had ever had. As to hair and hands, a half-day's work suffices for their
undoing. And my disguise is so successful I have deceived not only
others but myself. I have become with desperate reality a factory girl,
alone, inexperienced, friendless. I am making $4.20 a week and spending
$3 of this for board alone, and I dread not being strong enough to keep
my job. I climb endless stairs, am given a white cap and an apron, and
my life as a factory girl begins. I become part of the ceaseless,
unrelenting mechanism kept in motion by the poor.

The factory I have chosen has been built contemporaneously with reforms
and sanitary inspection. There are clean, well-aired rooms, hot and cold
water with which to wash, places to put one's hat and coat, an
obligatory uniform for regular employees, hygienic and moral advantages
of all kinds, ample space for work without crowding.

Side by side in rows of tens or twenties we stand before our tables
waiting for the seven o'clock whistle to blow. In their white caps and
blue frocks and aprons, the girls in my department, like any unfamiliar
class, all look alike. My first task is an easy one; anybody could do
it. On the stroke of seven my fingers fly. I place a lid of paper in a
tin jar-top, over it a cork; this I press down with both hands, tossing
the cover, when done, into a pan. In spite of myself I hurry; I cannot
work fast enough--I outdo my companions. How can they be so slow? I have
finished three dozen while they are doing two. Every nerve, every muscle
is offering some of its energy. Over in one corner the machinery for
sealing the jars groans and roars; the mingled sounds of filling,
washing, wiping, packing, comes to my eager ears as an accompaniment for
the simple work assigned to me. One hour passes, two, three hours; I fit
ten, twenty, fifty dozen caps, and still my energy keeps up.