"I am only twelve at the time but I go to work in a factory--not your
factory, but one away off the other side of the river. I have to walk
long, long distance in the cold, dark morning, and walk back again at
night, but I am happy for I earn money to help at home. Mother she go to
work too, in a great steam laundry where she stand all day at a big
machine. She very thin and pale, and so tired at night she can hardly
walk home. But she, too, is content; for she have work to do and work
means money to buy food for the little ones and for the blind
grandmother.
"We get along pretty well for almost three years. Then, just a year ago,
the factory I work for shuts down. Times are hard, there is no more work
for us, we must go. We do go. We try first one place, then another, to
find work. It is the same story everywhere, times are hard and there is
no work for us.
"Then mother gets that dreadful cold. The laundry where she works is
always so very hot. She come out at night into the cold air; her coat is
thin for she cannot buy a warm one and she get a dreadful chill one
night as she comes home. She cough all the time after that. It shake her
nearly all to pieces; but she still go to her work till one day she fall
beside her machine. They bring her home and we put her into bed and she
never leave it again.
"What to do then we know not.
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