ur at noon? Of course, this magnificent hour
is theirs! Time to eat, time to feed the human machine. One hour in
which to stretch limbs, to pull to upright posture the bent body.
Meanwhile daylight progresses from glowing beauty to high noon, and
there the acme of brilliance seems to pause, as freed humanity stares
half-blinded at God's midday rest.

All the remaining hours of daylight are for the leisure world. Not till
night claims Lynn shall the factory girl be free.

Ascending the five flights of dirty stairs, my steps fell side by side
those of a young workman in drilling coat. He gave me a good-morning in
a cheery tone.

"Working here? Got it good?"

"I guess so."

"That's all right. Good-day."

Therefore I began my first labour day with a good wish from my new
class!

On the fifth floor I was one of the very first arrivals. If in the long,
low-ceiled room windows had been opened, the flagging air gave no sign
to the effect. It was fetid and cold. Daylight had not fully found the
workshop, gas was lit, and no work prepared. I was eager to begin, but
was forced to wait before idle tools till work was given me--hard ordeal
for ambitious piece-worker. At the tick of seven, however, I had begun
my branch of the shoe-making trade. One by one my mates arrived; the
seats beyond me and on either side were filled.

Opposite me sat a ghost of girlhood. A tall, slender creature, cheeks
like paper, eyes sunken. She, too, had the smile of good-fellowship--coin
freely passed from workwoman to workwoman.

This girl's job was filthy. She inked edges of the shoes with a brush
dipped in a pot of thick black fluid. Pile after pile of piece-work was
massed in front of her; pile by pile disappeared. She worked like
lightning.

"Do you like your job?" I ventured. This seemed to be the open sesame to
all conversations in the shops. She shrugged her narrow shoulders but
made no direct reply. "I used to have what you're doing; it's awful.
That glue made me sick. I was in bed. So when I came back I got _this_."
She was separated from my glue-pot by a table's length only.

"But don't you smell it from here?"

"Not so bad; this here" (pointing to her black fluid) "smells stronger;
it _drownds_ it.

"I make my wages clear," she announced to me a few minutes later.

"How do you mean?"

"Why, at noon I wait in a restaurant; they give me my dinner afterward.
I go back there and wait on the table at supper, too. My vittles don