The third floor had seemed dark and dismal enough during the morning; at noon all lights are turned off. Many of the workers went out for lunch, the rest got around in dismal corners, most of them singly, and ate by their machines, on the same hard seats they have been on since a quarter to 8. What a bacchanal festival of color and beauty now appeared the candy-factory whitewashed lunch room with the marble-topped tables! The airy sociability of it! I wandered about with my lunch in my hand, to see what I could see. Up amid the belts and power machines sat one of the girls who began that morning—not the cold, hatless one.
“Oh gee! Ain't like no place I ever worked yet. Don't catch me standin' this long.”
She did stand it four days. Minnie suggested then she stick it out till Christmas. “You'll need the money for Christmas y'know, an' you might not get the next job so easy now.”
“Damn Christmas!” was all the new girl had to say to that.
“Sure now,” said Irish Minnie, “an' she's takin her chances. It's an awful disgrace y'know, to be gettin' presents when y'ain't got none to give back. Ain't it, now? I'd never take no chances on a job so close to Christmas.”
I talked to five girls that noon. None of them had been there longer than a week. None of them planned to stay.
All afternoon I worked the foot press at one job. My foot-press enthusiasm weakened—four thousand times I “kicked”—two thousand lamp-wick slots I make in the cones. Many of the first five hundred looked a bit sad and chewed at. The “boss” came by and saw that I was not one hundred per cent perfect. He gave me pointers and I did better. Each cone got placed over a slanted form just so; kick, and half the slot is made. Lift the cone up a wee bit, twist it round to an exact position, hold it in place, kick, and the other half is cut. The kick must be a stout kick—bing! down hard, to make a clean job of it. The thing they gave you to sit on! A high, narrow, homemade-looking, wooden stool, the very hardest article of furniture under the blue canopy of heaven. Some of them had little, narrow, straight backs—just boards nailed on behind. All of them were top heavy and fell over if you got off without holding on. By 4.30 standing up at the candy job seemed one of the happiest thoughts on earth. What rosy good old days those were! Dear old candy factory! Happy girls back there bending over the chocolates!