ing is not fire-proof. There is no fire-escape.
A cry of fire, and great Heaven! what escape for two hundred of us from
this mountain height, level with roofs of the distant town!

Thus these women, shapes mysterious in gaslight and twilight, labour:
life is at stake; health, youth, vigour, supply little more than bread.
I rise; my bruised limbs, at first numb, then aching, stir for the first
time after five hours of steady work. The pile of shoes before me is
feeble evidence of the last hours' painful effort.

I get into my clothes--skirt, jacket and hat, all impregnated now with
factory and tenement odours, and stumble downstairs and out into the
street. I have earned fifty cents to-day--but then, I am green!

When once more in the cool, fresh air, released, I draw in a long and
grateful breath.

Lynn on this winter night is a snow-bound, midwinter village. In the
heavens is the moon's ghost, a mist-shrouded, far-away disk. But it is
the Christmas moon, shining on the sleeping thousands in the town, where
night alone is free. The giant factories are silent, the machines at
last quiet, the long workrooms moon-invaded. Labour is holy, but serfdom
is accursed, and toil which demands that every hour of daylight should
be spent in the race for existence--all of the daylight--is kin to
slavery! There is no time for mental or physical upright-standing, no
time for pleasure.

* * * * *

One day I decided to consider myself dismissed from Parsons'. They had
taught me all they could, unless I changed my trade, in that shop; I
wished to learn a new one in another. Therefore, one morning I applied
at another factory, again one of the largest in Lynn. The sign read:

"_Cleaner Wanted_!"

"Cleaner" sounded easy to learn. My experience this time was with a
foreman instead of a forelady. The workroom I sought was on the second
floor, a room filled with men, all of them standing. Far down the room's
centre I saw the single figure of a woman at her job. By her side I was
soon to be, and we two the sole women on the second floor.

The foreman was distinctly a personage. Small, kind, alive, he wore a
straw hat and eye-glasses. He had decided in a moment that my short
application for "something to do" was not to be gainsaid.

"Ever worked before?"

This time I had a branch of a trade at my fingers' ends.

"Yes, sir; presser."

I was proud of my trade.

I did not even know, as I do now, that