"If you think you'd like to try shaking come round Monday morning at seven o'clock."
Which I took as my dismissal until Monday.
At least I had a job, however poor, and strengthened by this thought I determined to find something better before Monday. The ten-cent piece lay an inviting fortune in my hand. I was to part with one-tenth of it in exchange for a morning newspaper. This investment seemed a reckless plunge, but "nothing venture, nothing have," my pioneer spirit prompted, and soon deep in the list of Wanted, Females, I felt repaid. Even in my destitute condition I had a choice in mind. If possible I wanted to work without machinery in a shop where
the girls used their hands alone as power. Here seemed to be my heart's content—a short, concise advertisement, "Wanted, hand sewers." After a consultation with a policeman as to the whereabouts of my future employer, it became evident that I must part with another of my ten cents, as the hand sewers worked on the opposite side of the city from the neighbourhood whither I had strayed in my morning's wanderings. I took a car and alighted at a busy street in the fashionable shopping centre of Chicago. The number I looked for was over a steep flight of dirty wooden stairs. If there is such a thing as luck it was now to dwell a moment with one of the poorest. I pushed open a swinging door and let myself into the office of a clothing manufacturer.
The owner, Mr. F., got up from his desk and came toward me.
"I seen your advertisement in the morning paper."
"Yes," he answered in a kindly voice. "Are you a tailoress?"
"No, sir; I've never done much sewing except on a machine."
"Well, we have machines here."
"But," I almost interrupted, beginning to fear that my training at Perry was to limit all further experience to an electric Singer, "I'd rather work with my hands. I like the hand-work."