erials herself. From among the three
hundred girls, thirty girls struck, went to Union headquarters, and asked
to be organized. But Madame Cora simply filled their places with other
girls who were willing to supply her with thread for her corsets, and
refused to take them back. Katia did not respect Madame Cora's methods,
and had left before the strike.

Katia spent $2.50 a week for breakfast and dinner and for her share of a
room with a congenial friend, another Russian girl, in Harlem. The room
was close and opened on an air-shaft, but was quiet and rather pleasant.
She paid from $1.25 to $1.50 for luncheons, and, out of the odd hundred
dollars left from her income, had contrived, by doing her own washing and
making her own waists, to buy all her clothing, and to spend $5 for books
and magazines, $7 for grand opera, which she deeply loved, and $30 for an
outing. On account of her cleverness Katia was less at the mercy of
unjust persons than some of the less skilful and younger girls.

Among these, Molly Davousta, another young machine operative, was
struggling to make payments to an extortionate ticket seller, who had
swindled her in the purchase of a steamboat ticket.

When Molly was thirteen, her mother and father, who had five younger
children, had sent her abroad out of Russia, with the remarkable
intention of having her prepare and provide a home for all of them in
some other country.

Like Dick Whittington, the little girl went to London, though to seek,
not only her own fortune, but that of seven other people. After she had
been in London for four years, her father died. She and her next younger
sister, Bertha, working in Russia, became the sole support of the family;
and now, learning that wages were better in America, Molly, like
Whittington, turned again and came to New York.

Here she found work on men's coats, at a wage fluctuating from $5 to $9 a
week. She lived in part of a tenement room for a rent of $3 a month. For
supper and Saturday meals she paid $1.50 a week. Other food she bought
from groceries and push carts, at a cost of about $2 a week. As she did
her own washing, and walked to work, she had no other fixed expenses,
except for shoes. Once in every two months these wore to pieces and she
was forced to buy new ones; and, till she had saved enough to pay for
them, she went without her push cart luncheon and breakfast.

In this way she lived in New York for a year, during which time she
manag