ly and at last paralysis. Then he died finally
and left mother and me, and she's in slow consumption and can't do much.
I earned seven dollars a week because I'd learned fancy work and did
some things evenings for the store, and we should have got along very
well. We'd had to move out a little farther, to the place mother was
born in, because rent was cheaper and she could never stand the city.
But this is the way it worked. I have to be at the store at eight
o'clock. The train that leaves home at seven gets me to the store two
minutes after eight, but though I've explained this to the manager he
says I've got to be at the store at eight, and so, summer and winter, I
have to take the train at half-past six and wait till doors are open.
It's the same way at night. The store closes at six, and if I could
leave then I could catch an express train that would get me home at
seven. The rules are that I must stop five minutes to help the girls
cover up the goods, and that just hinders my getting the train till
after seven, so that I am not home till eight."

I looked at the girl more attentively. She was colorless and emaciated,
and, when not excited by speaking, languid and heavy.

"Are you sure that you have explained the thing clearly so that the
manager understands?" I asked.

"More than once," the girl answered, "but he said I should be fined if I
were not there at eight. Then I told him that the girls at my counter
would be glad to cover up my goods, and if he would only let me go at
six it would give me a little more time for mother. I sit up late anyway
to do things she can't, for we live in two rooms and I sew and do a good
many things after I go home."

Inquiry a day or two later showed that her story was true in every
detail and also that she was a valuable assistant, one of the best among
a hundred or so employed. The firm gives largely to charitable objects,
and pays promptly, and at rates which, if low, are no lower than usual;
but they continue to exact this seven minutes' service from one whose
faithfulness might seem to have earned exemption from a purely arbitrary
rule--in such a case mere tyranny. The girl had offered to give up her
lunch hour, but the manager refused; and she dared not speak again for
fear of losing her place.

"After all, she's better off than I am or lots of others," said one who
sat near her. "I'm down in the basement at M----'s, and forty others
like me, and about forty little girl