“Why, you know, at Christmas they give us two weeks,” she goes on in the sociable tone of a woman whose hands are occupied.  “I just didn’t know what to do with myself.”

“Does your mother work?”

“Oh, my, no.  I don’t have to work, only if I didn’t I couldn’t have the clothes I do.  I save some of my money and spend the rest on myself.  I make $6 to $7 a week.”

The girl next us volunteers a share in the conversation.

“I bet you can’t guess how old I am.”

I look at her.  Her face and throat are wrinkled, her hands broad, and scrawny; she is tall and has short skirts.  What shall be my clue?  If I judge by pleasure, “unborn” would be my answer; if by effort, then “a thousand years.”

“Twenty,” I hazard as a safe medium.

“Fourteen,” she laughs.  “I don’t like it at home, the kids bother me so.  Mamma’s people are well-to-do.  I’m working for my own pleasure.”

“Indeed, I wish I was,” says a new girl with a red waist.  “We three girls supports mamma and runs the house.  We have $13 rent to pay and a load of coal every month and groceries.  It’s no joke, I can tell you.”

The whistle blows; I go back to my monotonous task.  The old aches begin again, first gently, then more and more sharply.  The work itself is growing more mechanical.  I can watch the girls around me.  What is it that determines superiority in this class?  Why was the girl filling pickle jars put on piece-work after three weeks, when others older than she are doing day-work at fifty and sixty cents after a year in the factory?  What quality decides that four shall direct four hundred?  Intelligence I put first; intelligence of any kind, from the natural penetration that needs no teaching to the common sense that every one relies upon.  Judgment is not far behind in the list, and it is soon matured by experience.  A strong will and a moral steadiness stand guardians over the other two.  The little pickle girl is winning in the race by her intelligence.  The forewomen have all four qualities, sometimes one, sometimes another predominating.  Pretty Clara is smarter than Lottie.  Lottie is more steady.  Old Mrs. Minns’ will has kept her at it until her judgment has become infallible and can command a good price.  Annie is an evenly balanced mixture of all, and the five hundred who are working under the five lack these qualities somewhat, totally, or have them in useless proportions.

Monday is a hard day.  There is more complaining, more shirking, more gossip than in the middle of the week.  Most of the girls have been to dances on Saturday night, to church on Sunday evening with some young man.  Their conversation is vulgar and prosaic; there is nothing in the language they use that suggests an ideal or any conception of the abstract.  They make jokes, state facts about the work, tease each other, but in all they say there is not a word of value—­nothing that would interest if repeated