thousand times. It seemed a lot when
you think of the hard stool. It was a toss between which was the
worse, the stool or the air. This afternoon, I was sure it must be
3.30. I looked back at the clock--1.10. It had seemed like two hours
of work and it was forty minutes. No ventilation whatever in that
whole room--not a crack of air. Wonder if there ever was any since the
place was built decades ago. Once Louisa and I became desperate and
got Tony to open a window. The forelady had a fit; so did Tillie. Both
claimed they'd caught cold.

Tony is the Louis of the brassworks. He is young and very lame--one
leg considerably shorter than the other. It makes me miserable to see
him packing heavy boxes about. He told me he must get another job or
quit. Finally they did put him at a small machine press. So many
maimed and halt and decrepit as they employed about the works! Numbers
of the workers were past-telling old, several were very lame, one
errand boy had a fearfully deformed face, one was cross-eyed. I
remarked to Minnie that the boss of the works must have a mighty good
heart. Minnie has been working twenty-three years and has had the
bloom of admiration for her fellow-beings somewhat worn off in that
time. "Hm!" grunted Minnie. "He gets 'em cheaper that way, I guess."

The elevator man is no relation to the one at the candy factory. He is
red faced and grinning, most of his teeth are gone, and he always
wears a derby hat over one eye. One morning I was late. He jerked his
head and thumb toward the elevator. "Come on, I'll give ya a lift up!"
and when we reached our floor, though it was the men's side, "Third
Avenue stop!" he called out cheerily, and grinned at the world. He had
been there for years. The boss on our floor had been there for
years--forty-three, to be exact. Miss Hibber would not tell how many
years she had worked there, nor would Tillie. Tillie said she was born
there.

If it were only the human element that counted, everyone would stay at
the brassworks forever. I feel like a snake in the grass, walking off
"on them" when they all were so nice. Nor was it for a moment the
"dearie" kind of niceness that made you feel it was orders from above.
From our floor boss down, they were people who were born to treat a
body square. All the handicaps against them--the work itself, the
surroundings, the low pay--had so long been part of their lives, these
"higher ups" seemed insensible to the fact that such thing