Fanny worked in this way for forty-one weeks of the year.  For six weeks she worked three days in the week.  For two weeks the factory closed.  For three weeks she had been ill.

She was a girl of quick nervous intelligence, eager for life and with a nice sense of quality.  When she talked of her inability to go to night school because of her frailness and weariness, tears flooded her eyes.  Her room was very nicely kept, and she had on a shelf a novel of Sudermann’s and a little book of Rosenthal’s sweat shop verses.  Everything she wore was put on carefully and with good taste.  Her dress showed the quickest adaptability, and in correctness, and simplicity of line and color might have belonged to a college freshman “with every advantage.”  It was a little trim delft-blue linen frock with a white pique collar and a loose blue tie.  She had tan stockings and low russet shoes.  Fanny belonged to the Working-man’s Circle.  She said she went as often as she could possibly afford it to the theatre.  And when she was asked what plays she liked, she replied with an unforgettable keenness and eagerness, “Oh, I want nothing but the best.  Only what will tell me about real life.”

She said she had spent too much money for dress last year; but she had been able to buy clothing of a quality which she thought would last her for a long time.  The little plain gold watch in her list she had partly needed and partly had been unable to resist.  One of the three summer dresses costing $14 was her blue linen dress, for which she had given $7.  She expected to wear it for two summers with alterations.

     Last year’s suit cleaned $ 3
     Shoes 11
     Hat 10
     Dresses (1 winter, $10; 3 summer, $14) 24
     Coat 9
     Every-day hat 4.50
     Muslin (for white waists and corset covers made by herself) 5
     Umbrella 2
     Gloves 2
     Pocket-book 1
     Watch 11
          
                                                     ______
          
                                                     $82.50

Painful as it was in some ways to see Fanny Leysher, who liked “nothing but the best,” pouring her life force into stitching 108 corset covers a day, she yet seemed less helpless than some still younger workers.

Minna Waldemar, a girl of sixteen, an operative in an umbrella factory, had been in the United States for six months.  For five months of this time she had been stitching the seams and hems of umbrella covers for 35 cents a hundred.  Her usual output was about 200 a day.  By working very fast, she could in a full day make 300, but when she did, it left her thumb very sore.