Each week Sadie handed her pay envelope unopened to her mother.  The mother bought all Sadie’s clothes and gave her food and shelter.  Consequently, Sadie’s unceasing vigil of the needle paid for her existence and purchased also the proud consciousness of an older brother who would one day own a doctor’s buggy and a social position.

The one joy of this girl’s life, in fact all the real life she lived, was dancing.  Regularly every Saturday night Sadie and a girl friend, Rosie by name, put on their best clothes and betook themselves to Silver’s Casino, a huge dance hall with small rooms adjoining, where food and much drink were to be had.

There was a good floor at Silver’s and a brass band to dance to.  It was great!  The girls never lacked partners, and they made some very agreeable acquaintances.

In the dressing room, between dances, all the girls exchanged conversation, views on fashions, confidences about the young men and other gossip.  Some of the girls were nice and some, it must be admitted, were “tough.”  What was the difference?  The tough girls, with their daring humor, their cigarettes, their easy manners, and their amazingly smart clothes, furnished a sort of spice to the affair.

Sadie and Rosie sometimes discussed the tough girls, and the conversation nearly always ended with one remarking:  “Well, if they don’t get anything else out of livin’, look at the clothes they put on their backs.”

Perhaps you can understand that longing for pretty gowns, perhaps you can even sympathize with it.  Of course, if you have a number of other resources, you can keep the dress hunger in its proper place.  But if you have nothing in your existence but a machine—­at which you toil for others’ benefit;

Sadie and Rosie continued to spend their Saturday evenings and their Sunday evenings at Silver’s Casino.  At first they went home together promptly at midnight.  After midnight these casino dance halls change their character.  Often professional “pace makers” are introduced, men and women of the lowest class, who are paid to inspire the other dancers to lewd conduct.  These wretched people are immodestly clothed, and they perform immodest or very tough dances.  They are usually known as “Twisters,” a descriptive title.  When they make their appearance the self-respecting dancers go home, and a much looser element comes in.  The pace becomes a rapid one.  Manners are free, talk is coarse, laughter is incessant.  The bar does a lively business.  The dancing and the revels go on until daylight.

The first time Sadie and Rosie allowed themselves to be persuaded to stay at Silver’s after midnight they were rather horrified by the abandoned character of the dancing, the reckless drinking, and the fighting which resulted in several men being thrown out.  The second time they were not quite so horrified, but they decided not to stay so late another time.  Then came a great social event, the annual “mask and shadow dance” of a local political organization.  Sadie and Rosie attended.