dollar-a-week salesgirls in the arc-lighted subcellars
of six-million-dollar corporations?

This is the literal underworld of the great city, and its sunless
streets run literal blood--the blood of the babes who cried in vain; the
blood from the lungs of the sweatshop workers whose faces are the color
of dead Chinese; the blood from the cheeks of the six-dollar-a-week
salesgirls in the arc-lighted subcellars. But these are your problems
and my problems and the problems of the men who have found the strength
or the fear not to die rich. The babe's mother, who had never known
else, could not know that her cellar was fetid; she only cried out in
her anguish and hated vaguely in her heart.

Sara Juke, in the bargain basement of the Titanic Department Store,
did not know that lint from white goods clogs the lungs, and that the
air she breathed was putrefied as from a noxious swamp. Sometimes a
pain, sharp as a hatpin, entered between her shoulder blades. But what
of that? When the heart is young the heart is bold, and Sara could laugh
upward with the musical glee of a bird.

There were no seasons, except the spring and fall openings and
semi-annual clearing sales, in the bargain basement of the Titanic
store. On a morning when the white-goods counter was placing
long-sleeve, high-neck nightgowns in its bargain bins, and knit
underwear was supplanting the reduced muslins, Sara Juke drew her
little pink knitted jacket closer about her narrow shoulders and
shivered--shivered, but smiled. "Br-r-r! October never used to get under
my skin like this."

Hattie Krakow, roommate and co-worker, shrugged her bony shoulders and
laughed; but not with the upward glee of a bird--downward rather, until
it died in a croak in her throat. But then Hattie Krakow was ten years
older than Sara Juke; and ten years in the arc-lighted subcellar of the
Titanic Department Store can do much to muffle the ring in a laugh.

"Gee, you're as funny as your own funeral--you are! You keep up the
express pace you're going and there won't be another October left on
your calendar."

"That's right; cheer me up a bit, dearie. What's the latest style in
undertaking?"

"You'll know sooner 'n me if--"

"Aw, Hat, cut it! Wasn't I home in bed last night by eleven?"

"I ain't much on higher mathematics."

"Sure I was. I had to shove you over on your side of the bed; that's how
hard you was sleeping."

"A girl can't gad round dancing and rough-housing every