“Well, I will,” said Em, unmoved. “I’m glad you don’t mind, ’Reldy. I felt some uneasy myself, seein’ ’s how stiddy he’d been goin’ with you.”
“Well, that don’t hender his goin’ with somebody else, does it? I ain’t very likely to keep him from pleasin’ hisself, am I?”
“Don’t go to workin’ yourself up so, ’Reldy. If you don’t care, there’s no use in flarin’ up so. My! Just look at this em’rald ring in at Shindy’s. Ain’t that a beaut’?”
“I ain’t got time.” Zarelda walked on with her head up. “Don’t you see we’re late a’ready? The machin’ry’s all a-goin’, long ago.”
The two girls pushed through the swinging gate and ran up the half-dozen steps to the entrance of the big, brick woolen mills. A young man in a flannel shirt and brown overalls was passing through the outer hall. He was twirling a full, crimson rose in his hand.
As the girls hurried in, he paused and stood awkwardly waiting for them, with a red face.
“Good mornin’,” he said, looking first at Em and then, somewhat shamefacedly, at Zarelda.
“Good mornin’, Jim,” said Zarelda, coolly. She was still pale, but she smiled as she pressed on into the weaving-room. The many-tongued roar of the machinery burst through the open door to greet her. Em lingered behind a moment; and when she passed Zarelda’s loom there was a crimson rose in her girdle and two more in her cheeks.
Five hours of monotonous work followed. Zarelda stood patiently by her loom, unmindful of the toilers around her and the deafening noise; she did not lift her eyes from her work. She was the youngest weaver in the factory and one of the most careful and conscientious.
The marking-room was in the basement, and in its quietest corner was a large stove whereon the factory-girls were permitted to warm their lunches. When the whistle sounded at noon they ceased work instantly, seized their lunch baskets, and sped—pushing, laughing, jostling—down the stairs to the basement. There was a small, rickety elevator at the rear of the factory, and some of the more reckless ones leaped upon it and let themselves down with the rope.