ized homes. In these ways they save a
little money for the dull time, and also store more energy from their
more comfortable living.

On the horizon of the milliner the dull season looms black. All the world
wants a new hat, gets it, and thinks no more of hats or the makers of
hats. On this account a fast and feverish making and trimming of hats, an
exhausting drain of the energy of milliners for a few weeks, is followed
by weeks of no demand upon their skill.

Girl after girl told the investigator that the busy season more than wore
her out, but that the worry and lower standard of living of the dull
season were worse. The hardship is the greater because the skilled
milliner has had to spend time and money for her training.

Many of these girls try to find supplementary work, as waitresses in
summer hotels, or in some other trade. A great difficulty here is the
overlapping of seasons. The summer hotel waitress is needed until
September, at least, but the milliner must begin work in August. To
obtain employment in a non-seasonal industry, it is often necessary to
lie. In each new occupation it is necessary to accept a beginner's wage.

Regina Siegerson had come alone, at the age of fifteen, from Russia to
New York, where she had been for seven years. The first winter was cruel.
She supported herself on $3 a week. She had been forced to live in the
most miserable of tenements with "ignorant" people. She had subsisted
mainly by eating bananas, and had worn a spring jacket through the cold
winter. It seemed, however, that no hardship had ever prevented her from
attending evening school, where her persistence had taken her to the
fourth year of high school. She was thinking of college at the time of
the interview. Regina was a Russian revolutionist, and keenly thirsting
for knowledge. She talked eagerly to the inquirer about Victor Hugo,
Gorky, Tolstoy, and Bernard Shaw. With no less interest she spoke of the
trade fortunes of milliners in New York, and her own last year's
experience. She had worked through May, June, and July as a trimmer,
making $11 in a week of nine hours a day, with Saturday closing at five.
During August and September and the first weeks in October she had only
six weeks' work, as a maker in a ready-to-wear hat factory, situated on
the lower West Side over a stable, where she made $10 in a week of nine
hours a day.

Regina and a girl friend had managed to furnish a two-room tenement
apartment with