ork easily and well.

"About five months."

"How much do you make?"

"From 90 cents to $1.05. I'm doing piece-work," she explains. "I get
seven-eighths of a cent for every dozen bottles I fill. I have to fill
eight dozen to make seven cents. Downstairs in the corking-room you can
make as high as $1.15 to $1.20. They won't let you make any more than
that. Me and them two girls over there are the only ones in this room
doing piece-work. I was here three weeks as a day-worker."

"Do you live at home?" I ask.

"Yes; I don't have to work. I don't pay no board. My father and my
brothers supports me and my mother. But," and her eyes twinkle, "I
couldn't have the clothes I do if I didn't work."

"Do you spend your money all on yourself?"

"Yes."

I am amazed at the cheerfulness of my companions. They complain of
fatigue, of cold, but never at any time is there a suggestion of
ill-humour. Their suppressed animal spirits reassert themselves when the
forewoman's back is turned. Companionship is the great stimulus. I am
confident that without the social _entrain_, the encouragement of
example, it would be impossible to obtain as much from each individual
girl as is obtained from them in groups of tens, fifties, hundreds
working together.

When lunch is over we are set to scrubbing. Every table and stand, every
inch of the factory floor must be scrubbed in the next four hours. The
whistle on Saturday blows an hour earlier. Any girl who has not finished
her work when the day is done, so that she can leave things in perfect
order, is kept overtime, for which she is paid at the rate of six or
seven cents an hour. A pail of hot water, a dirty rag and a
scrubbing-brush are thrust into my hands. I touch them gingerly. I get a
broom and for some time make sweeping a necessity, but the forewoman is
watching me. I am afraid of her. There is no escape. I begin to scrub.
My hands go into the brown, slimy water and come out brown and slimy. I
slop the soap-suds around and move on to a fresh place. It appears there
are a right and a wrong way of scrubbing. The forewoman is at my side.

"Have you ever scrubbed before?" she asks sharply. This is humiliating.

"Yes," I answer; "I have scrubbed ... oilcloth."

The forewoman knows how to do everything. She drops down on her knees
and, with her strong arms and short-thumbed, brutal hands, she shows me
how to scrub.

The grumbling is general. There is but one opinion among the girls: it