"There were hundreds of girls in the factory, most of them young, who had come there because they had been shown pictures of these fine flower gardens and tennis courts and thought they would have a much nicer time than they had on the farms or in the tenements where they came from. I worked in a room with over a hundred girls, taking the silk from the cocoons from the boiling water in great big kettles and winding it on machines. We couldn't sit down and we couldn't speak or hear others speak. We couldn't even look up from our task. The boiling kettles made the heat almost unbearable and the stench from the pupæ was nauseating. My head ached most of the time, and we had to work from four in the morning until seven at night. Of course, I always wanted to sleep, and I was lucky that it was a model factory, for the dormitory was clean, even though there were sixteen of us in each room; and we were allowed a full _tatami_, a mat six by three, you know, each. But even there the _futon_ were thin and hard like boards. There had been sheets once, some of the older girls said, but some had been stolen by girls leaving the factory, so they had done away with sheets.
"I became just like an animal, only thinking of time to rest. I had heard how in other factories the girls sometimes got better conditions by banding together or by complaining. In one of the textile mills the girls composed a song about the hem of the silk crepe shift of Mrs. Ohara being dyed crimson with blood from working girls' fingers, and I thought I would like to make up songs like that, do something to bring the girls together, but I was too weak to think. Sometimes I was afraid I might get consumption, as so many of the working girls do, but if we were sick, they only scolded us and said we were shamming. I was sorry I had come there, but I couldn't get away till my time was up. That's what the fence was for. The food was poor, but I didn't mind that so much, for poor food costs very little, and I had decided to save my money so when I got out I might go to typewriter school."
Again she paused. She was looking straight at Kent; he could almost feel her gaze, as were she trying to look into his mind, appraising him.