Snawdor."
Mrs. Snawdor bristled immediately.
"I ain"t astin" yer advice, Dan Lewis. I"m astin" yer help."
Dan looked Nance over in troubled silence.
"Is she sixteen yet?" he asked as impersonally as if she had not been present.
"Yes, an" past. I knowed they"d be scarin" up that dangerous trade business on me next. How long before the foreman"ll be here?"
"Any time now," said Dan. "I"ll take you into his office."
With a sinking heart, Nance followed them into the crowded room. The heat was stifling, and the air was full of stinging gla.s.s dust. All about them boys were running with red hot bottles on big asbestos shovels. She hated the place, and she hated Dan for not being glad to see her.
"They are the carrying-in boys," Dan explained, continuing to address all of his remarks to Mrs. Snawdor. "That"s where I began. You wouldn"t believe that those kids often run as much as twenty-two miles a day.
Watch out there, boy! Be careful!"
But his warning came too late. One of the smaller youngsters had stumbled and dropped his shovel, and a hot bottle had grazed his leg, burning away a bit of the stocking.
"It"s all right, Partner," cried Dan, springing forward, "You"re not much hurt. I"ll fix you up."
But the boy was frightened and refused to let him remove the stocking.
"Let me do it," begged Nance. "I can get it off without hurting him."
And while Dan held the child"s leg steady, she bathed and bound it in a way that did credit to Doc"s training. Only once daring the process did she look up, and then she was relieved to see instead of the stern face of a strange young man, the compa.s.sionate, familiar face of the old Dan she used to know.
The interview with the foreman was of brief duration. He was a thick-set, pimply-faced person whom Dan called Mr. Bean. He swept an appraising eye over the applicant, submitted a few blunt questions to Dan in an undertone, ignored Mrs. Snawdor"s voluble comments, and ended by telling Nance to report for work the following week.
As Mrs. Snawdor and Nance took their departure, the former, whose thoughts seldom traveled on a single track, said tentatively:
"Dan Lewis has got to be real nice lookin" sence you seen him, ain"t he?"
"Nothin" to brag on," said Nance, still smarting at his indifference. But as she turned the corner of the building, she stole a last look through the window to where Dan was standing at his fiery post, his strong, serious face and broad, bare chest lighted up by the radiance from the glory-hole.
It was with little enthusiasm that Nance presented herself at the factory on Monday morning, ready to enlist in what Bishop Bland called "the n.o.ble service of industry." Her work was in the finishing room where a number of girls were crowded at machines and tables, filing, clipping, and packing bottles. Her task was to take the screw-neck bottles that came from the leer, and chip and file their jagged necks and shoulders until all the roughness was removed. It was dirty work, and dangerous for unskilled hands, and she found it difficult to learn.
"Say, kid," said the ugly, hollow-chested girl beside her, "if I"m goin"
to be your learner, I want you to be more particular. Between you an"
this here other girl, you"re fixin" to put my good eye out."
Nance glanced up at the gaunt face with its empty eye socket and then looked quickly away.
"Say," said the other new girl, complainingly, "is it always hot like this in here? I"m most choking."
"We"ll git the boss to put in a "lectric fan fer you," suggested the hollow-chested one, whose name was Mag Gist.
Notwithstanding her distaste for the work, Nance threw herself into it with characteristic vehemence. Speed seemed to be the quality above all others that one must strive for, and speed she was determined to have, regardless of consequences.
"When you learn how to do this, what do you learn next?" she asked presently.
Mag laughed gruffly.
"There ain"t no next. If you"d started as a wrapper, you might "a"
worked up a bit, but you never would "a" got to be a chuck-grinder. I been at this bench four years an" if I don"t lose my job, I"ll be here four more."
"But if you get to be awful quick, you can make money, can"t you?"
"You kin make enough to pay fer two meals a day if yer appet.i.te ain"t too good."
Nance"s heart sank. It was a blow to find that Mag, who was the cleverest girl in the finishing room, had been filing bottle necks for four years.
She stole a glance at her stooped shoulders and sallow skin and the hideous, empty socket of her left eye. What was the good of becoming expert if it only put one where Mag was?
By eleven o"clock there was a sharp pain between her shoulder-blades, and her feet ached so that she angrily kicked off first one shoe, then the other. This was the signal for a general laugh.
"They"re kiddin" you fer sheddin" yer shoes," explained Mag, who had laughed louder than anybody. "Greenhorns always do it first thing. By the time you"ve stepped on a piece of gla.s.s onct or twict, you"ll be glad enough to climb back into "em."
After a while one of the girls started a song, and one by one the others joined in. There were numerous verses, and a plaintive refrain that referred to "the joy that ne"er would come again to you and I."
When no more verses could be thought of, there were stories and doubtful jokes which sent the girls into fits of wild laughter.
"Oh, cheese it," said Mag after one of these sallies, "You all orter to behave more before these kids."
"They don"t know what we are talkin" about," said a red-haired girl.
"You bet I do," said Nance, with disgust, "but you all give me a sick headache."
When the foreman made his rounds, figures that had begun to droop were galvanized into fresh effort. At Mag"s bench he paused.
"How are the fillies making it?" he asked, with a familiar hand on the shoulder of each new girl. Nance"s companion dropped her eyes with a simpering smile, but Nance jerked away indignantly.
The foreman looked at the back of the shining head and frowned.
"You"ll have to push up the stroke," he said. "Can"t you see you lose time by changing your position so often? What makes you fidget so?"
Nance set her teeth resolutely and held her tongue. But her Irish instinct always suffered from restraint and by the time the noon whistle blew, she was in a state of sullen resentment. The thought of her beloved Miss Stanley and what she would think of these surroundings brought a lump into her throat.
"Come on over here," called Mag from a group of girls at the open window.
"Don"t you mind what Bean says. He"s sore on any girl that won"t eat outen his dirty hand. You "re as smart again as that other kid. I can tell right off if a girl"s got gumption, an" if she"s on the straight.
"Chuck that Sunday-school dope," laughed a pretty, red-haired girl named Gert. "You git her in wrong with Bean, an" I wouldn"t give a nickel fer her chance."
"You ought to know," said Mag, drily.
The talk ran largely to food and clothes, and Nance listened with growing dismay. It seemed that most of the girls lived in rooming houses and took their meals out.
"Wisht I had a Hamberger," said Mag. "I ain"t had a bite of meat fer a month. I always buy my shoes with meat money."