“Irma!” Miss Cross's voice had an oft-repeated tone to it. She called out from the table where she checked over each girl's work without so much as turning her head. “You ironed only one leg of these pajamas!” Irma shuffled over on her crooked high heels and returned with the half-done pajamas. “That fo'-lady!” sighed Irma, “she sure gets on ma nerves. She's always hollerin' at me 'bout somethin'. She never hollers at the other girls that way—she just picks on me.” And Irma continued with the True Woman: “There's another thing the True Woman should have and that's a good character....” “Irma!” (slight impatience in Miss Cross's tone) “you ironed this nightgown on the wrong side!” Irma looked appealingly at me. “There she goes again. She makes me downright nervous, that fo'-lady does.” Poor, persecuted Irma! During that first morning Irma had to iron over at least six things. Then they looked like distraction. I thought of the manager's introductory speech to me—how after two weeks I might have to make way for a more efficient person. “How long you been here?” I asked Irma. “Four months.” “What you makin'?” “Thirteen a week.” “Ever get extra?” “Na.” Suspicions concerning the manager. Irma had three other papers. One was on Testing Time. What was Testing Time? It might concern chemical tubes. It might be a bit of romance. And she really meant Trysting Time. No, to everybody a time comes when he or she must make a great decision. It was about that. “Irma! you've got your foot in the middle of that white apron!” Another paper was on Etee-quette (q pronounced). “Irma! you creased one of these pajama legs down the middle! Do it over.” I pondered much during my laundry days as to why they kept Irma. She told me she first worked down on the shirt-and-collar floor and used to do “one hundred and ten shirts an hour,” but the boss got down on her. It took her sometimes three-quarters of an hour to do one boy's shirt on our floor, and then one half the time she had it to do over. Her ironing was beyond all words fearful to behold (there must be an Irma in every laundry). She was all-mannered slow. She forgot to tag her work. She hung it over her horse so that cuffs and apron strings were always on the floor. Often she was late. Sometimes Miss Cross would grow desperate—but there Irma remained. Below, in that little entryway, were girls waiting for jobs. Did they figure that on the whole Irma wrecked fewer garments than the average new girl, or what? And the manager had tried to scare me!