"sports." But the Subway!
Now there you were more likely to pick up with the dependable kind.
Every girl at the table knew one or several married couples whose
romances had begun on the Subway, and "every one of 'em turned out
happy." One girl told of a man she could have vamped the Sunday before
in the Subway, but he was too sportily dressed and she got scared and
quit in the middle. The other girls all approved her conduct. Each
expressed deep suspicion of the "sporty" man. Each supported the
Subway romance.

I withdrew my slur on the same.

* * * * *

A guilty feeling came over me as the day for leaving the laundry
approached. Miss Cross and I had become very friendly. We planned to
do all sorts of things together. Our floor was such a companionable,
sociable place. It didn't seem square to walk off and leave those
girls, black and white, who were my friends. In the other factories I
just disappeared as suddenly as I came. After a few days I could not
stand it and penned a jiggly note to Miss Cross. Unexpectedly, I was
going to have to move to Pennsylvania (that was true, for Christmas
vacation). I hated to leave her and the girls, etc., etc. I was her
loving friend, "Constance," alias "Sunbeam."

IV

_In a Dress Factory_

Fingers poke through cold holes in the wool mittens; the old coat with
two buttons gone flaps and blows about the knees; dirt, old papers,
spiral upward on the chill gusts of a raw winter day. Close your eyes,
duck your head, and hurry on. Under one arm is clutched the paper bag
with lunch and the blue-checked apron. Under the other the old
brown-leather bag. In the old brown-leather bag is an old black purse.
In the old black purse are fifty-five cents, a key, and a safety pin.
In the old brown bag are also two sticks of Black Jack chewing gum, a
frayed handkerchief, and the crumpled list of possibilities. If you
should lose the list!

That list was copied from the Sunday _World_--from the "Female Help
Wanted, Miscellaneous." The future looked bright Sunday. Now after
four attempts to land jobs had ended in being turned down cold, the
future did not look bright at all. Because, you understand, we are
going on the assumption that the old black purse in the old brown bag
with fifty-five cents and a key and a safety pin were all that stood
between us and--well, a number of dismal things. Which