“We’re going to have electricity by the machines. And the forelady says that the new boss will give us ten cents more on a dozen waists!”
“God from the world! How did it happen—electricity—better pay?” I asked in amazement. For that was the first I had heard of improved conditions of work.
But little by little, step by step, the sanitation improved. Open windows, swept floors, clean wash-rooms, individual drinking-cups introduced a new era of factory hygiene. Our shop was caught up in the general movement for social betterment that stirred the country.
It was not all done in a day. Weary years of struggle passed before the workers emerged from the each-for-himself existence into an organized togetherness for mutual improvement.
At last, with the shortened hours of work, I had enough vitality left at the end of the day to join the night-school. Again my dream flamed. Again America beckoned. In the school there would be education—air, life for my cramped-in spirit. I would learn to form the thoughts that surged formless in me. I would find the teacher that would make me articulate.
Shelley was English literature.
So I joined the literature class. The course began with the “De Coverley Papers.” Filled with insatiate thirst, I drank in every line with the feeling that any minute I would get to the fountain-heart of revelation.
Night after night I read with tireless devotion. But of what? The manners and customs of the eighteenth century, of people two hundred years dead.
One evening after a month’s attendance, when the class had dwindled from fifty to four and the teacher began scolding us who were left for those who were absent, my bitterness broke.
“Do you know why all the girls are dropping away from the class? It’s because they have too much sense to waste themselves on the ‘De Coverley Papers.’ Us four girls are four fools. We could learn more in the streets. It’s dirty and wrong, but it’s life. What are the ‘De Coverley Papers’? Dry dust fit for the ash can.”