“Well, as they are not born with the knowledge, how do they ever learn?” I asked.
THE PASTING TABLE.
“The girls always have some friend who wants to learn. If she wishes to lose time and money by teaching her, we don’t object, for we get the work the beginner does for nothing.”
By no persuasion could I obtain an entree into the larger factories, so I concluded at last to try a smaller one at No. 196 Elm Street. Quite unlike the unkind, brusque men I had met at other factories, the man here was very polite. He said: “If you have never done the work, I don’t think you will like it. It is dirty work and a girl has to spend years at it before she can make much money. Our beginners are girls about sixteen years old, and they do not get paid for two weeks after they come here.”
“What can they make afterward?”
“We sometimes start them at week work—$1.50 a week. When they become competent they go on piecework—that is, they are paid by the hundred.”
“How much do they earn then?”
“A good worker will earn from $5 to $9 a week.”
“Have you many girls here?”