s came a sound, half scream, half cackle:

"Yi! yi! my pretty one, you'll get used to it by and by; you'll get used
to anything in this world." It was an old woman's voice, and looking
across the table, I saw a merry-eyed, toothless old crone, who was
grinning and nodding at me.

"Hello! hello there, Miriam! what's eating you now?" shouted the
foreman, emerging and scrambling to his feet as he turned to get Bessie
started. But the strange old creature only grinned wider and screeched,
"Yi! yi!" louder than ever.

But I had not time, either, to look at or listen to her now, as I leaned
over the machine and practised at running a straight seam. Ah, the skill
of these women and girls, and of the strange creature opposite, who can
make a living at this torturing labor! How very different, how
infinitely harder it is, as compared with running an ordinary
sewing-machine. The goods that my nervous fingers tried to guide ran
every wrong way. I had no control whatever over the fearful velocity
with which the needle danced along the seam. In utter discouragement, I
stopped trying for a moment, and watched the girl at my right. She was a
swarthy, thick-lipped Jewess, of the type most common in such places,
but I looked at her with awe and admiration. In Rachel Goldberg's case
the making of muslin, lace-trimmed corset-covers was an art rather than
a craft. She was a remarkable operator even among scores of experts at
the R----. Under her stubby, ill-kept hands ruffles and tucks and
insertion bands and lace frills were wrought with a beauty and softness
of finish, and a speed and precision of workmanship, that made her the
wonder and envy of the shop. And with what ease she seemed to do
it all, despite the riveted eyes and tense-drawn muscles of her
expressionless face! Suddenly her machine stopped, she looked
up with a loud yawn, and stretched her arms above her head. She
acknowledged the flattery of my look with a patronizing smile and a
"How-do-you-think-you're-going-to-like-your-job?" I answered the
conventional question in the usual way, and remarked that she sewed as
if she had done it for ever and ever, and as if it were no work at all.

She shook her head. "Yes, I've worked a long time at it, but my shoulder
aches as bad this morning as it did when I was a learner like you," and
she pressed the power-lever and again bent over the tucking.

At my left Bessie was also practising on running seams, and a little
farther down