of Letty--a
little night-dress and a tiny blue cotton dress. I put my bundle down by
the side of my bed which I am to share with another woman, and descend,
for Mrs. Jones' voice summons me to the midday meal.

The nourishment provided for these thirteen-hour-a-day labourers is as
follows: On a tin saucepan there was a little salt pork and on another
dish a pile of grease-swimming spinach. A ragged Negro hovered over
these articles of diet; the room was full of the smell of frying. After
the excitement of my search for work, and the success, if success it can
be called that so far had met me, I could not eat; I did not even sit
down. I made my excuse. I said that I had had something to eat in
Columbia, and started out to the mill.

By the time the mill-hand has reached his home a good fifteen minutes
out of the three-quarters of an hour recreation is gone: his food is
quickly bolted, and by the time I have reached the little brick hotel
pointed out to me that morning and descended to its cellar restaurant,
forced myself to drink a cup of sassafras tea, and mounted again into
the air, the troop of workers is on the march millward. I join them.

Although the student of philanthropy and the statistician would find
difficulty in forcing the countersign of the manufactories, the worker
may go everywhere.

I do not see my friend of the morning, the overseer, in the
"weave-room"; indeed, there is no one to direct me; but I discover,
after climbing the stairs, a room of flying spools and more subdued
machinery, and it appears that the spool-room is this man's especial
charge. He consigns to me a standing job. A set of revolving spools is
designated, and he secures a pretty young girl of about sixteen, who
comes cheerfully forward and consents to "learn" me.

Spooling is not disagreeable, and the room is the quietest part of the
mill--noisy enough, but calm compared to the others. In Excelsior this
room is, of course, enormous, light and well ventilated, although the
temperature, on account of some quality of the yarn, is kept at a point
of humidity far from wholesome.

"Spooling" is hard on the left arm and the side. Heart disease is a
frequent complaint amongst the older spoolers. It is not dirty compared
to shoe-making, and whereas one stands to "spool," when one is not
waiting for yarn it is constant movement up and down the line. The fact
that there are more children than young girls, more young girls than
women, pr