“Just so. But you can’t hold the Millville Button Company responsible for your father’s misbehavior.”
“Is there any chance for me to get more pay?” There was a note of despair in her question.
“Not the least chance in the world. You are getting our maximum wage for women. I couldn’t raise your pay if I wanted to without being specially authorized to do so by our board of directors.”
“And I can never earn—never get any more here?”
“No.”
The minute hand of the electric clock pushed forward. Again a bell sounded. Two hundred American girls who had had a few moments’ respite came trooping wearily back to their places at the machines.
At the clang of the bell Kemble walked up the room. Elsie went back to her place drooping; she wore a beaten air as if he had struck her visibly.
The girls on either hand spoke to her as they slipped into their places, but she did not hear them. Hours of swift work followed. The machines whirred and the deft hands of the girls flew. These button workers had nearly all been recruited from the district around Millville. With rare exceptions they were descendants of the hardy Americans who had founded the town while it was still called Farmington. The founders had passed away. The outside world had pressed around the village until its people longed to play a more active role in the world. It had seemed a great day when the button factory came, and the town name was changed to Millville.
Now these daughters of the strong elder race were factory workers. The world had been made better by an output of thousands of shiny new buttons when at last the six o’clock whistle blew on this bright June day.
Elsie Welcome got up from her machine and picked up her hat listlessly. She walked to a window and looked out. Suddenly animation came into her face. A young man waved a handkerchief from an automobile which spun by on the gray turnpike below the mill. Elsie waved her handkerchief in return.