, and all hands
were put to work filling the cans with this corrosive material, for
which purpose rubber gloves were used. As I was the latest addition to
the factory, and the greenest girl in the place, it was easy for the
older and more experienced girls to secure the best gloves for the work.
The old, worn out ones, which were full of holes, fell to me, who was
too young and timid to rebel against these conditions. After a week of
this work my hands were all eaten by the lye and it was torturing agony
to move them in any way. At night my mother used to put salve and
bandages on them, but this treatment was of little avail because the
next day my hands would be covered with that horrible stuff which ate
deeper and deeper, until the pain became unbearable.

"So, one morning, I went to Mr. Hardwin and begged him, with tears in my
eyes, to let me work at something else until my hands were healed. He
looked at my swollen fingers and said: 'My poor girl, you certainly
shall work at something else. I will give you a nice easy job making
bird-seed boxes.'

"I was immediately put at my new work, which seemed really delightful to
me, but I was rather lonely, as I was the only girl on that floor. I
made thousands and thousands of those boxes, which were stacked in heaps
upon the shelves above my head. Directly behind me was a great belt,
connected with the cutting machine up-stairs, which all day long cut out
the round pieces of tin needed to cover the cans of lye after they were
filled. This belt as it whirled round and round made a great noise. But
I soon grew quite used to it. I became like a machine myself. All alone
I sat there, day after day, while the great belt whirred out the same
monotonous song. I kept time to its monotony by a few movements of the
hands endlessly repeated, turning out boxes and boxes and boxes, all
alike. I saw, heard, and felt almost nothing. My hands moved
unconsciously and instinctively. At this time, I think, the first
feeling of profound ennui came to me, that feeling which to shake off I
would at a later time do anything, anything, no matter how violent and
extreme it was. Only at noon time when the whistle shrieked did I seem
alive, and then I was dazed and trembling.

"The great belt then stopped whirring for half an hour and I sat and ate
my frugal meal, listening eagerly to the talk going on about me.
Sometimes the girls made me the butt of their jests, for they were
envious of me, beca