d brick building, grim as a fortress, and
fortified by a breastwork of laundry-wagons backed up to the curb and
disgorging their contents of dirty clothes. Making my way as best I
could through the jam of horses and drivers and baskets, I reached the
narrow, unpainted pine door marked, "Employees' Entrance," and filed up
the stairs with a crowd of other girls--all, like myself, seeking work.

At the head of the stairs we filed into a mammoth steam-filled room that
occupied an entire floor. The foreman made quick work of us. Thirty-two
girls I counted as they stepped up to the pale-faced, stoop-shouldered
young fellow, who addressed each one as "Sally," in a tone which,
despite its good-natured familiarity, was none the less businesslike
and respectful. At last it came my turn.

"Hello, Sally! Ever shook?"

"No."

"Ever work in a laundry?"

"No; but I'm very handy."

"What did you work at last?"

"Jewel-cases."

"All right, Sally; we'll start you in at three and a half a week, and
maybe we'll give you four dollars after you get broke in to the
work.--Go over there, where you seen them other ladies go," he called
after me as I moved away, and waved his hand toward a pine-board
partition. Here, sitting on bundles of soiled linen and on hampers, my
thirty-two predecessors were corralled, each awaiting assignment to
duty. They were dressed, literally, "some in rags and some in tags and
some in velvet gowns." Calico wrappers brushed against greasy satin
skirts, and faded kimono dressing-jackets vied in filth and slovenliness
with unbelted shirt-waists. A faded rose bobbed in one girl's head, and
on another's locks was arranged a gorgeous fillet of pale-blue ribbon of
the style advertised at the time in every shop-window in New York as the
"Du Barry." The scene was a sorry burlesque on the boudoir and the
ball-room, a grim travesty on the sordid realities of the kitchen on
wash-day.

"Did yez come in the barber's wagon?" asked a stupid Irish girl, looking
at me curiously. I looked blank, and she repeated the question.

"What does she mean?" I asked a more intelligent girl who was seated on
a bundle in the corner.

"Didn't yez come in Tony's wagon?"

"No; who's Tony?"

"Oh, Tony he's a barber--a Ginny barber--that goes out with a wagon when
they run short of help, and he picks up any girls he can find and hauls
them in. He brought three loads this morning. We thought Tony picked you
up. Me and her," pointing t