"Just like a woman! Why, before I'd make a fuss about cauliflowers or anything else!"
About eleven the head forewoman stops in to eat a plate of rice and milk. While I am cutting bread for the two hundred I hear her say to the cook in a gossipy tone:
"How do you like the new girl? She's here all alone."
I am called away and do not hear the rest of the
conversation. When I return the cook lectures me in this way:
"Here alone, are you?"
"Yes."
"Well, I see no reason why you shouldn't get along nicely and not kill yourself with work either. Just stick at it and they'll do right by you. Lots o' girls who's here alone gets to fooling around. Now I like everybody to have a good time, and I hope you'll have a good time, too, but you mustn't carry it too far."
My mind went back as he said this to a conversation I had had the night before with a working-girl at my boarding-house.
"Where is your home?" I asked.