blistered
hands ached now! How my swollen feet and ankles throbbed with pain!
Every girl limped now as she crossed the floor with her towering
burden, and the procession back and forth between machines and tables
began all over again. Lifting and carrying and shoving; cornering and
taping and lacing--it seemed as though the afternoon would never wear to
an end.

The whole great mill was now charged with an unaccustomed excitement--an
excitement which had in it something of solemnity. There was no sign of
the usual mirth and hilarity which constitute the mill's sole
attraction. There was no singing--not even Angelina's "Fatal Wedding."
No exchange of stories, no sallies. Each girl bent to her task with a
fierce energy that was almost maddening in its intensity.

Blind and dizzy with fatigue, I peered down the long, dusty aisles of
boxes toward the clock above Annie Kinzer's desk. It was only two. Every
effort, human and mechanical, all over the great factory, was now
strained almost to the breaking-point. How long can this agony last? How
long can the roar and the rush and the throbbing pain continue until
that nameless and unknown something snaps like an overstrained
fiddle-string and brings relief? The remorseless clock informed us that
there were two hours more of this torture before the signal to "clean
up"--a signal, however, which is not given until the last girl has
finished her allotted task. At half-past two it appeared hopeless even
to dream of getting out before the regular six o'clock.

The head foreman rushed through the aisles and bawled to us to "hustle
for all we were worth," as customers were all demanding their goods.

"My God! ain't we hustling?" angrily shouted Rosie Sweeny, a pretty girl
at the next table, who supplied most of the profanity for our end of the
room. "God Almighty! how I hate Easter and Christmas-time! Oh, my legs
is 'most breaking," and with that the overwrought girl burst into a
passionate tirade against everybody, the foreman included, and all the
while she never ceased to work.

There were not many girls in the factory like Rosie. Hers were the
quickest fingers, the sharpest tongue, the prettiest face. She was
scornful, impatient, and passionate--qualities not highly developed in
her companions, and which in her case foreboded ill if one believed
Annie Kinzer's prophecy: "That Rosie Sweeny 'll go to the bad yet, you
mark my words."

Three o'clock, a quarter after, half-past!