“I began to live out when I was thirteen years old, and I am now twenty-seven. I have saved $1600 in that time. At first I had $.50 a week; now I have $3.00. One summer I earned $3.00 a day in the hop-picking season.” [245] “We are not as closely confined as girls who work in stores, and are usually more healthy.” “I chose it because I thought it was healthy work.” “There is no healthier work for women.” “It is healthier than most other kinds of work I could do.” “You can have better-cooked food and a better room than most shop-girls.” [246] “I came to a strange city and chose housework, because it afforded me a home.” “I am well treated by the family I am with, feel at home and under their protection.” “Housework fell to my lot and I have followed it up because it has secured me a home.” “Housework gives me a better home than I could make for myself in any other way.” “I have more comforts than in other work.” “I like a quiet home in a good family better than work in a public place, like a shop.” “When I came to ⸺ and saw the looks of the girls in the large stores and the familiarity of the young men, I preferred to go into a respectable family where I could have a home.” [247] _The New York Evening Post_, January 11, 1896, cites from _London Truth_ an account of a bill under consideration in the New Zealand Parliament providing that every domestic servant in the colony is to have a half-holiday every Wednesday, and that the employer is to be fined £5 if the domestic is deprived of this privilege. The “half-holiday” practically means that the servant will be entitled to leave of absence from two until ten. Inspectors are to be appointed to enforce the provisions of this measure, if it becomes a law. [248] “I choose housework as my regular employment for the simple reason that young women look forward to the time when they will have housework of their own to do. I consider that I or any one in domestic employment will make a better housekeeper than any young woman who works in a factory.” “I think you can learn more in doing housework.” “It requires both care and study and so keeps our mind in constant thought and care, and ought to be respected.” [249] “At home I was my mother’s help even when we had a girl of our own, and from childhood had always loved to cook, and learned to do all kinds.” “My mother was a housekeeper and did most of her own work and taught me how to help her. When my father and mother died, and it became necessary for me to earn my own living, the question was, ‘What can I do?’ The answer was plain—housework.” “I have a natural love for cooking, and would rather do it than anything else in the world.” “I like it best, was used to it at home, and it seems more natural-like.” “I enjoy housework more than anything else.”