She wears her cap close against her head.  Her front hair is rolled up in crimping-pins.  She has false teeth and is a widow.  Her pale, parched face shows what a great share of life has been taken by daily over-effort repeated during years.  As she talks she touches my arm in a kindly fashion and looks at me with blue eyes that float about under weary lids.  “You are only at the beginning,” they seem to say.  “Your youth and vigour are at full tide, but drop by drop they will be sapped from you, to swell the great flood of human effort that supplies the world’s material needs.  You will gain in experience,” the weary lids flutter at me, “but you will pay with your life the living you make.”

There is no variety in my morning’s work.  Next to me is a bright, pretty girl jamming chopped pickles into bottles.

“How long have you been here?” I ask, attracted by her capable appearance.  She does her work easily and well.

“About five months.”

“How much do you make?”

“From 90 cents to $1.05.  I’m doing piece-work,” she explains.  “I get seven-eighths of a cent for every dozen bottles I fill.  I have to fill eight dozen to make seven cents.  Downstairs in the corking-room you can make as high as $1.15 to $1.20.  They won’t let you make any more than that.  Me and them two girls over there are the only ones in this room doing piece-work.  I was here three weeks as a day-worker.”

“Do you live at home?” I ask.

“Yes; I don’t have to work.  I don’t pay no board.  My father and my brothers supports me and my mother.  But,” and her eyes twinkle, “I couldn’t have the clothes I do if I didn’t work.”

“Do you spend your money all on yourself?”

“Yes.”

I am amazed at the cheerfulness of my companions.  They complain of fatigue, of cold, but never at any time is there a suggestion of ill-humour.  Their suppressed animal spirits reassert themselves when the forewoman’s back is turned.  Companionship is the great stimulus.  I am confident that without the social entrain, the encouragement of example, it would be impossible to obtain as much from each individual girl as is obtained from them in groups of tens, fifties, hundreds working together.

When lunch is over we are set to scrubbing.  Every table and stand, every inch of the factory floor must be scrubbed in the next four hours.  The whistle on Saturday blows an hour earlier.  Any girl who has not finished her work when the day is done, so that she can leave things in perfect order, is kept overtime, for which she is paid at the rate of six or seven cents an hour.  A pail of hot water, a dirty rag and a scrubbing-brush are thrust into my hands.  I touch them gingerly.  I get a broom and for some time make sweeping a necessity, but the forewoman is watching me.  I am afraid of her.  There is no escape.  I begin to scrub.  My hands go into the brown, slimy water and come out brown and slimy.  I slop the soap-suds around and move on to a fresh place.  It appears there are a right and a wrong way of scrubbing.  The forewoman is at my side.