ted to
work without machinery in a shop where the girls used their hands alone
as power. Here seemed to be my heart's content--a short, concise
advertisement, "Wanted, hand sewers." After a consultation with a
policeman as to the whereabouts of my future employer, it became evident
that I must part with another of my ten cents, as the hand sewers worked
on the opposite side of the city from the neighbourhood whither I had
strayed in my morning's wanderings. I took a car and alighted at a busy
street in the fashionable shopping centre of Chicago. The number I
looked for was over a steep flight of dirty wooden stairs. If there is
such a thing as luck it was now to dwell a moment with one of the
poorest. I pushed open a swinging door and let myself into the office of
a clothing manufacturer.

The owner, Mr. F., got up from his desk and came toward me.

"I seen your advertisement in the morning paper."

"Yes," he answered in a kindly voice. "Are you a tailoress?"

"No, sir; I've never done much sewing except on a machine."

"Well, we have machines here."

"But," I almost interrupted, beginning to fear that my training at Perry
was to limit all further experience to an electric Singer, "I'd rather
work with my hands. I like the hand-work."

He looked at me and gave me an answer which exactly coincided with my
theories. He said this, and it was just what I wanted him to say.

"If you do hand-work you'll have to use your mind. Lots of girls come in
here with an idea they can let their thoughts wander; but you've got to
pay strict attention. You can't do hand-work mechanically."

"All right, sir," I responded. "What do you pay?"

"I'll give you six dollars a week while you're learning." I could hardly
control a movement of delight. Six dollars a week! A dollar a day for an
apprentice!

"But"--my next question I made as dismal as possible--"when do you pay?"

"Generally not till the end of the second week," the kindly voice said;
"but we could arrange to pay you at the end of the first if you needed
the money."

"Shall I come in Monday?"

"Come in this afternoon at 12:30 if you're ready."

"I'm ready," I said, "but I ain't brought no lunch with me, and it's too
late now to get home and back again."

The man put his hand in his pocket and laid down before me a fifty-cent
piece, advanced on my pay.

"Take that," he said, with courtesy; "get yourself a lunch in the
neighbourhood and come back at half-past twelv