more complaining, more shirking, more gossip than in the middle of the week. Most of the girls have been to dances on Saturday night, to church on Sunday evening with some young man. Their conversation is vulgar and prosaic; there is nothing in the language they use that suggests an ideal or any conception of the abstract. They make jokes, state facts about the work, tease each other, but in all they say there is not a word of value—nothing that would interest if repeated out of its class. They have none of the sagaciousness of the low-born Italian, none of the wit and penetration of the French ouvriere. The Old

World generations ago divided itself into classes; the lower class watched the upper and grew observant and appreciative, wise and discriminating, through the study of a master's will. Here in the land of freedom, where no class line is rigid, the precious chance is not to serve but to live for oneself; not to watch a superior, but to find out by experience. The ideal plays no part, stern realities alone count, and thus we have a progressive, practical, independent people, the expression of whose personality is interesting not through their words but by their deeds.

When the Monday noon whistle blows I follow the hundreds down into the dining-room. Each wears her cap in a way that speaks for her temperament. There is the indifferent, the untidy, the prim, the vain, the coquettish; and the faces under them, which all looked alike at first, are becoming familiar. I have begun to make friends. I speak bad English, but do not attempt to change my voice and inflection nor to adopt the twang. No allusion is made to my pronunciation except by one girl, who says:

"I knew you was from the East. My sister spent a year in Boston and when she come back she talked just like you do, but she lost it all again. I'd give anything if I could talk aristocratic."

I am beginning to understand why the meager lunches of preserve-sandwiches and pickles more than satisfy the girls whom I was prepared to

accuse of spending their money on gewgaws rather than on nourishment. It is fatigue that steals the appetite. I can hardly taste what I put in my mouth; the food sticks in my throat. The girls who complain most of being tired are the ones who roll up their newspaper bundles half full. They should be given an hour at noon. The first half of it should be spent in rest and recreation before a bite is touched. The good that such a regulation would work upon their faulty skins and pale faces, their lasting strength and health, would be incalculable. I did not want wholesome food, exhausted as I was. I craved sours and sweets, pickles, cake, anything to excite my numb taste.

So long as I remain in the bottling department there is little variety in my days. Rising at 5:30 every morning, I make my way through black streets to offer my sacrifice of energy on the altar of toil. All is done without a fresh incident. Accumulated weariness forces me to take a day off. When I return I am sent for in the corking-room. The forewoman lends me a blue gingham dress and tells me I am to do "piece"-work. There are three who work together at every corking-table. My two companions are a woman with goggles and a one-eyed boy. We are not a brilliant trio. The job consists in evening the vinegar in the bottles, driving the cork in, first with a machine, then with a hammer, letting out the air with a knife stuck under the

cork, capping the corks, sealing the caps, counting and distributing the bottles. These operations are paid for at the rate of one-half a cent for the dozen bottles, which sum is divided among us. My two companions are earning a living, so I must work in dead earnest or take bread out of their mouths. At every blow of the hammer there is danger. Again and again bottles fly to pieces in my hand. The boy who runs the corking-machine smashes a glass to fragments.

"Are you hurt?" I ask, my own fingers crimson stained.

"That ain't nothin'," he answers. "Cuts is common; my hands is full of 'em."

The woman directs us; she is fussy and loses her head, the work accumulates, I am slow, the boy is clumsy. There is a stimulus unsuspected in working to get a job done. Before this I had worked to make the time pass. Then no one took account of how much I did; the factory clock had a weighted pendulum; now ambition outdoes physical strength. The hours and my purpose are running a race together. But, hurry as I may, as we do, when twelve blows its signal we have corked only 210 dozen bottles! This is no more than day-work at seventy cents. With an ache in every muscle, I redouble my energy after lunch. The girl with the goggles looks at me blindly and says:

"Ain't it just awful hard work? You can make good money, but you've got to hustle."

She is a forlorn specimen of humanity, ugly, old, dirty, condemned to the slow death of the overworked. I am a green hand. I make mistakes; I have no experience in the fierce sustained effort of the bread-winners. Over and over I turn to her, over and over she is obliged to correct me. During the ten hours we work side by side not one murmur of impatience escapes her. When she sees that I am getting discouraged she calls out across the deafening din, "That's all right; you can't expect to learn in a day; just keep on steady."

As I go about distributing bottles to the labelers I notice a strange little elf, not more than twelve years old, hauling loaded crates; her face and chest are depressed, she is pale to blueness, her eyes have indigo circles, her pupils are unnaturally dilated, her brows contracted; she has the appearance of a cave-bred creature. She seems scarcely human. When the time for cleaning up arrives toward five my boss sends me for a bucket of water to wash up the floor. I go to the sink, turn on the cold water and with it the steam which takes the place of hot water. The valve slips; in an instant I am enveloped in a scalding cloud. Before it has cleared away the elf is by my side.

"Did you hurt yourself?" she asks.

Her inhuman form is the vehicle of a human heart, warm and tender. She lifts her wide-pupiled eyes to mine; her expression does not change from

that of habitual scrutiny cast early in a rigid mould, but her voice carries sympathy from its purest source.

There is more honour than courtesy in the code of etiquette. Commands are given curtly; the slightest injustice is resented; each man for himself in work, but in trouble all for the one who is suffering. No bruise or cut or burn is too familiar a sight to pass uncared for.

It is their common sufferings, their common effort that unites them.

When I have become expert in the corking art I am raised to a better table, with a bright boy, and a girl who is dignified and indifferent with the indifference of those who have had too much responsibility. She never hurries; the work slips easily through her fingers. She keeps a steady bearing over the morning's ups and downs. Under her load of trials there is something big in the steady way she sails.

"Used to hard work?" she asks me.

"Not much," I answer; "are you?"

"Oh, yes. I began at thirteen in a bakery. I had a place near the oven and the heat overcame me."

Her shoulders are bowed, her chest is hollow.

"Looking for a boarding place near the factory, I hear," she continues.

"Yes. You live at home, I suppose."

"Yes. There's four of us: mamma, papa, my sister and myself. Papa's blind."

"Can't he work?"

"Oh, yes, he creeps to his job every morning, and he's got so much experience he kind o' does things by instinct."

"Does your mother work?"

"Oh, my, no. My sister's an invalid. She hasn't been out o' the door for three years. She's got enlargement of the heart and consumption, too, I guess; she 'takes' hemorrhages. Sometimes she has twelve in one night. Every time she coughs the blood comes foaming out of her mouth. She can't lie down. I guess she'd die