l activity devoid of thought? It was this for which I sought an
answer; it is for this I propose a remedy.

At the threshold of the mill door my roommate and I encountered Mr.
Norse. There was irony in the fates allotted us. She was eager to make
money; I was indifferent. Mr. Norse felt her in his power; I felt him in
mine. She was given a job at twenty-five cents a day and all she could
make; I was offered the favourite work in the mill--shirt finishing, at
thirty cents a day and all I could make; and when I shook my head to see
how far I could exploit my indifference and said, "Thirty cents is too
little," Mr. Norse's answer was: "Well, I suppose you, like the rest of
us, are trying to earn a living. I will guarantee you seventy-five cents
a day for the first two weeks, and all you can make over it is yours."
My apprenticeship began under the guidance of an "old girl" who had been
five years in the mill. A dozen at a time the woolen shirts were brought
to us, complete all but the adding of the linen strips in front where
the buttons and buttonholes are stitched. The price of this operation is
paid for the dozen shirts five, five and a half and six cents, according
to the complexity of the finish. My instructress had done as many as
forty dozen in one day; she averaged $1.75 a day all the year around.
While she was teaching me the factory paid her at the rate of ten cents
an hour.

A touch of the machine's pedal set the needle to stitching like mad. A
second touch in the opposite direction brought it to an abrupt
standstill. For the five hours of my first afternoon session there was
not an instant's harmony between what I did and what I intended to do. I
sewed frantically into the middle of shirts. I watched my needle,
impotent as it flew up and down, and when by chance I made a straight
seam I brought it to so sudden a stop that the thread raveled back
before my weary eyes. When my back and fingers ached so that I could no
longer bend over the work, I watched my comrades with amazement. The
machine was not a wild animal in their hands, but an instrument that
responded with niceness to their guidance. Above the incessant roar and
burring din they called gaily to each other, gossiping, chatting,
telling stories. What did they talk about? Everything, except domestic
cares. The management of an interior, housekeeping, cooking were things
I never once heard mentioned. What were the favourite topics, those
returned to most