ted. For the rest of the week the
assembly room was kept under scrutiny, new methods were tried, more women
were set to work.

"Let's speed up again today," said Mary one morning, "and see if we can
make it this time--"

And finally came the day when they _did_ make it! For four consecutive
days their output equalled the best ever done by the factory, and then
just as every woman was beginning to thrill with that jubilation which
only comes of a hard task well done, a weak spot developed in the
hardening department.

Oh, how everybody frowned and clicked their tongues! You might have
thought that all the cakes in the world had suddenly burned in the
ovens--that every clothes line in America had broken on a muddy washday!

"Never mind," said Mary. "We're nearly there. One more good try, and over
the top we'll go...."

One more good try, and they _did_ go over the top. For two days, three
days, four days, five days, a whole week, they equalled the best man-made
records. For one week, two weeks, three weeks, the famous Spencer
bearings rolled out of the final inspection room and into their wooden
cases as fast as man had ever rolled them. And when Mary saw that at last
the first part of her vision had come true, she did a feminine thing,
that is to say a human thing. She simultaneously said, "I told you so,"
and sprung her secret by sending the following message to the newspapers:

"The three thousand women at this factory are daily turning out the same
number of bearings that three thousand men once turned out.

"The new bearings are identical with the old ones in every detail but
one, namely: they are one thousandth of an inch more accurate than
Spencer bearings were ever made before.

"Our customers appreciate this improvement and know what it means.

"Our unfriendly critics, I think, will also appreciate it and know what
it means."

Upon consideration, Mary had that last paragraph taken out.

"I'll leave that to their imaginations," she said, and after she had
signed each letter, she did another feminine thing.

She had a gentle little cry all by herself, and then through her tears
she smiled at her silent forbears who seemed to be watching her more
attentively than ever from their frames of tarnished gilt upon the walls.

"It hasn't been all roses and lilies," she told them, "but--that's us!"

CHAPTER XXVII

Meanwhile, as you will guess, it hadn't been "all roses and lilies"
either, for the m