All during those eventful four years I remained in the underbrush—the world of the unskilled working woman of New York City. During that time I held twenty-five different positions in almost as many different fields of work. I directed envelopes for a large mail-order house, was a saleswoman in one of the most advertised of metropolitan department stores, addressed envelopes for a woman’s magazine, folded circulars for one of the largest publishing houses in the country, acted as saleswoman in the premium station of a large profit-sharing business, packed cigarettes, served as waitress in one of the more fashionable hotels at a popular winter health resort, was a packer in a cracker factory, an assistant to a chocolate-dipper in a candy factory, head chambermaid in the home of a millionaire, maid of all work in a two-servant family, helper in a church home for small girls, gentlewoman maid of all work in a philanthropic institution for dependent children, assistant in the loan department of a Wall Street banking institution—one of the largest in the world—and a clerk of the District Board for the city of New York. I addressed envelopes for the same mail-order house, was paid canvasser for the Woman Suffrage Party, proof-reader in that department of the International Y. M. C. A. known as “the guts” of the organization, inspector in a gas-mask factory. I folded circulars in a large printing plant, stamped envelopes for yet another woman’s magazine, worked in the Social Service Department of Bellevue Hospital, was a clerk in the offices of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a license inspector for the same society, and finally saleswoman in the Store Beautiful—perhaps the largest and most beautiful store in the world. Working shoulder to shoulder and living among my fellow workers on my wages, I became in reality one of the class known as Labor. I shared its misery during the months preceding the entrance of our country into the World War—caused by the continued low wages after the enormous increase in price of every necessity of life; and I suffered along with my fellows the nerve-racking period when our plea for an increase of wage hung in the balance. When finally the general increase was obtained I, with all other inhabitants of the underbrush, drew a breath of relief. When the trend of wages continued upward—judged by the reports in the daily press by leaps and bounds, but by us, who had struggled to keep body and soul together on six or seven dollars a week, or less—the feeling of relief deepened. With the coming of national prohibition the atmosphere in the tenement districts of New York became almost that of contentment. Many women—hundreds of them—told me: “My children have shoes, now that the saloon don’t get the first pull at my husband’s pay envelope. It’s grand!”