against the sun’s rays; my hands were gloveless; and as I passed the plate glass windows I could see the despondent droop of my skirt, the stray locks of hair that blew about free of comb or veil.  A sign out:  “Manglers wanted!” attracted my attention in the window of a large steam laundry.  I was not a “mangler,” but I went in and asked to see the boss.  “Ever done any mangling?” was his first question.

“No,” I answered, “but I am sure I could learn.”  I put so much ardour into my response that the boss at once took an interest.

“We might give you a place as shaker; you could start in and work up.”

“What do you pay?”

“Four dollars a week until you learn.  Then you would work up to five, five and a half.”

Better than nothing, was all I could think, but I can’t live on four a week.

“How often do you pay?”

“Every Tuesday night.”

This meant no money for ten days.

“If you think you’d like to try shaking come round Monday morning at seven o’clock.”

Which I took as my dismissal until Monday.

At least I had a job, however poor, and strengthened by this thought I determined to find something better before Monday.  The ten-cent piece lay an inviting fortune in my hand.  I was to part with one-tenth of it in exchange for a morning newspaper.  This investment seemed a reckless plunge, but “nothing venture, nothing have,” my pioneer spirit prompted, and soon deep in the list of Wanted, Females, I felt repaid.  Even in my destitute condition I had a choice in mind.  If possible I wanted to work without machinery in a shop where the girls used their hands alone as power.  Here seemed to be my heart’s content—­a short, concise advertisement, “Wanted, hand sewers.”  After a consultation with a policeman as to the whereabouts of my future employer, it became evident that I must part with another of my ten cents, as the hand sewers worked on the opposite side of the city from the neighbourhood whither I had strayed in my morning’s wanderings.  I took a car and alighted at a busy street in the fashionable shopping centre of Chicago.  The number I looked for was over a steep flight of dirty wooden stairs.  If there is such a thing as luck it was now to dwell a moment with one of the poorest.  I pushed open a swinging door and let myself into the office of a clothing manufacturer.

The owner, Mr. F., got up from his desk and came toward me.

“I seen your advertisement in the morning paper.”

“Yes,” he answered in a kindly voice.  “Are you a tailoress?”

“No, sir; I’ve never done much sewing except on a machine.”

“Well, we have machines here.”

“But,” I almost interrupted, beginning to fear that my training at Perry was to limit all further experience to an electric Singer, “I’d rather work with my hands.  I like the hand-work.”

He looked at me and gave me an answer which exactly coincided with my theories.  He said this, and it was just what I wanted him to say.