The women, in fact, soon get attached to the machines they are working, in a manner probably unknown to the men. 'I've been here a year on this machine, and I can't do near so well on any other,' is a remark many a girl has made to me as I have watched her on a difficult job. From time to time, a girl will even confess that she 'can't bear to think of some one on the night-shift working _her_ machine'. An understanding has arisen between the machine and the operator which amounts almost to affection. I have often noticed the expression of this emotion in the workshops; the caressing touch of a woman's fingers, for instance, as a bore is being urged on to the job on the machine. This touch, which cannot be taught, or imparted, enables the operation to be started in the most effective method possible, and goes to the making of an excellent and accurate worker.
The femininity of the worker has, however, its drawbacks, and for the sake of successful handling of women in the munitions factory, it is as well that these psychological points should be noted. If, for example, a machine is out of gear, or if the operation is held up for any other cause, the women munition makers will sometimes behave in an unreasonable manner, quite bewildering to a foreman accustomed only to dealing with men. The temporary cessation of work may make only a slight money difference to the woman operator by the end of the week: 'not enough to fuss about,' as the foreman judges. But the woman nevertheless often _does_ fuss, because in her eyes the wages do not loom so large as the interruption to her work. She 'hates standing-by', she will say, for she cannot express the emotion of which she is but dimly conscious, that a woman's deep instinct is to give freely of her fullness, and it frets her very soul to be balked in the middle of a job.
[Illustration: OPERATING A LUMSDEN PLAIN GRINDER: RE-FORMING 8-INCH HIGH-EXPLOSIVE CUTTERS]
Other initial obstacles in the employment of 'new' female labour in the factories result from the exchange of the manifold duties of the woman in her own home for repetition work performed in the company of hundreds of other human beings. These difficulties are, however, soon overcome, and the new-comer, generally speaking, rapidly becomes one of a large and merry company. The whirr of the wheels and the persistent throb of the machinery may at first distract her, but after a short time the factory noises are unnoticed, save as an accompaniment to her thoughts, her laughter, or her song. I have indeed met in the England of to-day nothing more inspiriting, outside the soldiers' camps, than the women munition workers at work or at play.