to show no trace whatever of the men and the women who had made them.
Here we were, 1,000 souls hurrying from morning until night, working
from seven until six, with as little personality as we could, with the
effort to produce, through an action purely mechanical, results as
nearly as possible identical one to the other, and all to the machine
itself.

[Illustration: "THEY TRIFLE WITH LOVE"]

What could be the result upon the mind and health of this frantic
mechanical activity devoid of thought? It was this for which I sought an
answer; it is for this I propose a remedy.

At the threshold of the mill door my roommate and I encountered Mr.
Norse. There was irony in the fates allotted us. She was eager to make
money; I was indifferent. Mr. Norse felt her in his power; I felt him in
mine. She was given a job at twenty-five cents a day and all she could
make; I was offered the favourite work in the mill--shirt finishing, at
thirty cents a day and all I could make; and when I shook my head to see
how far I could exploit my indifference and said, "Thirty cents is too
little," Mr. Norse's answer was: "Well, I suppose you, like the rest of
us, are trying to earn a living. I will guarantee you seventy-five cents
a day for the first two weeks, and all you can make over it is yours."
My apprenticeship began under the guidance of an "old girl" who had been
five years in the mill. A dozen at a time the woolen shirts were brought
to us, complete all but the adding of the linen strips in front where
the buttons and buttonholes are stitched. The price of this operation is
paid for the dozen shirts five, five and a half and six cents, according
to the complexity of the finish. My instructress had done as many as
forty dozen in one day; she averaged $1.75 a day all the year around.