often some part at least of her working clothes. She has two weeks'
holidays with wages. She may save in a year a quarter or a third as
much money as the entire earnings of her girl friends. At twelve dollars
a week, working forty-two weeks in the year, the girl in a factory can earn
five hundred and four dollars, out of which she has of course to pay all
her expenses. The house worker who is earning twenty-five, thirty or
thirty-five dollars a month can easily save two hundred dollars in a year,
and a number of them do so. Girls in other paid employments, who pay board
and lodging, washing, and carfare out of ten or twelve dollars a week,
are practically unable to save anything.

A competent house worker is beyond the fear of unemployment, while the
possibility of unemployment or of being laid off for a number of weeks is
an anxiety to many other paid women workers. When she marries and has a
home of her own to take care of, the house worker is at a great advantage.
She can take up the work of a home easily, and her management is a success
from the beginning.

The accomplishment most frequently required from the domestic worker is
ability to cook. The girl who has a natural gift in this direction should
take pains to develop it. She may have to begin to earn her living when she
is quite young. In this case she should apply for a position as second maid
in a household where a cook is kept, and she should be careful to learn
from the cook all that she needs to know in order to become a professional
expert in cooking. Or she should look for a position as house worker with
an employer who is herself a good housekeeper and who is willing to train
her.

The improvement of housework conditions is largely in the hands of
household employees. If a young woman is an excellent cook and a competent
household manager, she can make practically her own conditions with women
employers. If she prefers to live at home or in a room of her own outside
the house where she is employed, she can explain to her employer the hours
that she is willing to be on duty and how the work of the house can be
arranged so that she can accomplish the greater part of it during these
hours. She will be certain to find some intelligent woman employer who
will agree to her conditions. Only the first-class worker, who can plan
and carry out her plans successfully, will be able to do this; and every
woman employer may not see the benefit of such an arrangemen