must be
filled by the end of that week or they would feel justified in
canceling the same. Every girl read the letter and dug her toes in. No
one ever said, "You gotta work overtime to-night!" We just mutually
decided there was nothing else to do about it, so it was, "Let's work
overtime to-night again." It was time-and-a-half pay for overtime, to
be sure, but it would be safe to assert it was not alone for the time
and a half we worked. We felt we had to catch up on orders. A few
times only, some one by about four o'clock would call: "Oh, gee! I'm
dead; I've been workin' like a horse all day. I jus' can't work
overtime to-night." The chances were if one girl had been working like
a horse we all had. Such was the interrelation of jobs at our table.

Except, indeed, Italian Nancy. Whether it was because Nancy was young,
or not overstrong, or not on piece rates, or a mixture of the three,
Nancy never anguished herself working, either during the day or
overtime. One evening she spent practically the entire overtime hour,
at time and a half, washing and ironing a collar and cuffs for one of
the girls. Nor did any of our table think it at all amiss.

During the day Nancy was the main little visitor from our table. She
ambled around and brought back the news. If interesting enough from
any quarter, another of us would betake herself off for more details.
One day Nancy's young eyes were as big as saucers.

"Say, whatdyaknow! That Italian girl Minna, she's only fifteen and
she's got a gold ring on with a white stone in it and she says she's
engaged!" We sent Nancy back for more details. For verification she
brought back the engagement ring itself. "Whatdyaknow! Only fifteen!"
(Nancy herself was a year beyond that mature age.) "The man she's
goin' to marry is awful old, twenty-five! Whatdyaknow!" At a previous
time Nancy had regaled our table with an account of how, out of a
sense of duty to a fellow-countryman, she had announced to this same
Minna that she simply must take a bath. "Na," said Minna, "too early
yet." That was the end of May.

We were all, even I after the third day, on piecework at our table,
except Nancy. Most of the girls in Department 10 were on piecework.
There was one union in the bleachery; that was in another department
where mostly men were employed--the folders. They worked time rates.
With us, as soon as a girl's record warranted it, she was put on piece
rates. Nancy and most of those young girls w