“Did you mean that?” asked Mamie Brady.
“Yes, I did. It seems to me you work fast enough for any girl. A girl isn't a machine.”
“You're a queer thing,” said Mamie Brady. “If I were you, I would just as soon get ahead as not, especially if Ed Flynn was goin' to come and praise me for it.”
Ellen shrugged her shoulders and tied another knot.
“You're a queer thing,” said Mamie Brady, while her fingers flew like live wires.
Chapter XXXVI
That night, when Ellen went down the street towards home with the stream of factory operatives, she computed that she must have earned about fifty cents, perhaps not quite that. She was horribly tired. Although the work in itself was not laborious, she had been all day under a severe nervous tension.
“You look tired to death, Ellen Brewster,” Abby said, in a half-resentful, half-compassionate tone. “You can never stand this in the world.”
“I am no more tired than any one would be the first day,” Ellen returned, stoutly, “and I'm going to stand it.”
“You act to me as if you liked it,” said Abby, with an angry switch like a cat.