ards.

About then my locker key falls through a hole in my waist pocket and
on to the floor and out of sight. In the end it takes a broom handle
poked about diligently under the bottom shelf of our table to make a
recovery. Before the key appear chocolates of many shapes and sizes,
long reposing in oblivion under the weighty table. The thrifty Spanish
woman behind me gathers up all the unsquashed ones and packs them.
"Mus' be lots of chocolates under these 'ere tables, eh?" she notes
wisely and with knit brows. As if to say that, were she boss, she'd
poke with a broom under each and every bottom shelf and fill many a
box.

At least my feet get a moment's rest while I am down on my hands and
knees among the debris from under the tables.

By five o'clock Tessie thinks she'll throw up her job then and there.
"Ach! Ach! My feet!" she moans. I secretly plan to kill the next
person who gives me a box of chocolate candy.

Surely it is almost 6.

Five minutes after 5.

The bell has forgotten to ring. It must be 7.

Quarter after 5.

Now for sure and certain it is midnight.

Half-past 5.

My earrings begin to hurt. You can take off earrings. But FEET--

Tessie says she's eaten too many candies; her stomach does her pain.
Her feet aren't so hurting now her _magen_ is so bad. I couldn't eat
another chocolate for five dollars, but my stomach refused to feel in
any way that takes my mind in the least off my feet.

Eternity has passed on. It must be beyond the Judgment Day itself.

Ten minutes to 6.

When the bell does ring I am beyond feeling any emotion. There is no
part of me with which to feel emotion. I am all feet, and feet either
do not feel at all or feel all weary unto death. During the summer I
had played one match in a tennis tournament 7-5, 5-7, 13-11. I had
thought I was ready to drop dead after that. It was mere knitting in
the parlor compared to how I felt after standing at that table in that
candy factory from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M., with a bit of a half-hour's
sitting at noon.

Somehow you could manage to endure it all if it were not for the
crowning agony of all--standing up on the Subway going home. I am no
aggressive feminist, and I am no old-fashioned clinging vine, but I
surely do hate, hate, hate every man in that Subway who sits back in
comfort (and most of them look as if they had been sitting all day)
while I and my feet stand up. When in my utter anguish I find myself
swaying with the jerks a