he floor.
They held on to each other closely, with no outstretched arms as is the
usual form, and they revolved very slowly around and around the room.
The young men had smooth faces, patent leather boots, very smart cravats
and a sheepish, self-conscious look. The girls had elaborate
constructions in frizzed hair, with bows and tulle; black trailing
skirts with coloured ruffled under-petticoats, light-coloured blouses
and fancy belts. They seemed to be having a very good time.

On the way home we passed a brightly lighted grocery shop. My friend
looked in with interest. "Goodness," he said, "but those Saratoga chips
look good. Now, what would you order," he went on, "if you could have
anything you liked?" We began to compose a menu with oysters and chicken
and all the things we never saw, but it was not long before my friend
cried "Mercy! Oh, stop; I can't stand it. It makes me too hungry."

The moon had gone under a cloud. The wooden sidewalks were rough and
irregular, and as we walked along toward home I tripped once or twice.
Presently I felt a strong arm put through mine, with this assurance:
"Now if you fall we'll both fall together."

After four or five days' experience with a machine I began to work with
more ease and with less pain between my shoulders. The girls were kind
and sympathetic, stopping to help and encourage the "new girl." One of
the shirt finishers, who had not been long in the mill herself, came
across from her table one day when I was hard at work with a pain like a
sword stab in my back.

"I know how you ache," she said. "It just makes me feel like crying when
I see how you keep at it and I can guess how tired you are."

Nothing was so fatiguing as the noise. In certain places near the eyelet
and buttonhole machines it was impossible to make one's neighbour hear
without shouting. My teacher, whose nerves, I took it, were less
sensitive than mine, expressed her sensations in this way:

"It's just terrible sitting here all day alone, worrying and thinking
all by yourself and hustling from morning until night. Lots of the girls
have nervous prostration. My sister had it and I guess I'm getting it. I
hear the noise all night. Quite a few have consumption, too, from the
dust and the lint."

The butcher's widow, the school-teacher and I started in at about the
same time. At the end of two weeks the butcher's widow had long been
gone. The school-teacher had averaged seventy-nine cents a day and