a's eyes were always strained. Their wages must be raised.

Mrs. Mendell replied with calm and self-approbation, that she herself
stayed in the factory all day, but she never complained in any such way.
However, she raised Elena's wages 50 cents.

At this time the two girls lived in a tiny, inner room with one window,
on an air-shaft in an East Side tenement. For this they paid $8 a month.
It was scarcely more than a closet, holding one chair, one table, and a
bed; and so small that Elena and Gerda could scarcely squeeze in between
their meagre furnishings. They did their own washing, cooked their own
breakfasts on the landlady's stove, prepared a lunch they took with them
to the factory, and paid 20 cents a night apiece for dinner. Almost all
the money they had left, after their lodging and board and the barest
necessities for clothing were paid for, went for medicines and doctors.

Their clothing was so poor that they were ashamed to go out on
Sunday--when everybody else put on "best dresses"--and would sit in their
room all day. However, in the evenings they sometimes went to see
relatives in the Bronx, and on one of these occasions they had a piece of
good fortune of the oddest character. On the elevated road on which they
happened to be riding there was an accident--a collision. They were
neither of them injured; but they saw the collision, and were summoned as
witnesses for the road. They were obliged to spend several mornings away
from making children's dresses, waiting to give their testimony in the
criminal court, which they found highly pleasant and recreative. However,
after all, the road settled with the prosecutors before the girls were
ever called on for their testimony, and the case never came to trial. But
the railroad gave Elena and Gerda for the time they had spent on its
behalf a check for $20.

At this they determined to move to better quarters. The factory, besides,
had grown and moved into larger rooms farther up-town (though its
workrooms had always been well lighted and ventilated), so that the girls
were obliged to spend more than they could afford for carfare. With the
$20 they furnished their room in Harlem. They were in a wild,
disreputable neighborhood, of which the girls remained quite independent.
But the rooms were airy and attractive. Having now their own furnishings,
they paid only $8 a month for all this added space and comfort, so that
they could continue to live in these accommodat