Pierre. Not that he was ashamed to
have his family rated as working people. Every one in the world, at
least those who were useful, worked in one way or another. His
humiliation lay in the fact that he who had thought himself able to be
the breadwinner for both mother and sister, was in reality nothing but
an unskilled laborer, whose services for the present commanded but
slight remuneration. The discovery was not only disconcerting but
galling. It was bad enough to have Marie enter the mill. But his
mother----! To think of his mother, at her age, becoming a mill
operative!

If the step was as repugnant to Madame Bretton as to Pierre she at least
made light of it. They must all live, she cheerily explained, and living
in America was a far different problem from what it had been in the
green valley of Bellerivre. And after all they were but doing what many
another household in Paterson was doing. Why should it be any less
dignified for her to labor in a mill than at raising silkworms? Besides,
it might not be for long. When Marie and Pierre learned and became more
expert maybe they would earn enough so that she could retire and stay
within doors like a lady of fortune, keeping the home and--she jestingly
added--dressing in some of the very silk she had helped to make. Thus
with affectionate banter Pierre's objections were quieted if not
overcome, and through the influence of Mr. Gautier, Madame Bretton's
brother, who was a superintendent in one of the larger mills of the
plant, good positions were found for the entire family.

Fortunately both Marie and Pierre were of an age to pass the Child Labor
Laws of the State, an important detail of which Pierre had previously
been in ignorance. Many children who applied for places, he learned,
were constantly being turned away because they were too young; and
because much of the work formerly done by them was now performed by
women or girls.

Among the toilers in the vast manufactory almost every country was
represented. There were more Italians than any other nationality; and
ranking after them came Germans, Irish, and Dutch, with a scattering of
French and Poles. It made the Brettons feel quite at home to find
themselves among some of their own countrymen.

But what a different place Paterson was from the fertile valley they had
left behind them! There were the great blackened factories--a city in
themselves--with their tall chimneys and whirring wheels, which one came
to