The second week I got closer to the girls. Or, more truthfully put, they got closer to me. At the other factories I had asked most of the questions and answered fewer. Here I could hardly get a question in edgewise for the flood which was let loose on me. I explained in each factory that I lived with a widow who brought me from California to look after her children. I did some work for her evenings and Saturday afternoon and Sunday, to pay for my room and board. Not only was I asked every conceivable question about myself, but at the dress factory I had to answer uncountable questions about the lady I lived with—her “gentlemen friends,” her clothes, her expenses. It was like pulling teeth for me to get any information out of the girls. In such a matter as reading, for example. Every girl I asked was fond of reading. What kind of books? Good books. Yes, but the names. I got _We Two_ out of Sarah, and Jean was reading Ibsen's _Doll's House_. It was a swell book, a play. After hours one night she told me the story. Together with Ada's concern over my grammar it can be seen that I left the dress factory in intellectual advance over the condition in which I entered. The girls I had the opportunity of asking were not such “movie” enthusiasts, on the whole. Only now and then they went to “a show.” Less frequently they spoke of going to the Jewish Theater. No one was particularly excited over dancing—in fact, Sarah, who looked the blond type of the dance-every-night variety, thought dancing “disgusting.” Shows weren't her style. She liked reading. Whenever I got the chance I asked a girl what she did evenings. The answer usually was, “Oh, nothing much.” One Friday I asked a group of girls at lunch if they weren't glad the next day was Saturday and the afternoon off. Four of them weren't glad at all, because they had to go home and clean house Saturday afternoons, and do other household chores. “Gee! don't you hate workin' round the house?” I wonder how much of the women-in-industry movement is traceable to just that. The first day I was at the dress factory a very dirty but pleasant-faced little Jewish girl said to me, “Ever try workin' at home? Ain't it just awful?” She had made thirty-two dollars a week beading at her last place—didn't know what she'd get here. I had hoped to hear murmurings and discussions about the conditions of the garment trades and the unions—not a word the whole time. Papers were full of a strike to be called the next week throughout the city, affecting thousands of waist and dress makers. It might as well have been in London. Not an echo of interest in it reached our factory. I asked Sarah if she had ever worked in a union shop. “Sure.” “Any different from this?” “Different? You bet it's different. Boss wouldn't dare treat you the way you get treated here.” But as usual I was yelled for and got no chance ever to pin Sarah to details.