty soon a Greek decides he'llgo back to work, and then all the Greeks go back; next an Austriangoes back—all his countrymen follow. And, anyhow, says my Italianfriend Eusebio, you can't understand nothin' all them foreigners say, anyhow. 

I asked him if Monsieur Le Bon Chef after his start as a strikebreaker had finally joined a union. “Oh, I guess he's civilized now, ”grinned Victor. 

Numerous times one person or another about our hotel spoke of thesuddenness with which the workers there would be fired. “Bing, yougo!” just like that. Kelly, who had been working there over two years, told me that the only way to think of a job was to expect to be firedevery day. He claimed he spent his hour's ride in to work everymorning preparing himself not to see his time card in the rack, whichwould mean no more job for him. 

I asked Victor one day about the girl who had held my job a year and ahalf and why she was fired. There was a story for you! Kelly a fewdays before had told me that he was usually able to “get” anybody. “Take that girl now what had your job. I got her. She was snippy to metwo or three times and I won't stand that. It's all right if anybodywants to get good and mad, but I detest snippy folks. So I said tomyself, 'I'll get you, young lady, ' and within three days I had her!”

Kelly was called away and never finished the story, but Victor did. The girl, it seems, got several slices of ham one day from one of thechefs. She wrapped them carefully in a newspaper and later started upthe stairs with the paper folded under her arm, evidently bound forthe locker room. Kelly was standing at the foot of the stairs—“Somebodyhad tipped him off, see?”

“What's the news to-day?” asked Kelly. 

“'Ain't had time to read the paper yet, ” the girl replied. 

“Suppose we read it now together, ” said Kelly, whereupon he slippedthe paper out from under her arm and exposed the ham to view. 

“You're fired!” said Kelly. 

He sent her up to the Big Boss, and he did everything he could thinkof to get the girl to tell which chef had given her the ham. The girlrefused absolutely to divulge that. 

The Big Boss came down to our kitchen. He asked each chef in turn ifhe had given the girl the ham, and each chef in turn said _No_. 

The Big Boss came back again in a few minutes. “We can put thedetective force of the hotel on this job and find out within a fewdays who _did_ give that ham away and the man will be fired. But Idon't want to do it that way. If the man who did it will confess rightnow that he did I promise absolutely he will not be fired. ”

A chef spoke up, “I did it. ”

Within fifteen minutes he was fired. 

 * * * * *

As ever, the day for leaving arrived. This time I gave notice to Kellythree days in advance, so that a girl could be found to take my place. “The Big Chief and I both said when we seen you, she won't stay longat this job. ”

“Why not?” I indignantly asked Kelly. 

“Ah, shucks!” sighed Kelly. Later: “Well, you're a good kid. You weremaking good at your job, too. Only I'll tell y' this. You're tooconscientious. Don't pay. ”

And still later, “Aw, forget this working business and get married. ”

There was much red tape to leaving that hotel—people to see, cards tosign and get signed. Everyone was nice. I told Kelly—and the newsspread—the truth, that I was unexpectedly going to Europe, beingtaken by the same lady who brought me out from California, her whosekids I looked after. If after six months I didn't like it inEurope—and everyone was rather doubtful that I would, because theydon't treat workin' girls so very well in Europe—the lady would paymy way back to America second-class. (The Lord save my soul. )

I told Schmitz I was going on the afternoon of the evening I was toleave. Of course he knew it from Kelly and the others. “Be sure youdon't forget to leave your paring knife, ” was Schmitz's one comment. 

Farewells were said—I did surely feel like the belle of the ball thatlast half hour. On the way out I decided to let bygones be bygones andsought out Schmitz to say good-by. 

“You sure you left that paring knife?” said Schmitz. 

 CONCLUSION

Here I sit in all the peace and stillness of the Cape Cod coast, daysfilled with only such work as I love, and play aplenty, healthyyoungsters frolicky about me, the warmest of friends close by. Thelarder is stocked with good food, good books are on the shelves, eachday starts and ends with a joyous feeling about the heart. 

And I, this sunburnt, carefree person, pretend to have been as aworker among workers. Again some one says, “The artificiality of it!”

Back in that hot New York the girls I labored among are still packingchocolates, cutting wick holes for brass lamp cones, ironing “family, ”beading in the crowded dress factory. Up at the Falls they are hemmingsheets and ticketing pillow cases. In the basement of the hotel somepantry girl, sweltering between the toaster and the egg boiler, iswatching the clock to see if rush time isn't almost by. 

Granted at the start, if you remember, and granted through eachindividual job, it was artificial—my part in it all. But what in theworld was there to do about that? I was determined that not foreverwould I take the say-so of others on every phase of the labor problem. Some things I would experience for myself. Certain it is I cannot knowany less than before I started. Could I help knowing at least a bitmore? I do know more—I know that I know more!

And yet again I feel constrained to call attention to the fact thatsix jobs, even if the results of each experience were the very richestpossible, are but an infinitesimal drop in what must be a full bucketof industrial education before a person should feel qualified to speakwith authority on the subject of labor. Certain lessons were learned, certain tentative conclusions arrived at. They are given here for whatthey may be worth and in a very humble spirit. Indeed, I am much morehumble in the matter of my ideas concerning labor than before I tookmy first job. 

Perhaps the most valuable lesson learned was that a deep distrust ofgeneralizations has been acquired, to last, I hope, the rest of life. It is so easy, so comfortable, to make a statement of fact to coverthousands of cases. Nowhere does the temptation seem to be greaterthan in a discussion of labor. “Labor wants this and that!” “Laborthinks thus and so!” “Labor does this and the other thing!” Thusspeaks the labor propagandist, feeling the thrill of solid millionsbehind him; thus speaks the “capitalist, ” feeling the antagonism ofsolid millions against him. 

And all this time, how many hearts really beat as one in the laborworld?

Indeed, the situation would clear up with more rapidity if we went tothe other extreme and thought of labor always as thirty millionseparate individuals. We would be nearer the truth than to considerthem as this one great like-minded mass, all yearning for the samespiritual freedom; all eager for the downfall of capitalism. 

What can one individual know of the hopes and desires of thirtymillions? Indeed, it is a rare situation where one person can speakhonestly and intelligently for one hundred others. Most of us knowprecious little about ourselves. We understand still less concerninganyone else. In a very general way, everyone in the nation wants thesame things. That is a good point to remember, for those who wouldexaggerate group distinctions. In a particular way, no two peoplefunction exactly alike, have the same ambitions, same capacities. 

There is, indeed, no great like-minded mass of laborers. Instead wehave millions of workers split into countless small groups, whosegroup interests in the great majority of cases loom larger on thehorizon than any hold the labor movement, as such, might have on them. Such interests, for instance, as family, nationality, religion, politics. Besides, there is the division which sex interests andrivalries make—the conflict, too, between youth and age. 

Yet for the sake of a working efficiency we must do a minimum ofclassifying. Thirty million is too large a number to handleseparately. There seems to be a justification for a division of labor, industrially considered, into three groups, realizing the division isa very loose one:

 1. Labor or class-conscious group. 2. Industrially conscious group. 3. Industrially nonconscious group. 

The great problem of the immediate future is to get groups 1 and 3into Group 2. The more idealistic problem of the more distant futureis to turn a great industrially conscious group into a sociallyconscious group. 

 * * * * *

By the first group, the labor or class-conscious group, is meant themembers of the American Federation of Labor, Industrial Workers of theWorld, four railroad Brotherhoods, Amalgamated Clothing Workers, socialist and communist organizations—workers whose affiliations withcertain bodies tend to make them ultraconscious of the fact that theyare wage workers and against the capitalist system. Class antagonismis fostered. There is much use of the word “exploited. ” In their pressand on their platforms such expressions are emphasized as “profits forthe lazy who exploit the workers. ” Everything possible is done topaint labor white, the employer black, forgetting that no side has themonopoly in any shade. 

To those who from sympathy or antagonism would picture at leastorganized labor as like-minded, it must be pointed out that for thegreat part the several millions represented by Group 1 are perhapsmore often warring in their aims and desires than acting as one. Neverhave they acted as one. Organized labor represents but a fraction oflabor as a whole. Some more or less spectacular action on the part ofcapital against labor always tends to solidify the organized workers. They are potentially like-minded in specific instances. Otherwise theinterests of the carpenters' union tends to overshadow the interestsof the A. F. Of L. As a whole; the interests of the A. F. Of L. Tendmost decidedly to overshadow the interests of organized labor as awhole. Socialists bark at communists. Charges of capitalist tendenciesare made against the four Brotherhoods. The women's unions feellegislated against in the affairs of labor. Indeed, only utterstupidity on the part of capital ever could weld organized labor intoenough solidarity to get society or anyone else agitated for long. Much of the “open shop” fight borders on such stupidity. 

Group 2 is at present but an infinitesimal fraction of labor. Itcomprises those workers whose background has been fortunate enough, asto both heredity and environment, to allow of their main industrialinterests centering around the doing of their particular job well forthe sake of their industry as a whole, to which a sentiment of loyaltyhas been aroused and held. There is no feeling of class antagonism, noassurance that the interests of labor are forever inimical to those ofthe employer, and _vice versa_. Where such an attitude exists on thepart of workers it presupposes an employer of unusual breadth ofunderstanding or a deep love for his fellow-man. As co-operation inindustry can be shown to pay socially and financially, so may thistype of employer come more and more to supersede the old-fashioned“boss. ”

Group 3, the industrially nonconscious workers, includes the greatmajority of labor in the United States. Under this heading come allthose who for reasons connected with the type of industry engaged in, or because of individual or sex characteristics, remain apart from anyso-called labor movement. Practically all women fall under this head, most of the foreign labor population, most of unskilled labor. Manymembers of labor organizations technically belonging in Group 1 reallyfall under Group 3. The great majority of American labor undoubtedlyare not class or group conscious in the sense that they feelthemselves as workers pitted against a capitalist class. Temperamentally, intellectually, the doctrines of Karl Marx are notfor them. They never heard of Karl Marx. They get up and go to work inthe morning. During the day they dub away at something or other, whatever it may be—the chances are it changes rather often—puttingno more effort into the day's work than is necessary to hold down anuninteresting job. They want their pay at the end of the week. Manyhave not the minimum intellectual capacity necessary to do a piece ofwork properly. Many more have not the minimum physical capacityrequired for even routine tasks. Very many, indeed, are nervousmisfits. 

Yet a goodly number in Group 3 represent a high type of worker to whomthe doctrine of class warfare is repugnant, and yet whose industrialexperience has never resulted in making them industrially conscious. They feel no particular call to show more than average interest intheir job. 

Peace, efficiency, production in industry, can come only as Group 2increases. To recruit from Group 1 will always be difficult. Oncelabor feels itself hostile to the employer and his interests, which isanother way of saying, once the employing group by its tacticssucceeds in making labor conclude that “the working class and theemploying class have nothing in common, ” the building up of a spiritof co-operation is difficult indeed. Class consciousness is poor soilin which to plant any seeds of industrial enthusiasm. 

Would you, then, asks a dismayed unionist, build up your so-calledindustrially conscious group at the expense of organized labor? Theanswer is a purely pragmatic one, based on the condition of things asthey are, not as idealists would have them. Rightly or wrongly, theAmerican employing group long ago decided that the organized-labormovement was harmful to American industry. The fact that the labormovement was born of the necessity of the workers, and in the mainalways flourished because of the continued need of the workers, wasnever taken into account. Every conceivable argument was and is usedagainst organized labor. Many of those arguments are based on halftruths; or no truths at all. The fact remains that probably themajority of the American public believes the organized-labor movementto be against our social, civic, and industrial welfare. Howeverright or wrong such a deduction is, it is safe to say that for thegreat part those who hold that belief do so in absolute good faith. 

The result is that the American labor movement has developed ever inan atmosphere so hostile that the effect on the growth of the movementhas been that which hostile environment always exerts on any growingthing. It has warped the movement. It has emphasized everythinghostile within the movement itself. No wonder a fighting spirit hasever been in evidence. No wonder only the fighting type of laborleader has emerged. The movement has had little or no opportunity forconstruction. Always the struggle for existence itself has beenuppermost. No wonder the conclusion can justly be drawn that theAmerican labor movement has not always played a highly productive rolein American industry. 

It has been everybody's fault, if we are searching for a resting placefor the blame of it all. Which gets us no place. 

The point is, looked at without the tinted glasses of either capitalor labor, that the psychology of the American employer for the past, assuredly the present, and at least the near future, has been, and is, and will be, so inimical to organized labor that the movement wouldnot be allowed to function as a constructive industrial force. Toomuch of its energies must go to fighting. At the same time, too muchof the energies of the employer go to fighting it. The public paysthe price, and it is enormous. The spiritual cost of bitterness ofspirit far outweighs any monetary loss to industry, tremendous as thatis. 

Why is not the present, then, a wise time in which to encourage analternative movement, one that has not the effect of a red rag to abull? Labor can shout its loudest; the fact remains that in thiscountry labor is very far from controlling the industrial situation. Therefore, the employer must still be taken into account in anyprogram of industrial reform. That being so, it might be saner to trysome scheme the employer will at least listen to than stubbornlycontinue to fight the issue out along the old lines of organized laboralone, at the very mention of which the average employer grows red inthe face. 

It is not, indeed, that we would do away with the organized-labormovement, if we could. The condition is far too precarious for that. Labor too often needs the support of unionism to keep from beingcrushed. The individual too often needs the educational influenceorganization exerts. Organized labor, despite the handicaps within andwithout, has too much of construction to its credit. The point is, further growth in the organized-labor movement, considering thedevelopment forced upon the movement by its own past and the everantagonistic attitude of business, will not, for the present andimmediate future, necessarily spell peace, efficiency, production. Rather, continued, if not increased, bitterness. 

What is the development, at least for the present and immediatefuture, which will improve the situation?

The first move—and by that we mean the thing to start doing_to-day_—is to begin converting the non-industrially conscious groupinto the industrially conscious group. Group 3 is peaceful—they callno attention to themselves by any unrest or demands or threats. Butthey are not efficient or productive, the reason being that they havenot enough interest in their jobs, or in many cases are not physicallyor mentally competent. Theirs are sins of omission, not commission. 

The process of this conversion means many things. It means first andforemost an understanding of human nature; a realization that thegreat shortcoming of industry has been that it held, as organized, toolittle opportunity for a normal outlet to the normal and more or lesspressing interests and desires of human beings. 

It worked in a vicious circle. The average job gave the worker littleor no chance to show any initiative, to feel any sense of ownership orresponsibility, to use such intellect and enthusiasm as he possessed. The attitude of the average employer built up no spirit of loyalty orco-operation between management and men. Hence these very humantendencies, compelling expression in a normal personality, becameatrophied, as far as the job was concerned, and sought suchfunctioning as a discouraging environment left them capable of infields outside of industry—in many cases, within the labor movementitself. The less capacity the job called out, the more incapable theworker became. Tendencies inherent in human nature, whose expressionsall these years could have been enriching the individual and industry, and therefore the nation as a whole, have been balked entirely, orshunted off to find expression often in antisocial outlets. In somecases the loss to industry was small, since the individual capacitiesat best were small. In other cases the loss was great indeed. In everycase, encouragement of the use of capacities increases thepossibilities of those capacities. 

The first step in this process of conversion then is to reorganize therelationship between management and men so that as many outlets aspossible within industry can be found for those human expressionswhose functioning will enrich the individual and industry. Which meansthat little by little the workers must share in industrialresponsibilities. The job itself, with every conceivable invention forcalling out the creative impulse, can never, under the machineprocess, enlist sufficient enthusiasm for sustained interest andloyalty on the part of the worker. He must come to have a word inmanagement, in determining the conditions under which he labors fiveand a half to seven days a week. 

It is a nice point here. The parlor Bolshevik pictures all labor eagerand anxious and capable of actually controlling industry. The fact ofthe matter is that most individuals from any and every walk of lifeprefer to sidestep responsibility. Yet everyone does better undersome. Too much may have a more disastrous effect than not enough—tothe individual as well as industry. Here again is where there must becaution in generalizing. Each employer has a problem of his own. Norcan the exact amount of responsibility necessary to call out maximumefficiency and enthusiasm ever be determined in advance. 

I have talked to numerous employers whose experience has been thesame. At first their employees showed no desire for any addedresponsibility whatever. Had there not been the conviction that theywere on the right track, the whole scheme of sharing management withthe workers would have been abandoned. Little by little, however, latent abilities were drawn out; as more responsibilities wereintrusted to the workers, their capacities for carrying theresponsibilities increased. In two cases that I know of personally, the employees actually control the management of their respectivecompanies. In both these companies the employers announced that theirbusinesses were making more money than under one-sided management. 

On the whole, this development of the partnership idea in industry isa matter of the necessary intellectual conviction that the idea issound—whether that conviction be arrived at _via_ ethics or “solidbusiness judgment”—to be followed by the technical expert who knowshow to put the idea into practice. That he will know only aftercareful study of each individual plant as a situation peculiar untoitself. He is a physician, diagnosing a case of industrial anæmia. Asin medicine, so industry has its quacks—experts who prescribe pinkpills for pale industries, the administration of which may be attendedwith a brief show of energy and improvement, only to relapse into theold pallor. As between a half-baked “expert” and an “ignorant”employer whose heart is in the right place—take the employer. If hesincerely feels that long enough has he gone on the principle, “I'llrun my business as I see fit and take suggestions from no one”; if ithas suddenly come over him that, after all, the employee is in mostways but another like himself, and that all this time that employeemight be laboring under the notion, often more unconscious thanconscious, that he would “like to run his job as he saw fit and takesuggestions from no one”; if, then, that employer calls his mentogether and says, “let's run the business as we all together see fitand take suggestions from one another”—then is that employer and thatbusiness on the road to industrial peace, efficiency, and production, expert or no expert. The road is uphill, the going often rough anddiscouraging, but more often than not the load of management becomeslighter, easing overburdened muscles; the load of labor in a senseheavier, yet along with the added weight, as they warm to the taskthere develops a sense that they are trusted, are necessary to thesuccess of the march, that they now are men, doing man-sized work. Perhaps in only a minimum of cases will the load ever be divided“fifty-fifty. ” Too soon would the workers tire of their added burden, too few could carry the added weight. The fact remains that withmanagement carrying the whole load, the march is going very badlyindeed on the whole. At times the procession scarcely seems to move. There can surely be no harm in the employing end shifting a bit of theburden. A bit cannot wreck either side. Managerial shoulders may feelmore comfortable under the decreased weight and try another shift. 

In recruiting Group 2 from Group 3, it is the employer, on the whole, who must take the initiative. Labor may show no desire to helpshoulder the burden. Yet they must shoulder some of it to amount toanything themselves, if for no other reason. It may take actualpushing and shoving at first to get them on their way. 

Recruiting from Group 1 is a different matter. There sometimes areworkers who would grab most of the load at the start—or all of it. Their capacities are untried, the road and its twistings and turningsis unknown to them. Each side has been throwing stones at the other, tripping each other up. There is a hostile spirit to begin with, aspirit of distrust between management and men. Here then is a moredifficult problem. It is more than a matter of shifting the load abit; it is a matter of changing the spirit as well. That takes muchpatience, much tact. It is not a case of the employer making all theovertures. Each side is guilty of creating cause for suspicion anddistrust. Each side has to experience a change of heart. It is onething to convince a previously unthinking person; it is another tobring about a change of heart in one frankly antagonistic. Makingindustrially enthusiastic workers out of class and labor-consciousworkers will indeed be a task requiring determination, tact, patiencewithout end, and wisdom of many sorts—on both sides. Some one has tosell the idea of co-operation to labor as well as to the employer. Andthen know the job is only begun. But the biggest start is made whenthe atmosphere is cleared so that the partnership idea itself can takeroot. Some on both sides never will be converted. 

What about the great body of workers unfit physically, mentally, nervously, to carry any additional load at all? Here is a field forthe expert. Yet here is a field where society as a whole must play apart. Most of the physical, mental, nervous harm is done before everthe individual reaches industry. Indeed, at most, industry is but oneinfluence out of many playing on the lives of the human beings wholabor. Nor can it ever be studied as a sphere entirely apart. Much isaggravated by conditions over which industry itself has no directcontrol. Health centers, civic hygienic measures of all sorts, are ofgreat importance. A widespread education in the need of healthy andspiritually constructive influences during the first ten years oflife, if we are to have healthy, wholesome, and capable adults, mustgain headway. Saner preparation for life as a whole must take theplace of the lingering emphasis on the pedagogical orthodoxy stillholding sway. 

While industry is not responsible for many conditions which makesubnormal workers, industry cannot evade the issue or shift the burdenif it desires peace, efficiency, production. These goals cannot beobtained on any basis other than the welfare of the workers. No matterhow sane is welfare work within the plant, there must develop agrowing interest and understanding in “off the plant” work. The job isblamed for much. Yet often the worker's relation to the job is but thereflection of the conditions he left to go to work in the morning, theconditions he returns to after the day's work is done. There again isa vicious circle. The more unfortunate the conditions of a man's homelife—we do not refer to the material side alone—the less efficientlyhe is apt to work during the day. The less efficiently he works duringthe day, the less competent he will be to better his home conditions. 

When men expressed themselves in their particular handicraft theyfound much of their joy in life in their work. One of the by-productsof large-scale industry and the accompanying subdivision of labor hasbeen the worker's inevitable lack of interest in the monotonous job. Since too long hours spent at mechanical, repetitious labor result ina lowered standard of efficiency, and rebellion on the part of theworker, there has followed a continual tendency toward a reduction inthe length of the working day. The fewer hours spent on the job, thegreater the opportunity conditions outside industry proper have toexert their influence on character formation. With the shorter workingday there develop more pressing reasons than ever for the emphasis onoff-the-plant activities, and wholesome home and civic conditions. Allthese together, and not industry alone, make the worker. 

The growth of the spirit and fruit of industrial democracy will notbring any millennium. It will merely make a somewhat better world tolive in here and now. The dreamers of us forget that in the long runthe world can move only so far and so fast as human nature allows for, and few of us evaluate human nature correctly. The six industrialexperiences in this book have made me feel that the heart of the worldis even warmer than I had thought—folk high and low are indeedreadier to love than to hate, to help than to hinder. But on the wholeour circles of understanding and interest are bounded by what our owneyes see and our own ears hear. The problems of industry areenormously aggravated by the fact that the numbers of individualsconcerned even in particular plants, mills, mines, factories, stretchthe capacities of human management too often beyond the possibilitiesof human understanding and sympathy. More or less artificial machinerymust be set up to bring management and men in contact with each otherto the point where the problems confronting each side are withineyesight and earshot of the other. Up to date it has been asimpossible for labor to understand the difficulties of management asfor management to understand the difficulties of labor. Neither sideever got within shouting distance of the other—except, indeed, toshout abuse! Many a strike would have been averted had the employerbeen willing to let his workers know just what the conditions werewhich he had to face; or had the workers in other instances shown anydesire to take those conditions into account. 

For, when all is said and done, the real solution of our industrialdifficulties lies not in expert machinery, however perfect, for theadjustment or avoidance of troubles. “Industrial peace must come notas a result of the balance of power with a supreme court of appeal inthe background. It must arise as the inevitable by-product of mutualconfidence, real justice, constructive good will. ”[3]

 [Footnote 3: From Constitution of Industrial Council for the Building Industry, England. ]

Any improved industrial condition in the future must take as itsfoundation the past one hundred years of American industry. The factthat this foundation was not built of mutual confidence, real justice, constructive good will is what makes the task of necessaryreconstruction so extremely difficult. Countless persons might becapable of devising the mechanical approach to peace andprosperity—courts of arbitration, boards of representation, and thelike. But how bring about a change of heart in the breast of millions?

It is a task so colossal that one would indeed prefer to lean heavilyon the shoulders of an all-wise Providence and let it go with theconsoling assurance that, as to a solution, “the Lord will provide. ”But the echoes of recriminations shouted by each side against theother; the cries of foul play; the accusations of willful injustice;the threats of complete annihilation of capital by organized labor, oforganized labor by capital—must reach to heaven itself, andProvidence might well pause in dismay. Constructive good will? Wheremake a beginning?

The beginnings, however, are being made right on earth, and here andnow. It is a mistake to look for spectacular changes, reforms on alarge scale. Rather do the tendencies toward mutual understanding andthis all-necessary good will evince themselves only here and there, inquiet experiments going on in individual plants and factories. Theseed will bear fruit but slowly. But the seed is planted. 

Planted? Nay, the seed has been there forever, nor have the harshestdevelopments in the most bloodless of industries ever been able tocrush it out. It is part and parcel of human nature that we can lovemore easily and comfortably than hate, that we can help more readilythan hinder. Flourishing broadcast through all human creation isenough good will to revolutionize the world in a decade. It is not thelack of good will. Rather the channels for its expression areblocked—blocked by the haste and worry of modern life, by themultiplicity of material possessions which so frequently choke oursympathies; by the cruelties of competition, too often run to theextremes of crushing out inborn human kindness. And most of all, blocked by ignorance and misunderstanding of our fellow-beings. 

It is a sound business deduction that the greatest stumbling blocks inthe difficulties between labor and capital to-day resolve themselvesdown to just that lack of understanding of our fellow-beings. Yetwithout that understanding, how build up a spirit of mutualconfidence, real justice, constructive good will? On what otherfoundation can a saner industrialism be built?

The place to make the beginning is in each individual shop andbusiness and industry. The spark to start the blaze in each humanheart, be it beating on the side of capital or on that of labor, isthe sudden revelation that every worker is far more the exactcounterpart of his employer in the desires of his body and soul thanotherwise; that the employer is no other than the worker in body andsoul, except that his scope and range of problems to be met are on adifferent level. True it is that we are all far more “sisters andbrothers under the skin” than strangers. 

No sane person is looking for a perfect industrialism, is watching forthe day when brotherly love will be the motive of all human conduct. But it is within the bounds of sanity to work toward an increase inunderstanding between the human factors in industry; it is justifiableto expect improved industrial conditions, once increased understandingis brought about. Industry needs experts in scientific management, inmental hygiene, in cost accounting—in fields innumerable. But whatindustry needs more than anything else—more, indeed, than all thereformers—are translators—translators of human beings to oneanother. “Reforms” will follow of themselves. 

 THE END

 _Books of Art and Artcraft_

HISTORY OF ART BY ELIE FAURE

Vol. I—Ancient Art

_Translated from the French by Walter Pach_

No History of Art fills the place of this one. First, it shows art tobe the expression of the race, not an individual expression of theartist. Second, it reverses the usual process of art history—it tells_why_, not _how_, man constructs works of art. Nearly 200 unusual andbeautiful illustrations selected by the author. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA BY CANDACE WHEELER

A history of embroidery in America, from the quill and beadwork of theAmerican Indians and the samplers of Colonial days, to the achievementof the present. _Thirty-two pages of illustrations_—some in fullcolor—correlate perfectly with the text and furnish examples for thestudent or general reader. A book to delight the collector and to be acomplete, authentic guide, historically and as to methods, for the artstudent, the designer, and the practical worker. 

HOW FRANCE BUILT HER CATHEDRALS BY ELIZABETH BOYLE O'REILLY

The Boston _Herald_ writes: “It is a monumental work, of livinginterest alike to the erudite devotee of the arts and to the personwho simply enjoys, in books or his travels, the wonderful andbeautiful things that have come from the hand of man. .. . In aparticularly happy fashion, Miss O'Reilly has told the story of theFrench cathedrals against a human background—of the great men andwomen of the time. ” _With 31 illustrations in tint. _

 _Life Stories of Famous Americans_

MARK TWAIN: A Biography BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

Mr. Paine gave six years to the writing of this famous life history, traveling half way round the world to follow in the footsteps of hissubject; during four years of the time he lived in daily associationwith Mark Twain, visited all the places and interviewed every one whocould shed any light upon his subject. 

EDISON: HIS LIFE AND INVENTIONS BY FRANK LEWIS DYER AND THOMASCOMMERFORD MARTIN

The authors are men both close to Edison. One of them is his counsel, and practically shares his daily life; the other is one of his leadingelectrical experts. It is the personal story of Edison and has beenread and revised by Edison himself. 

MY QUARTER CENTURY OF AMERICAN POLITICS BY CHAMP CLARK

A fascinating story of one of the most prominent and best liked men inAmerican political history of our times, which will appeal to personsof all shades of political belief. The book is not only interesting, but highly important as a permanent record of our generation. _Illustrated. _

LIFE OF THOMAS NAST BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

The story of America's first and foremost cartoonist; the man whooriginated all the symbols; whose pictures elected presidents andbroke up the _Tweed ring_. More than four hundred reproductions ofNast's choicest work. 

 HARPER & BROTHERS FRANKLIN SQUARE NEW YORK