dismissed. The other children looked at his work and
quickly copied it before the teacher could erase it from the blackboard.
Not I, however, for I was at the other end of the room and my eyes were
weak. I enviously watched the other children leaving the room, until I
was alone with the teacher. I tried the terrible, senseless problem
again and again and became so confused and nervous that I was on the
verge of tears. All the little knowledge I had of mathematics left me
completely. Finally the teacher lost her patience and showed me how to
get the answer.

"'You stupid girl!' she said, 'you will never pass the examination.'

"But I did not care. I ran from the school-house, and on my way home
kept saying to myself: 'I don't have to pass, for I'm going to work next
week, and I'm so glad. Then I'll never, never have to study arithmetic
any more. Oh, how I wish next week were here already.' I was not quite
twelve years old and I would have been working even then if my
prospective employers had not instructed my parents to secure a
certificate showing that I was fourteen years old.

"The next Monday morning, bright and early, with this new certificate,
which was sworn to by my mother and duly attested by a notary, I
presented myself at the office of Messrs. Hardwin & Co., in South Water
Street. They were wholesale dealers in miscellaneous household supplies,
from bird-seed and flavouring extracts to bluing and lye, the latter the
principal article. Mr. Hardwin, a benevolent looking old gentleman with
a white beard and a skull-cap, glanced at the certificate, and patting
stupid me kindly on the head, hired me for two dollars a week, and sent
me upstairs where I was put to work washing old cans collected from the
ash barrels and alleys of the city. After being cleansed, they were
filled with lye, and new covers sealed on them. Then they were covered
with neat white labels, and packed in cases and delivered to all parts
of the United States.

"This sort of work was not what I had expected to do. But I was told by
my mother that all people who worked for their living had to start in
that way, and gradually work themselves upwards. So I waited patiently
for the time when I might, perhaps, secure the position of labelling.
Then, too, I thought that great place would bring an increase of salary,
for I had already learned that the lighter the work, the heavier the
pay.

"About this time the firm received large orders for lye