The room was $1.25 a week. Could I pay her in advance? I did so, of course. I would have to carry up my water for washing from the first floor morning and night and care for my room. On the landing below I made arrangements with the tenant for board at ten cents a meal. Madame Courier was also a French Canadian, a mammoth creature with engaging manners.
"Mademoiselle Ballard has work?"
"Not yet."
"Well, if you don't get a job my husband will speak for you. I have here three other young ladies who work in the shops; they'll speak for you!"
Before the door of the first factory I failed miserably. I could have slunk down the street and gladly taken the first train away from Lynn! My garments were heavy; my skirt, lined with a sagging cotton goods, weighed a ton; the woolen gloves irritated.
The shop fronted the street, and the very sight through the window of the individuals representing power, the men whom I saw behind the desks, frightened me. I could not go in. I fairly ran through the streets, but stopped finally before a humbler shop—where a sign swung at the door: "Hands Wanted." I went in here and opened a door on the third floor into a small office.
I was before a lank Yankee manufacturer. Leaning against his desk, twisting from side to side in his mouth a toothpick, he nodded to me as I entered. His wife, a grim, spectacled New Englander, sat in the revolving desk-chair.
"I want work. Got any?"
"Waal, thet's jist what we hev got! Ain't we, Mary?"
(I felt a flashing sensation of triumph.)