Part 25

"Guess so. Some swell estates round about--never see the people much."

"Are they stuck up?"

"Dunno--na. Saw one of 'em at the military funeral last week. She wasn't dressed up a bit swell--just wore a plaid skirt. Didn't look like anybody at all."

In other words, we were the town. It was the bleachery folk you saw on the streets, in the shops, at the post office, at the movies. The bleachery folk, or their kind, I saw at the three church services I attended. If anyone had dared sympathize with us--called us "poor devils"!

* * * * *

The first morning at the bleachery the foreman led me to the narrow space in the middle of three large heavy tables placed "U" shape, said, "Here's a girl to ticket," and left me. The foreman knew who I was. Employment conditions at the bleachery were such that it was necessary to make sure of a job by arranging matters ahead of time with the manager. Also, on a previous occasion I had visited the bleachery, made more or less of an investigation, and sat in on a Board of Operatives' meeting. Therefore, I left off my earrings, bought no Black Jack, did not feel constrained to say, "It ain't," though saw no reason why I too should not indulge in "My Gawd!" if I felt like it. I find it one of the most contagious expressions in the language. The girls did not seem to know who I was or what I was. Not until the second day did the girl who stood next to me ask my name--a formality gone through within the first five minutes in any New York job. I answered Cornelia Parker. She got it Miss Parks, and formally introduced me around the table--"Margaret, meet Miss Parks--Miss White, Miss Parks." Also all very different from New York. About the only questions asked by any girl were, "You're from New York?" and, "Where did you work before you came here?" Some wondered if I wasn't lonesome without my folks. I didn't have any folks. There was none of the expressed curiosity of the New York worker as to my past, present, and future. Not until the last few days did I feel forced to volunteer now and then enough information so that they would get my name and me more or less clear in their minds and never feel, after their heart-warming cordiality, that I had tried "to put anything over on them." Whether I was Miss Parks or Mrs. Parker, it made no difference to them. It did to me, for I felt here at last I could keep up the contacts I had made; and instead of walking off suddenly, leaving good friends behind without a word, I could honestly say I was off to the next job, promise everyone I'd write often and come again to the Falls, and have everyone promise to write me and never come to New York without letting me know. I can lie awake nights and imagine what fun it is going to be getting back to the Falls some day and waiting by the bridge down at the bleachery for the girls to come out at noon, seeing them all again. Maybe Mrs. Halley will call out her, "Hi! look 'ose 'ere!"

* * * * *

At our bleachery, be it known, no goods were manufactured. We took piece goods in the rough, mostly white, bleached, starched, and finished it, and rolled or folded the finished stuff for market. In Department 10, where most of the girls worked, the west end of the big third floor, three grades of white goods were made into sheets and pillow cases, ticketed, bundled, and boxed for shipping. Along the entire end of the room next the windows stood the operating machines, with rows of girls facing one another, all hemming sheets or making pillow cases. There were some ten girls who stood at five heavy tables, rapidly shaking out the hemmed sheets, inspecting them for blemishes of any kind, folding them for the mangle, hundreds and hundreds a day. At other tables workers took the ironed sheets, ticketed them, tied them in bundles, wrapped and labeled and stacked the bundles, whereupon they sooner or later were wheeled off to one side and boxed. Four girls worked at the big mangle. Besides the mangle, one girl spent her day hand-ironing such wrinkles as appeared now and then after the mangle had done its work.

So much for sheets. There were three girls (the term "girl" is used loosely, since numerous females in our department will never see fifty again) who slipped pillow cases over standing frames which poked out the corners. After they were mangled they were inspected and folded, ticketed, bundled, and wrapped at our three U-shaped tables. Also there, one or two girls spent part time slipping pieces of dark-blue paper under the hemstitched part of the pillow cases and sheets, so that the ultimate consumer might get the full glory of her purchase.

The first week Nancy, a young Italian girl (there were only two nationalities in the Falls--Italians and Americans), and I ticketed pillow cases. At the end of that time I had become efficient enough so that I alone kept the bundler busy and Nancy was put on other work. Ticketing means putting just the right amount of smelly paste on the back of a label, slapping it swiftly just above the center of the hem. There are hundreds of different labels, according to the size and quality of the pillow cases and the store which retails them. My best record was ticketing about six thousand seven hundred in one day. The cases come folded three times lengthwise, three times across, sixty in a bundle. As fast as I ticketed a bundle I shoved them across to the "bundler," who placed six cases one way, six the other, tied the bundle of twelve at each end with white tape, stacked them in layers of three until the pile was as high as possible for safety, when it was shoved across to the wrapper. How Margaret's fingers flew! She had each dozen in its paper, tied and labeled, in the wink of an eye, almost.

In our department there were three boys who raced up and down with trucks; one other who wrapped the sheets when he did not have his arm gayly around some girl; and the little man to pack the goods in their shipping boxes and nail them up. There were two forewomen--pretty, freckled-faced Tess and the masculine Winnie. Over all of us was "Hap," the new boss elected by Department 10 as its representative on the Board of Operatives. It is safe to say he will be re-elected as long as death or promotion spare him. Hap is a distinct success. He never seems to notice anybody or anything--in fact, most of the time you wonder where in the world he is. But on Hap's shoulders rests the output for our entire department. The previous "boss" was the kind who felt he must have his nose in everything and his eye on everybody. The month after Hap and his methods of letting folks alone came into power, production jumped ahead.

But Hap spoke up when he felt the occasion warranted it. The mangle girls started quitting at 11.30. They "got by" with it until the matter came to Hap's notice. He lined the four of them up and, while the whole room looked on with amused interest, he told them what was what. After that they stayed till 12.

Another time a piece-rate girl allowed herself to be overpaid two dollars and said nothing about it. Hap called her into the office.

"Didn't you get too much in your envelope this week?"

"I dunno. I 'ain't figured up yet."

"Don't you keep track of your own work?"

"Yes, but I 'ain't figured up yet."

"Bring me your card."

The girl reddened and produced a card with everything up to date and two dollars below the amount in her pay envelope.

"You better take a week off," said Hap. But he repented later in the afternoon and took it back, only he told her to be more careful.

It was the bundler who took me under her wing that first day--pretty Mamie O'Brien--three generations in the Falls. There was no talk of vamping, no discussions of beaus. Everyone told everything she had done since Saturday noon.

"Hey, Margaret, didjagototha movies Saturday night?"

"Sure. Swell, wasn't it?"

"You said it. I 'ain't ever saw sweller...."

"I seen Edna's baby Sunday. Awful cute. Had on them pink shoes Amy made it...."

"Say, ain't that awful about Mr. Tinney's grandchild over to Welkville! Only lived three hours...."

"They're puttin' in the bathtub at Owenses'...."

"What dya know! After they got the bathroom all papered at Chases' they found they'd made a mistake and it's all got to be ripped down. Bathtub won't fit in." ("Improvements" were one of the leading topics of conversation day in and day out at the Falls.)