they
was burned to a crisp? Did you know them winders was nailed so they
wouldn't go up any higher 'n a foot? Did you know they 'ain't got 'nouf
fire-escapes to get half of us out ef anythin' happened? Did you never
take notice to the floor roun' them three biggest old machines they've
got up on the sixth? I stepped acrost there this mornin'--Mr. Brace sent
me up on a message to the forewoman--an' that floor shook under my feet
like a earthquake! Sam Warner says the building ain't half strong enough
fer them machines, anyway. He says they'd oughtta put 'em down on the
first floor; but they didn't want to 'cause they don't show off good to
visitors, so they stuck 'em up on the sixth, where they don't many see
'em. But Sam says some day they're goin' to bust right through the
floor, an' ef they do, they ain't gonta stop till they get clear down to
the cellar, an' they'll wipe out everythin' in their way when they go!
B'leeve me! I don't wantta be workin' here when that happens!"

"_Good night!_" said Susie, turning pale. "Them big machines on the
sixth is right over where I work on the fifth! Say, Katie, le's ast Mr.
Brace to put us on the other side the room! Aw, gee! Katie! What's the
use o' livin'? I'd 'most be willin' to be dead jest to get cool! Seems
zif it's allus either awful hot er awful cold!"

They went to their stifling tenements and their unattractive suppers.
They dragged their weary feet over the hot, dark pavements, laughing and
talking boisterously with their comrades, or crowded into places of
amusement to forget for a little while, then to creep back to toss the
night out on a hard cot in breathless air or to creep to fire-escape or
flat roof for a few brief hours of relief, till it was time to return to
the vine-clad factory and its hot, noisy slavery for another day.

Three girls fainted on the fifth floor and two on the sixth next
morning. They were not carried to the cool and shaded rest-rooms to
revive, but lay on the floor with their heads huddled on a pile of
waste, and had a little warmish water from the rusty "cooler" in the
back stairway poured upon them as they lay. No white-clad nurse with
palm leaf and cooling drinks attended their unconscious state, although
there was one in attendance in the rest-room whose duty it was to look
after the comfort of any chance visitors. When any stooped to succor
here, she fanned her neighbor with her apron, casting an anxious eye on
her own silent machi