Although Maggie McGowan was curious about me, in posing her questions she was courtesy itself.
"Say," to her neighbour, "where do you think Miss Ballard's from? Paris!"
My neighbour once-removed leaned forward to stare at me. "My, but that's a change to Lynn! Ain't it? Now don't you think you'll miss it?"
She fell to work again, and said after a little: "Paris! Why, that's like a dream. Is it like real places? I can't never guess what it is like!"
The girl at the machine next mine had an ear like a sea-shell, a skin of satin. Her youth was bound, strong shoulders already stooped, chest fast narrowing. At 7 A.M. she came: albeit fresh, pale still and wan; rest of the night too short a preparation for the day's work. By three in the afternoon she was flushed, by five crimson. She threw her hands up over her head and exclaimed: "My back's broke, and I've only made thirty-five cents to-day."
Maggie McGowan (indicating me): "Here's a girl who's had the misfortune never to work in a shoe-shop."
"Misfortune? You don't mean that!"
Maggie: "Well, I guess I don't! If I didn't make a joke now and then I'd jump into the river!"
She sat close to me patiently directing my clumsy fingers.
"Why do you speak so strongly? 'Jump into the river!' That's saying a lot!"