a shoe-shop before?"

"No, ma'am."

"I'll have you learned _pressin'_; we need a _presser_. Go take your
things off, then get right down over there."

I tore off my outside garment in the cloak-room, jammed full of hats and
coats. I was obliged to stack my belongings in a pile on the dirty
floor.

Now hatless, shirt-waisted, I was ready to labour amongst the two
hundred bond-women around me. Excitement quite new ran through me as I
went to the long table indicated and took my seat. My object was gained.
I had been in Lynn two hours and a half and was a working-woman.

On my left the seat was vacant; on my right Maggie McGowan smiled at me,
although, poor thing, she had small cause to welcome the green hand who
demanded her time and patience. She was to "learn me pressin'," and she
did.

Before me was a board, black with stains of leather, an awl, a hammer, a
pot of foulest-smelling glue, and a package of piece-work, ticketed. The
branch of the trade I learned at Parsons' was as follows:

Before me was outspread a pile of bits of leather foxings, back straps,
vamps, etc. Dipping my brush in the glue, I gummed all the extreme
outer edges. When the "case" had been gummed, the first bits were dry,
then the fingers turned down the gummed edges of the leather into fine
little seams; these seams are then plaited with the awl and the ruffled
hem flattened with the hammer--this is "pressing." The case goes from
presser to the seaming machine.

The instruments turn in my awkward fingers. I spread glue where it
should not be: edges designated for its reception remain innocent. All
this means double work later. "_Twict the work_!" my teacher remarks.
Little by little, however, the simplicity of the manual action, the
uniformity, the mechanical movement declare themselves. I glance from
time to time at my expert neighbours, compare our work; in an hour I
have mastered the method--skill and rapidity can be mine only after many
days; but I worked alone, unaided.

As raw edges, at first defying my clumsiness, fell to fascinating
rounds, as the awl creased the leather into the fluting folds, as the
hammer mashed the gummed seam down, I enjoyed the process; it was
kindergarten and feminine toil combined, not too hard; but it was only
the beginning!

Meanwhile my teacher, patient-faced, lightning-fingered, sat close to
me, reeking perspiration, tired with the ordeal of instructing a
greenhorn. With no sign of exhausted patien