g to win back the
good will of Phoebe. Instantly she brightened, and good humor once more
flashed over her grimy features.

"H-m! that's the stuff! There's one thing you hadn't ought to forget,
and mind, I'm speaking as one lady-friend to another when I tell you
these things--and that is, that you have a right to do as the other
girls in the factory or you'll never get 'long with them. If you don't
they'll get down on you, sure's pussy's a cat; and then they'll make it
hot for you with complaining to the forelady. And then she'll get down
on you after while too, and won't give you no good orders to work on;
and--well, it's just this way: a girl mustn't be odd."

Continuing her philosophy of success, Phoebe proceeded to initiate me
into the first process of my job, which consisted in pasting slippery,
sticky strips of muslin over the corners of the rough brown boxes that
were piled high about us in frail, tottering towers reaching to the
ceiling, which was trellised over with a network of electric wires and
steam-pipes. Two hundred and fifty of these boxes remained to be
finished on the particular order upon which Phoebe was working. Each
must be given eight muslin strips, four on the box and four on its
cover; two tapes, inserted with a hair-pin through awl-holes; two tissue
"flies," to tuck over the bonnet soon to nestle underneath; four pieces
of gay paper lace to please madame's eye when the lid is lifted; and
three labels, one on the bottom, one on the top, and one bearing the
name of a Fifth Avenue modiste on an escutcheon of gold and purple.

The job, as it progressed, entailed ceaseless shoving and shifting and
lifting. In order that we might not be walled in completely by our
cumbersome materials, every few minutes we bore tottering piles across
the floor to the "strippers."

These latter, who were small girls, covered the sides with glazed paper
on machines; and as fast as each box was thus covered it was tossed to
the "turner-in," a still smaller girl, who turned in the overlapping
edge of the strip, after which the box was ready to come back to the
table for the next process at our hands.

By ten o'clock, with Mrs. Smith's gay violet-boxes and our own
bonnet-boxes, we had built a snug bower all round our particular table.
Through its pasteboard walls the din and the songs came but faintly. My
mates' tongues flew as fast as their fingers. The talk was chiefly
devoted to clothes, Phoebe's social activities