wanted "labelers,"
and as this sounded easy, I approached the foreman with something like
confidence. He asked what experience I'd had, and I gave him a truthful
reply.

"Sorry, but we're not running any kindergarten here," he replied curtly
and turned away.

I was still determined that I'd join the rank of cigar-makers. Somehow,
they impressed me as a very prosperous lot of people, and there was
something pungent and wholesome in the smell of the big, bright
workrooms.

The third foreman I besought was an elderly German with a paternal
manner. He listened to me kindly, said I looked quick, and offered to
put me on as an apprentice, explaining with much pomposity that
cigar-making was a very difficult trade, at which I must serve a three
years' apprenticeship before I could become a member of the union and
entitled to draw union wages. I left him feeling very humble, and
likewise disillusioned of my cigar-making ambitions.

"Girls wanted to learn binding and folding--paid while learning." The
address took me to Brooklyn Bridge and down a strange, dark thoroughfare
running toward the East River. Above was the great bridge, unreal,
fairy-like in the morning mist. I was looking for Rose Street, which
proved to be a zigzag alley that wriggled through one of the great
bridge arches into a world of book-binderies. Rose Street was choked
with moving carts loaded with yellow-back literature done up in bales.
The superintendent proved to be a civil young man. He did not need me
before Monday, but he told me to come back that day at half-past seven
and to bring a bone paper-cutter with me. He paid only three dollars a
week, and I accepted, but with the hope that as this was only Thursday,
and not yet nine o'clock, I might find something better in the meantime.

A Brooklyn merchant was in need of two "salesladies--experience not
necessary." A trolley-car swirled me across the river, now glistering in
the spring sunshine. We were hurtled down interminable vistas of small
shops, always under the grim iron trestle of the elevated railroad. At
the end of an hour I entered the "Majestic," a small store stocked with
trash. After much dickering, Mr. Lindbloom and his wife decided I'd do
at three and a half dollars per week, working from seven in the morning
till nine in the evening, Saturdays till midnight. I departed with the
vow that if I must work and starve, I should not do both in Lindbloom's.

Five cents got me back to Cort