n of the war.

No experience necessary. Easier than washing, ironing, scrubbing or
sewing. $21 a week and up.

Apply Monday morning, 8 o'clock.

JOSIAH SPENCER & SON, INC.

As you have guessed, Mary composed that advertisement. It hadn't passed
without criticism.

"I don't think it's necessary to pay them as much as the men," Mac had
suggested. "To say the least it's vera generous and vera unusual."

"Why shouldn't they get as much as the men if they are going to do men's
work?" asked Mary. "Besides, I'm doing it for the men's sake, even more
than for the women's."

Mac stared at that and buttoned his mouth very tightly.

"They have been all through that in Europe," she explained. "Don't you
see? If a woman can do a man's work, and do it for less money, it brings
down men's wages. Because who would hire a man at $21 a week after the
war if they could get a woman to do the same work for $15?"

"You're richt," said Mac after a thoughtful pause. "I must pass that
along. I know from myself that the men will grumble when they think the
women are going to make as much money as themselves. But when they
richtly understand it's for their own sake, too, they'll hush their
noise."

Mary was one of the first at the factory on Monday.

"Won't I look silly, if nobody comes!" she had thought every time she
woke in the night. But she needn't have worried. There was an argument in
that advertisement, "Easier than washing, ironing, scrubbing or sewing,"
that appealed to many a feminine imagination, and when the fancy, thus
awakened, played around the promising phrase "$21 a week--and up," hope
presently turned to desire--and desire to resolution.

"We'll have to set up more machines," said Mary to Archey when she saw
the size of her first class. And looking them over with a proudly beating
heart she called out, "Good morning, everybody! Will you please follow
me?"

From this point on, particularly, I like to imagine the eight Josiah
Spencers who had gone before following the proceedings with ghostly steps
and eyes that missed not a move--invisible themselves, but hearing all
and saying nothing. And how they must have stared at each other as they
followed that procession over the factory grounds, the last of the
Spencers followed by a silent, winding train of women, like a new type of
Moses leading her sisters into the promised land!

As Mary had never doubted for a moment, the women of New Bethel proved
themselves capa