A Daughter of the Morning

by Zona Gale

I went to the meeting, as I said I would; but it was hard for me to make much out of it. There was all these things ought to be changed in the factory, and we knew it, and we thought we'd ought to have a little more wages; I wanted more when I began on full speed, but I didn't think I was going to get it. It seemed to me the thing to do was to ask to have things changed, and, if they didn't do it, quit till they did change them. But at the meeting I found that there was those that was afraid to ask—just for fire-escapes and decent cleanliness and a few cents more a week and extra pay for overtime. And then I found out something else, that if they wouldn't give us these things and we did quit, there was some of us that wouldn't agree to quit, and maybe others that would come in and take our jobs, and put up with what we had been trying to make better. When I got that through my head, I stood right up at the meeting to ask a question.

"They couldn't take our jobs if we stood out in front and tried to get it into their heads what we was trying to do, could they?" I says. "Ain't it just because they don't see what we're trying to do?"

They all laughed, and the woman that was speaking—somebody from outside the factory—says yes, she thought that was it, they didn't see what we were trying to do.

The next day was Sunday, and I could hardly wait. I was up early and out while Mis' Bingy was still asleep. I hated to leave her all day, but it seemed as if ever since I come to the city something out there was calling me. I dunno where I went. I tramped for miles, and I spent fifteen cents car-fare, besides transfers, but I didn't care. I had some rolls in a bag, and I et them when I didn't show. And I looked and looked.

I found hundreds of folks, going off for all day, washed and dressed up and with lunches and children, headed out in the country, I judged. Some of them looked like Father and Mother and Mis' Bingy, and as if they couldn't be any other way. I set on the car with them, and kind of see through them, and knew how they must snap each other up, home, when they wasn't dressed up. I wondered what God wanted so many for, that couldn't be different because it was too late. But some, and most of all the children, looked as if they might have been most anybody, if they were given a chance. I wondered how they could get the chance, and if none of them tried. I wondered how I could try. I knew I'd never get it in the factory. No matter if we got all the things we were asking for, it was a dog's life—I knew that already. It wasn't much better than Bert and Henny had, to the blast furnace. They got dirty, and had to work straight twenty-four hours once every two weeks; but they made their dollar-twenty a day, and not any of us done that. I kept trying to think how to get started.

At the end of one car line I got off and walked over to the river. There was beautiful houses there—more beautiful than I had ever seen, even in the pictures. I thought they must have awful big families, they had so many up-stairs rooms. The grass looked combed and fluffed, much better than the babies' hair around the factory. Somebody give an awful lot of time to the flowers, and the river showed through the bushes. I liked the nice curtains, and when automobiles went by I liked to look at the ladies, they seemed so clean and tended. But I wondered why.

I stood looking through the iron fence of a great big house when a policeman come along.

I says to him, before he could get passed, "I was wishing I knew the names of the folks that live in there."

He stopped like a wall that knew how to walk. "Well, missy," says he, "and was ye thinkin' of buyin' it in?"