bodily injury. A few days later Fanny informed me privately that she
don't say nothin' when that nigger starts rowin' with her, but if she
jus' has her tin lunch box with her next time when that nigger starts
talkin' fresh--callin' her a heifer--_her!_--she'll slug her right
'cross the face with it.

So Topsy was searched. When she got her garments back on she appeared
at the door--a small black goddess of fury. "Yo' fresh Ida,
yo'--yessa--yo' jus' searched me 'cause I'm black. That's all, 'cause
I'm black. Why don't you search all that white trash standin' there?"
And Topsy flung herself out. Monday she appeared with a new maroon
embroidered suit. Cost every nickel of thirty-eight dollars, Fannie
informed me. In the packing room she had a hat pin in her cap. Some
girl heard Topsy tell some other girls she was going stick that pin in
Fannie if Fannie got sassin' her again. Ida made her remove the hat
pin. In an hour she disappeared altogether and stayed disappeared
forever after. "Went South," Fannie told me. "Always said she was
goin' South when cold weather started.... Huh! Thought she'd stick me
with a hat pin. I was carryin' a board around all mornin'. If she so
much as come near me I was goin' to give her a crack aside the head."

* * * * *

But there was little Louisa--and no longer could she keep back the
tears. Nor could ever the pay envelope be unearthed. Later I found her
sitting on the pile of dirty towels in the washroom, sobbing her heart
out. It was not so much that the money was gone--that was awful
enough--fourteen dollars!--fourteen dollars!--oh-h-h,--but her mother
and father--what would they do to her when she came home and told 'em?
They mightn't believe it was lost and think she'd spent it on
somethin' for herself. The tears streamed down her face. And that was
the last we ever saw of Louisa.

Had "local color" been all we were after, perhaps Wing 13, Room 3,
would have supplied sufficient of that indefinitely, with the
combination of the ever-voluble Lena and the ever-present labor
turnover. Even more we desired to learn the industrial feel of the
thing--what do some of the million and more factory women think about
the world of work? Remaining longer in Wing 13 would give no deeper
clue to that. For all that I could find out, the candy workers there
thought nothing about it one way or the other. The younger unmarried
girls worked because it seemed the only thing