(I felt a flashing sensation of triumph.)

“Take your tippet off, set right down, ef you’re in earnest.”

“Oh, I am in earnest; but what sort of work is it?”

“It’s gluein’ suspender straps.”

“Suspenders!  I want to work in a shoe-shop!”

He smiled, indulgent of this whim.

“They all does!  Don’t they, Mary?” (She acquiesced.)

“Then they get sick of the shop, and they come back to me.  You will!”

“Let me try the shoe-shop first; then if I can’t get a job I’ll come back.”

He was anxious to close with me, however, and took up a pile of the suspender straps, tempting me with them.

“What you ever done?”

“Nothing.  I’m green!”

“That don’t make no difference; they’re all green, ain’t they, Mary?”

“Yes,” Mary said; “I have to learn them all.”

“Now, to Preston’s you can get in all right, but you won’t make over four dollars a week, and here if you’re smart you’ll make six dollars in no time.” ...

Preston’s!

That was the first name I had heard, and to Preston’s I was asking my way, stimulated by the fact, though I had been in Lynn not an hour and a half, a job was mine did I care to glue suspender straps!

I afterward learned that Preston’s, a little factory on the town’s outskirts, is a model shoe-shop in its way.  I did not work there, and neither of the factories in which I was employed was “model” to my judgment.

A preamble at the office, where they suggested taking me in as office help: 

“But I am green; I can’t do office work.”

Then Mr. Preston himself, working-director in drilling-coat, sat before me in his private office.  I told him:  “I want work badly—­”

He had nothing—­was, indeed, turning away hands; my evident disappointment had apparently impressed a man who was in the habit of refusing applicants for work.

“Look here”—­he mitigated his refusal—­“come to-morrow at nine.  I’m getting in a whole bale of cloth for cutting linings.”

“You’ll give me a chance, then?”

“Yes, I will!”

It was then proven that I could not starve in Lynn, nor wander houseless.

With these evidences of success, pride stirred.  I determined before nightfall to be at work in a Lynn shoe-shop.  It was now noon, streets filled with files and lines of freed operatives.  Into a restaurant I wandered with part of the throng, and, with excitement and ambition for sauce, ate a good meal.

Factories had received back their workers when I applied anew.  This time the largest building, one of the most important shops in Lynn, was my goal.  At the door of Parsons’ was a sign reading: 

“Wanted, Vampers.”

A vamper I was not, but if any help was wanted there was hope.  My demand for work was greeted at the office this time with—­“Any signs out?”