ere still, after one or
two years, on time rates--around eleven dollars a week they made.
There was one case of a girl who did little, day in and day out, but
her hair. She was the one girl who used a lipstick. They had taken her
off time rates and put her on piecework. She was a machine operator.
The last week I was there her earnings were a little over two dollars
for the week. She was incorrigible. Some of the machine operators made
around thirty dollars a week. The mangle girls earned around
twenty-five dollars. Old Mrs. Owens, standing up and inspecting
sheets at the table behind me, made from twenty dollars to twenty-five
dollars. (Mrs. Owens had inspected sheets for thirteen years. I asked
her if she ever felt she wanted to change and try something else. "No,
sir," said Mrs. Owens; "a rolling stone gathers no moss.") Mamie,
bundler, made around sixteen dollars; Margaret, at our table, went as
high once as twenty-five dollars, but she averaged around twenty
dollars. My own earnings were twelve dollars and fifty-three cents the
first week, fifteen dollars and twenty-three cents the second, eight
dollars and twenty-seven cents the third. All the earnings at our
table were low that last week--Margaret's were around twelve dollars.
For one thing, there was a holiday. No wonder employers groan over
holidays! The workers begin to slacken up about two days ahead and it
takes two days after the day off to recover. Then, too, we indulged in
too much nonsense that last week. We laughed more than we worked, and
paid for it. The next week Mamie and Margaret claimed they were going
to bring their dinners the whole week to work that noon hour and make
up for our evil days. But as gray-haired Ella Jane said, she laughed
so much that week she claimed she had a stomach ache. "We'll be a long
time dead, once we die. Why not laugh when you get a chance?"

Why not?--especially in a small town where it is well to take each
chance for fun and recreation as it comes--since goodness knows when
the next will show itself. Outside of the gayety during working
hours, there was little going on about the Falls. Movies--of course,
movies. Four times a week the same people, usually each entire family,
conscientiously change into their best garments and go to the movie
palace. The children and young people fill the first rows, the grown
folk bring up the rear. Four times a week young and old get fed on
society dramas, problem plays, bathing girl