r since she was born, it would seem,
first in England, later in Michigan. Tessie and her husband mostly
have hired out together in this country for housework, and she likes
that better than packing chocolates standing up, she says. Mrs. Lewis
is--well, she's Indian summer, too, along with Lillian and Sadie and
Fannie, only she makes no bones about it (nor does black Fannie, for
that matter). Mrs. Lewis is thin and wrinkled, with a skimpy little
dust cap on her head. Her nose is very long and pointed, her teeth
very false. Her eyes are always smiling. She loves to laugh. One day
we were talking about unemployment.

"Don't you know, it's awful in Europe," volunteers Mrs. Lewis.

"One hundred thousand unemployed in Paris alone--saw it in headlines
this morning," I advance.

"Paris?" said Tessie. "Paris? Where's Paris?"

If one could always be so sure of one's facts.

"France."

Mrs. Lewis wheels about in her chair, looks at me sternly over the top
of her spectacles, and:

"Do you know, they're telling me that's a pretty fast country, that
France."

"You don't say!" I look interested.

"No--no I haven't got the details _yet_"--she clasped her chin with
her hand--"but 'fast' was the word I heard used."

Irene is a large, florid, bleached blonde. She worked at the table
behind me about four days. "Y'know"--Irene has a salon air--"y'know, I
jus' can't stand steppen on these soft chocolates. Nobody knows how I
suffer. It just goes through me like a knife." She spent a good part
of each day scraping off the bottoms of her French-heeled shoes with a
piece of cardboard. It evidently was too much for her nerves. She is
no more.

The sign reads, "Saturdays 8-12." When Saturday came around Ida
hollered down the room, "Everybody's gotta work to-day till five." The
howl that went up! I supposed "gotta" meant "gotta." But Lena came up
to me.

"You gonna work till five? Don't you do it. We had to strike to get a
Saturday half holiday. Now they're tellin' us we gotta work till
five--pay us for it, o' course. If enough girls'll stay, pretty soon
they'll be sayin: 'See? What ud we tell ya? The girls want to work
Saturday afternoons'; and they'll have us back regular again." In the
end not a girl in our room stayed, and Ida wrung her hands.

Monday next, though, Ida announced, "Everybody's gotta work till seven
to-night 'cause ya all went home Saturday afternoon. Three nights a
week now you gotta work till seven." To stand