the expressed curiosity of the New York worker as to my past, present,
and future. Not until the last few days did I feel forced to volunteer
now and then enough information so that they would get my name and me
more or less clear in their minds and never feel, after their
heart-warming cordiality, that I had tried "to put anything over on
them." Whether I was Miss Parks or Mrs. Parker, it made no difference
to them. It did to me, for I felt here at last I could keep up the
contacts I had made; and instead of walking off suddenly, leaving good
friends behind without a word, I could honestly say I was off to the
next job, promise everyone I'd write often and come again to the
Falls, and have everyone promise to write me and never come to New
York without letting me know. I can lie awake nights and imagine what
fun it is going to be getting back to the Falls some day and waiting
by the bridge down at the bleachery for the girls to come out at noon,
seeing them all again. Maybe Mrs. Halley will call out her, "Hi! look
'ose 'ere!"

* * * * *

At our bleachery, be it known, no goods were manufactured. We took
piece goods in the rough, mostly white, bleached, starched, and
finished it, and rolled or folded the finished stuff for market. In
Department 10, where most of the girls worked, the west end of the big
third floor, three grades of white goods were made into sheets and
pillow cases, ticketed, bundled, and boxed for shipping. Along the
entire end of the room next the windows stood the operating machines,
with rows of girls facing one another, all hemming sheets or making
pillow cases. There were some ten girls who stood at five heavy
tables, rapidly shaking out the hemmed sheets, inspecting them for
blemishes of any kind, folding them for the mangle, hundreds and
hundreds a day. At other tables workers took the ironed sheets,
ticketed them, tied them in bundles, wrapped and labeled and stacked
the bundles, whereupon they sooner or later were wheeled off to one
side and boxed. Four girls worked at the big mangle. Besides the
mangle, one girl spent her day hand-ironing such wrinkles as appeared
now and then after the mangle had done its work.

So much for sheets. There were three girls (the term "girl" is used
loosely, since numerous females in our department will never see fifty
again) who slipped pillow cases over standing frames which poked out
the corners. After they were mangled they