The next day I went back to the shop--to the same long hours--to the same low wages--to the same pig-eyed, fat-bellied boss. But I was no longer the same. For the first time in my life I bent to the inevitable. I accepted my defeat. But something in me, stronger than I, rose triumphant even in my surrender. “Yes, I must submit to the shop,” I thought. “But the shop shall not crush me. Only my body I must sell into slavery--not my heart--not my soul. “To any one who sees me from without, I am only a dirt-eating worm, a grub in the ground, but I know that above this dark earth-place in which I am sunk is the green grass--and beyond the green grass, the sun and sky. Alone, unaided, I must dig my way up to the light!” * * * * * Lunch-hour at the factory. My book of Shelley’s poems before me and I was soon millions of miles beyond the raucous voices of the hungry eaters. “Did you already hear the last news?” Yetta tore my book from me in her excitement. “What news?” I scowled at her for waking me from my dreams. “We’re going to have electricity by the machines. And the forelady says that the new boss will give us ten cents more on a dozen waists!” “God from the world! How did it happen--electricity--better pay?” I asked in amazement. For that was the first I had heard of improved conditions of work. But little by little, step by step, the sanitation improved. Open windows, swept floors, clean wash-rooms, individual drinking-cups introduced a new era of factory hygiene. Our shop was caught up in the general movement for social betterment that stirred the country. It was not all done in a day. Weary years of struggle passed before the workers emerged from the each-for-himself existence into an organized togetherness for mutual improvement. At last, with the shortened hours of work, I had enough vitality left at the end of the day to join the night-school. Again my dream flamed. Again America beckoned. In the school there would be education--air, life for my cramped-in spirit. I would learn to form the thoughts that surged formless in me. I would find the teacher that would make me articulate. Shelley was English literature. So I joined the literature class. The course began with the “De Coverley Papers.” Filled with insatiate thirst, I drank in every line with the feeling that any minute I would get to the fountain-heart of revelation. Night after night I read with tireless devotion. But of what? The manners and customs of the eighteenth century, of people two hundred years dead. One evening after a month’s attendance, when the class had dwindled from fifty to four and the teacher began scolding us who were left for those who were absent, my bitterness broke.