given an hour at noon. The first half
of it should be spent in rest and recreation before a bite is touched.
The good that such a regulation would work upon their faulty skins and
pale faces, their lasting strength and health, would be incalculable. I
did not want wholesome food, exhausted as I was. I craved sours and
sweets, pickles, cake, anything to excite my numb taste.

So long as I remain in the bottling department there is little variety
in my days. Rising at 5:30 every morning, I make my way through black
streets to offer my sacrifice of energy on the altar of toil. All is
done without a fresh incident. Accumulated weariness forces me to take a
day off. When I return I am sent for in the corking-room. The forewoman
lends me a blue gingham dress and tells me I am to do "piece"-work.
There are three who work together at every corking-table. My two
companions are a woman with goggles and a one-eyed boy. We are not a
brilliant trio. The job consists in evening the vinegar in the bottles,
driving the cork in, first with a machine, then with a hammer, letting
out the air with a knife stuck under the cork, capping the corks,
sealing the caps, counting and distributing the bottles. These
operations are paid for at the rate of one-half a cent for the dozen
bottles, which sum is divided among us. My two companions are earning a
living, so I must work in dead earnest or take bread out of their
mouths. At every blow of the hammer there is danger. Again and again
bottles fly to pieces in my hand. The boy who runs the corking-machine
smashes a glass to fragments.

"Are you hurt?" I ask, my own fingers crimson stained.

"That ain't nothin'," he answers. "Cuts is common; my hands is full of
'em."

The woman directs us; she is fussy and loses her head, the work
accumulates, I am slow, the boy is clumsy. There is a stimulus
unsuspected in working to get a job done. Before this I had worked to
make the time pass. Then no one took account of how much I did; the
factory clock had a weighted pendulum; now ambition outdoes physical
strength. The hours and my purpose are running a race together. But,
hurry as I may, as we do, when twelve blows its signal we have corked
only 210 dozen bottles! This is no more than day-work at seventy cents.
With an ache in every muscle, I redouble my energy after lunch. The girl
with the goggles looks at me blindly and says:

"Ain't it just awful hard work? You can make good money, but you've got