ns from
$12 to $15 a week. Here are the yearly budgets of some of the better paid
workers, more skilled than Natalya--operatives receiving from $10 to $15
a week.

Rachael, a shirt-waist operative of eighteen, had been at work three
years. She had begun at $5 a week and her skill had increased until in a
very busy week she could earn from $14 to $15 by piece-work. "But," she
said, "I was earning too much, so I was put back at week's work, at $11 a
week. The foreman is a bad, driving man. Ugh! he makes us work
fast--especially the young beginners."

Rachael, too, had been driven out of Russia by Christian persecution. Her
little sister had been killed in a massacre. Her parents had gone in one
direction, and she and her two other sisters had fled in another to
America.

Here in New York she lived in a tenement, sharing a room with two other
girls, and, besides working in the shirt-waist factory, did her own
washing, made her own waists, and went to night school.

Her income was seriously depleted by the seasonal character of her work.
Out of the twelve months of the year, for one month she was idle, for
four months she had only three or four days' work a week, for three
months she had five days' work a week, and for four months only did she
have work for all six days. Unhappily, during these months she developed
a severe cough, which lost her seven weeks of work, and gave her during
these weeks the expense of medicine, a doctor, and another boarding
place, as she could not in her illness sleep with her two friends.

Her income for the year had been $348.25. Her expenses had been as
follows: rent for one-third of room at $3.50 a month, $42; suppers with
landlady at 20 cents each, $63; other meals, approximately, $90; board
while ill, seven weeks at $7, $49; doctor and medicine (about) $15;
clothing, $51.85; club, 5 cents a week, $2.60; total, $313.45, thus
leaving a balance of $34.80.

Shoes alone consumed over one-half of the money used for clothing. They
wore out with such amazing rapidity that she had needed a new pair once a
month. At $2 each, except a best pair, costing $2.60, their price in a
year amounted to $24.60.[13]

In regard to Rachael's expenditure and conservation in strength, she had
drawn heavily upon her health and energy. Her cough continued to exhaust
her. She was worn and frail, and at eighteen her health was breaking.

Anna Klotin, another older skilled worker, an able and clever Russian
gi