“Fines! Do you have to pay fines?� asked Mrs. Wycliff.
“Yes, in this way. Perhaps you do not understand how fast we have to work to earn what we get. We earn about one dollar per day, and to do this we must cut in the neighborhood of one hundred and twenty-five pounds of rags. Now, in cutting these rags, if we overlook a button, or a bit of rubber, we are fined a pound of rags.�
“That is, if you put in a piece of cloth having a button on it, no matter how small, you must cut an extra pound of rags, to punish you for overlooking that button. Am I right?�
“Yes, you have it exactly right, and it’s just the same if I put in a piece of cloth which has a bit of rubber in it. And here, see here is a bit of cloth that came back to me this morning,—just this little bit of a letter, sewed into the cloth.� And she showed Mrs. Wycliff a bit of white cloth, on which was a small initial, such as is used in marking garments.
“There are hundreds of pieces and consequently hundreds of motions we must make in cutting one pound of rags, for which we receive less than a cent. Working so rapidly as we are obliged to do, to accomplish our day’s task, is it any wonder that a piece of cloth, containing a button, or a bit of rubber, slips through our fingers unnoticed now and then?�
“And this is what the strike is about?�
“Yes, this is the main thing. We are willing to pay something of a fine for failure to notice rubber and buttons, but we think that the fine is now too heavy. There are some other things we don’t like—some brutal bosses, not fit to drive oxen, let alone women. Our scythes are often poorly ground. The Baldwins seem to think anything is good enough for a woman to cut one hundred and twenty-five pounds of rags a day on. Sometimes it is very dark for our work.�
“Is no light furnished at such times?�
“Never. The office force, or other departments of the mill, may have lights at noon of a cloudy day, but we are of no account. It is often too warm in our room. We don’t need much heat because we have plenty of exercise. We must be kept too warm on account of the ‘lookers over,’ who don’t have much exercise, except when they jump up on the tables, to get away from a mouse.�
“Couldn’t the ‘lookers over’ have a separate room, which could be kept warm enough for them, so that your room could be cooler and more comfortable for you?�