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Ada I loved—our forelady in the bead work—young, good-looking, intelligent. She rather took me under her wing, in gratitude for which I showed almost immediate improvement along those lines whereon she labored over me. My grammar, for instance. When I said “it ain't,” Ada would say, “Connie, Connie, ain't!” Whereat I gulped and said “isn't,” and Ada smiled approval.
Marija's lesson came just in time to save Ona from a similar fate. Ona, too, was dissatisfied with her place, and had far more reason than Marija. She did not tell half of her story at home, because she saw it was a torment to Jurgis, and she was afraid of what he might do. For a long time Ona had seen that Miss Henderson, the forelady in her department, did not like her.
So negotiations were opened, and after an interview Ona came home and reported that the forelady seemed to like her, and had said that, while she was not sure, she thought she might be able to put her at work sewing covers on hams, a job at which she would earn as much as eight or ten dollars a week.
The fact that Mary had been there so long had not made any difference to her it was doubtful if she even knew that, for both the forelady and the superintendent were new people, having only been there two or three years themselves. Jadvyga did not know what had become of the poor creature; she would have gone to see her, but had been sick herself.
He could hardly grasp the thing much less try to solve it; but a hundred wild surmises came to him, a sense of impending calamity overwhelmed him. Because there was nothing else to do, he went back to the time office to watch again. He waited until nearly an hour after seven, and then went to the room where Ona worked to make inquiries of Ona's "forelady."
It was a cruel lesson; but then Marija was headstrong she should have listened to those who had had experience. The next time she would know her place, as the forelady expressed it; and so Marija went out, and the family faced the problem of an existence again. It was especially hard this time, for Ona was to be confined before long, and Jurgis was trying hard to save up money for this.
Ona had an idea that her "forelady" did not like to have her girls marry perhaps because she was old and ugly and unmarried herself. There were many such dangers, in which the odds were all against them. Their children were not as well as they had been at home; but how could they know that there was no sewer to their house, and that the drainage of fifteen years was in a cesspool under it?
Ona was quite certain that she would find her place gone, and was all unnerved when she finally got to Brown's, and found that the forelady herself had failed to come, and was therefore compelled to be lenient.
Then there was a turning of a knob, a rustling of skirts, and a voice came sharp: "Where are you going?" Sally turned. The forelady stood below her large, eagle-eyed woman, with square and wrinkled face, quite a mustache on her upper lip. Sally spoke easily. "Up-stairs." "For what?" "To see one of the girls. Her mother's sick." The forelady eyed Sally suspiciously.
The experienced feeling when they asked me where I had worked last and how long was I there, and why did I leave! At the end of an hour the forelady beckoned me—such a neat, sweet person as she was—and I took my initial whack at a foot press. If ever I do run an automobile the edge of first enjoyment is removed.
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