That afternoon they visited a large machine shop across the river. To their great delight, Bob and Betty were allowed to wear their new Safety Scout uniforms, leggings and all. They stood very straight as they waited for their companion to get a permit at the Company's office.
"Those new uniforms are going to be about as good an 'ad' for Safety First as anything we could have," remarked Uncle Jack, leading the way into the big machine shop. He had caught the admiring glances that had followed them from the older people and the longing looks that the boys and girls had sent after them all the way over.
"We haven't done our 'Day's Boost for Safety' yet, though," said Betty. "I don't know but we ought to do our good turn every morning before we start out on any trip—I just hate not to get my button right side up till so late in the day!"
"Those girls have pretty neat looking uniforms of their own, haven't they?" said Bob, a little later, as they gazed down a long row of punch presses which were pouring out shining streams of aluminum pin trays. "What do they wear them for—just to look pretty?"
"You wouldn't have thought so," laughed the forewoman, "if you could have seen how they fought the first caps and aprons we tried to get them to wear. They were homely things, even if they were life savers. So we kept at it till we got something so trim and pretty that the girls would rather wear it than not."
"Life savers?" repeated Betty. "How could caps and aprons save lives? Oh—by not catching in the machinery?"
"Just so. It's easy for a girl's hair to be blown into the machines, or for a braid to swing against a whirling shaft, you see. Oh yes, we had several girls killed that way, before we tried this uniform. They used to wear dresses with baggy sleeves,—ragged ones, sometimes. Rings and bracelets are bad, too; and even these aprons, you'll notice, are buttoned back so they can't fly out against the wheels. Yes, the girls all like the idea now. The caps keep their hair from getting dusty or mussed up. Besides, we find it saves a good many girls' feelings, too, having them all dressed so much alike."
The same good sense was shown in the other departments, in the working clothes worn by the men and boys.
"You won't find a man in this room with a necktie on," the foreman told them. "These are the biggest punch presses in our whole shop. A while ago one of the men got his necktie caught between the cogwheels and he was drawn into the machine head first. That was the end of that sort of thing in this shop!
"Now, as you'll see, long sleeves and ragged or baggy overalls are things of the past. If a man does wear a long sleeve, he keeps it rolled up where it can't catch and cost him a hand or an arm.