ce, however, she gummed my
vamps with the ill-smelling glue.

"This glue makes lots of girls sick! In the other shops where I worked
they just got sick, one by one, and quit. I stuck it out. The forelady
said to me when I left: 'My! I never thought anybody could stand it's
long's you have.'"

I asked, "What would you rather do than this?"

She didn't seem to know.

"I don't do this for fun, though! Nor do you--I bet you!"

(I didn't--but not quite for her reason.)

As I had yet my room to make sure of, I decided to leave early. I told
Maggie McGowan I was going home.

"Tired already?" There was still an hour to dark.

As I explained to her my reasons she looked at my amateur accomplishment
spread on the board before us. I had only pressed a case of shoes--three
dozen pairs.

"I guess I'll have to put it on my card," she soliloquized, "'cause I
learned you."

"Do--do----"

"It's only about seven cents, anyway."

"Three hours' work and that's all I've made?"[2]

[Footnote 2: An expert presser can do as many as 400 shoes a day.
This is rare and maximum.]

She regarded me curiously, to see how the amount tallied with my hope of
gain and wealth.

"Yet you tell me I'm not stupid. How long have you been at it?"

[Illustration: "LEARNING" A NEW HAND

Miss P., an experienced "gummer" on vamp linings, is a New England girl,
and makes $8 or $9 a week. The new hand makes from $2.50 to $3 a week at
the same work]

"Ten years."

"And you make?"

"Well, I don't want to discourage you." ...

(If Maggie used this expression once she used it a dozen times; it was
her pat on the shoulder, her word of cheer before coming ill news.)

"... I don't want to discourage you, but it's slow! I make about twelve
dollars a week."

"Then I will make four!"

(Four? Could it be possible I dreamed of such sums at this stage of
ignorance!)

"_I don't want to discourage you_, but I guess you'd better do
housework!"

It was clear, then, that for weeks I was to drop in with the lot of
women wage-earners who make under five dollars a week for ten hours a
day labour.

"Why don't _you_ do housework, Maggie?"

"I do. I get up at five and do all the work of our house, cook
breakfast, and clean up before I come to the shop. I eat dinner here.
When I go home at night I get supper and tidy up!"

My expression as I fell to gumming foxings was not pity for my own fate,
as she, generous creature, took it to be.

"After y