All
the world is feet. Somehow those same feet have to take their
possessor out to forage for food. Into a little dirty, crowded grocery
and delicatessen store we wedge ourselves, to stand, stand, stand,
until at last we face the wielder of a long knife. When in Rome do as
the Romans do. "A bologna and a ham sandwich and five cents' worth of
pickles." Slabs of rye bread, no butter, large, generous slices of
sausage and ham which hang down curtainlike around the bread--twenty-one
cents. Feet take me back to the factory lunch room. At last I flop on
a chair. Sing songs to chairs; write poems to chairs; paint chairs!

Dear German Tessie, pal of the morning, she who ate more chocolates
than I and thus helped to sustain my moral courage--Tessie and I eat
bologna sausage sandwiches together and _sit_. The feet of Tessie are
very, very badly off--ach!--but they feel--they feel--jus' fierce--and
till six o'clock--"Oh, my Gawd!" says Tessie, in good English.

A gong sounds. Up we go to the ice box packing room. It sends the
shivers down our spines. But already there is a feeling of sauntering
in like an old hand at the game. What's your business in life? Packing
chocolates. The half-pound boxes get finished, wax paper on top,
covered, stacked, counted, put on the truck.

"Lena! Start the girl here in on 'assorteds.'"

Pert little Lena sidles up alongside and nudges me in the ribs.

"Say, got a fella?"

I give Lena one look, for which Belasco should pay me a thousand
dollars a night. Lena reads it out loud quick as a wink. She snickers,
pokes me in the ribs again, and, "What to hell do I think you are,
hey?" That's just what I'd meant. "Gee!" says Lena. "Some fool what
can't get some kind of a dope!"

"You said it!"

"Say, got more 'n one dope?" asks Lena, hopefully. Meanwhile she sets
out, with my aid, row after row of dinky little deep boxes.

"Say now," say I to Lena, "and what would a girl be doin' with jus'
_one_ dope?"

"You said it!" says Lena.

At which follows a discussion on dopes, ending by Lena's promising
never to vamp my dope if I won't vamp hers.

"Where'd ya work last?" asks Lena.

One thing the first day taught me. If you want to act the part and
feel the part, earrings and gum help, but if there is one thing you
are more conscious of than all else, it is such proper English as you
possess--which compared to Boston is not much, but compared to Lena
and Ida and Mary and Louise and Susie and Annie