houlders are bowed, her chest is hollow.

"Looking for a boarding place near the factory, I hear," she continues.

"Yes. You live at home, I suppose."

"Yes. There's four of us: mamma, papa, my sister and myself. Papa's
blind."

"Can't he work?"

"Oh, yes, he creeps to his job every morning, and he's got so much
experience he kind o' does things by instinct."

"Does your mother work?"

"Oh, my, no. My sister's an invalid. She hasn't been out o' the door for
three years. She's got enlargement of the heart and consumption, too, I
guess; she 'takes' hemorrhages. Sometimes she has twelve in one night.
Every time she coughs the blood comes foaming out of her mouth. She
can't lie down. I guess she'd die if she lay down, and she gets so tired
sittin' up all night. She used to be a tailoress, but I guess her job
didn't agree with her."

"How many checks have we got," I ask toward the close of the day.

"Thirteen," Ella answers.

"An unlucky number," I venture, hoping to arouse an opinion.

"Are you superstitious?" she asks, continuing to twist tin caps on the
pickle jars. "I am. If anything's going to happen I can't help having
presentiments, and they come true, too."

Here is a mystic, I thought; so I continued:

"And what about dreams?"

"Oh!" she cried. "Dreams! I have the queerest of anybody!"

I was all attention.

"Why, last night," she drew near to me, and spoke slowly, "I dreamed
that mamma was drunk, and that she was stealing chickens!"

Such is the imagination of this weary worker.

The whole problem in mechanical labour rests upon economy of force. The
purpose of each, I learned by experience, was to accomplish as much as
possible with one single stroke. In this respect the machine is superior
to man, and man to woman. Sometimes I tried original ways of doing the
work given me. I soon found in every case that the methods proposed by
the forewoman were in the end those whereby I could do the greatest
amount of work with the least effort. A mustard machine had recently
been introduced to the factory. It replaced three girls; it filled as
many bottles with a single stroke as the girls could fill with twelve.
This machine and all the others used were run by boys or men; the girls
had not strength enough to manipulate them methodically.

The power of the machine, the physical force of the man were simplifying
their tasks. While the boy was keeping steadily at one thing, perfecting
himself, we, the