can at last
be bundled on the ex-painter's back, who smiles to himself as he toils
down to the firm's headquarters, reflecting that he has saved the
expressage another week. What are the returns? Lisa will give them,--the
wife whose English is still uncertain, and whose gentle, anxious eyes
grow eager and bright as she talks, the husband nodding confirmation, or
shaking his head as he sees the tears come suddenly, with a "Not so, not
so, Lisa."

"I know not if we shall live at all," she says. "For see. We two, my
Gretchen and I, we make but ten for a day. Tree dollar? Yes, but you
must take from it de buttonhole an' finish and much else, and it is so
short--so short that we can work on them. The season, that is it--six
weeks--two months, maybe, and then pantaloon till spring jacket come.
See. It is early that we begin,--seven, maybe,--and all day we shall sew
and sew. We eat no warm essen. On table dere is bread and beer in
pitcher and cheese to-day. We sit not down, for time goes away so. No,
we stand and eat as we must, and sew more and more. Ten jackets to one
day--so Gretchen and me can make ten jackets to one day, but we sit
always--we go not out. It is fourteen hours efery day--yes, many time
sixteen--we work and work. Then we fall on bed and sleep, and when we
wake again it is work always. And I must stop a leetle; not much, but a
leetle, for my back have such pain that I fall on the bed to say, 'Ach
Gott! is it living to work so in this rich, free America?' But he is
sick always, my man, even if he will laugh. He say he must laugh alway
for two because I cannot. For when this work is past it is only
pantaloons, and sew so hard as we may it is five, six pair maybe, for
Gretchen and me all day, and that not always. Many day we do nothing
because they say work is dull, and then goes away all we save before.
But we need not to ask help. So much is good that we work and earn, but
I think I die soon of my pain, and who then helps his fingers so stiff
to press or thinks how he will ache even when he will laugh? It is
because America is best that we come, but how is it best to die because
it is always work and no joy, no hope, never one so small stop?"

"Never one so small stop." The attic had the same story, and the
white-faced, hollow-eyed woman who tried to smile as she spoke turned
also from the waiting pile of jackets and drew one or two back to the
sheet spread for them on the floor to which they had slipped. A t