“Have you ever scrubbed before?” she asks sharply.  This is humiliating.

“Yes,” I answer; “I have scrubbed ... oilcloth.”

The forewoman knows how to do everything.  She drops down on her knees and, with her strong arms and short-thumbed, brutal hands, she shows me how to scrub.

The grumbling is general.  There is but one opinion among the girls:  it is not right that they should be made to do this work.  They all echo the same resentment, but their complaints are made in whispers; not one has the courage to openly rebel.  What, I wonder to myself, do the men do on scrubbing day.  I try to picture one of them on his hands and knees in a sea of brown mud.  It is impossible.  The next time I go for a supply of soft soap in a department where the men are working I take a look at the masculine interpretation of house cleaning.  One man is playing a hose on the floor and the rest are rubbing the boards down with long-handled brooms and rubber mops.

“You take it easy,” I say to the boss.

“I won’t have no scrubbing in my place,” he answers emphatically.  “The first scrubbing day, they says to me ‘Get down on your hands and knees,’ and I says—­’Just pay me my money, will you; I’m goin’ home.  What scrubbing can’t be done with mops ain’t going to be done by me.’  The women wouldn’t have to scrub, either, if they had enough spirit all of ’em to say so.”

I determined to find out if possible, during my stay in the factory, what it is that clogs this mainspring of “spirit” in the women.

I hear fragmentary conversations about fancy dress balls, valentine parties, church sociables, flirtations and clothes.  Almost all of the girls wear shoes with patent leather and some or much cheap jewelry, brooches, bangles and rings.  A few draw their corsets in; the majority are not laced.  Here and there I see a new girl whose back is flat, whose chest is well developed.  Among the older hands who have begun work early there is not a straight pair of shoulders.  Much of the bottle washing and filling is done by children from twelve to fourteen years of age.  On their slight, frail bodies toil weighs heavily; the delicate child form gives way to the iron hand of labour pressed too soon upon it.  Backs bend earthward, chests recede, never to be sound again.

* * * * *

After a Sunday of rest I arrive somewhat ahead of time on Monday morning, which leaves me a few moments for conversation with a piece-worker who is pasting labels on mustard jars.  She is fifteen.

“Do you like your job?” I ask.

“Yes, I do,” she answers, pleased to tell her little history.  “I began in a clothing shop.  I only made $2.50 a week, but I didn’t have to stand.  I felt awful when papa made me quit.  When I came in here, bein’ on my feet tired me so I cried every night for two months.  Now I’ve got used to it.  I don’t feel no more tired when I get home than I did when I started out.”  There are two sharp blue lines that drag themselves down from her eyes to her white cheeks.