ir mother's story:--

"I can run the machine, and I did with every one of them when they were
two weeks old, for I've always been strong. Nothing that happens is bad
enough to kill me, and it's lucky it's so, for it's two years and over
since William there could earn a dollar. He helps me; but you see for
yourself he's half dead and no getting well, because we've nothing to
buy food with, or medicine, or anything that could help him. We were
both brought up here in the city. We don't know anything about the
country, but sometimes I wish we did, and that I could take the children
and live somehow. But I don't know how people live there. I'm certain of
work here, and I'd be afraid to go anywhere else. I'm making babies'
slips now; three tucks and a hem and find your own cotton, and it takes
eighteen hours to make a dozen, and these are seventy-five cents a
dozen. I can buy cotton at eighteen cents a dozen, but we have to take
it from the manufacturer at twenty cents--sometimes twenty-five cents.
Last week I was on corset-covers; I take whatever they send up, for I'm
an old hand, and always sure of work. They were plain corset-covers, and
I got forty cents a dozen without the buttonholes. If I did them it
would be five cents on every dozen, and sometimes I do. That pile in the
corner is extra-size chemises. I get $1.50 a dozen for making them, and
if I cord the bands, fifty cents a dozen for them. I can do seven or
eight a day; but there are no more just now, they say. I work fourteen
hours a day; yes, I've often worked sixteen, for you see there are six
of us, and we must be clothed and fed. William is handy, but, poor soul!
he's only a man, and he's sick past cure, and nobody but me for us all.
God help us! I wouldn't mind if wages were steady, but they cut and cut,
and always some excuse for making them lower, and here am I, that can do
anything, private orders and all, down to eighty-five cents a day. I
could earn more by family sewing, but I can't leave William or the
children, for he's likely to go any minute, the doctors say, if he
over-exerts himself; and suppose it came, and I not here, and the baby
and Willie and all! I've turned all ways. I think and think as I sit
here, and there's no help in God or man. It's all wrong somehow, but we
don't know why nor how, and the only way I can see is just to die.
There's no place for honesty or hard work. You must lie and cheat if you
want standing room. God help us!--if the