The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1895-04-04
HER NAME Is LEGION.
The Girl Who Makes Her Own Living and
Has Hard Time Doing 1t.

The girl whose name l. legion is Just
at present she who makes her own liy-
ing-not as modern woman, Il lawyer
or lecturer, or artist, but as member
of what she can be proud to call the
tailoring class"-as all her labor is
noble. Sometimes she has to make
living or go without one. She lives in
a crowded home nest, where as soon as
the birds are able to fly they hop out
and look out for themselves. She must
work or starye, and she has been
brought up with that idea since she was
a small girl and her shoes were broken
and her frockS the souvenirs of an older
sisters wardrobe. She becomes a sery-
ant, if she is a foreigner in this coun-
try, and if she lives in big city tene-
ment, she goes into a factory or a store.
1t is her nature to know how to make a
living. says Criquette in the n. Y. Id
UertiSer, and she usually makes enough
to wear bright ribbons and buy gew-
gaws, which, if real would be tit for a
duchess.
But the girl who has lived in the
country all her life, who has had
home, circle of acquaintance and a
father and mother, who goes into the
world as a great event to be long
thought of, planned about and consulted
over, she is the girl who has sorrows to
encounter, which, as a rule, are too
great to be counteracted by the rewards
she receives.
She comes from the small towns and
the country every year and crowds to
the big cities. She is young and inno-
cent and trusting. She has a letter of
recommendation from her clergyman,
probably another from her schoolmas-
ter. She has steeled herself to bear
disappointment bravely, to persistently
try to get on, to be upright and honest
and still be very successful.
She is brave. But she needs to be.
She has thought of long hours, hard
work, small wages and no companion
ship, and she has planned how brave
she will be just by thinking of home
and spending odd hours with her books.
She does not think of the hard work
the constant hum of voices and scold-
ing, the over hours, the quick cutting
down of hands, which means no posi-
ton and no money. She forgets that
although big city has opportunities
for work, it has the greatest number of
workers She forgets that she is I'M
skilled and lacks the experience and
rough go" which sends bolder ones
ahead. She forgets that she will no
longer have mother to recount her
yeXations to, or friends or pleasures or
a home of her own. Her home will be
a boarding house hall bedroom, not
very clean, not at all comfortable
very unlike home, and very high up in
the house. She won't have fruit to cat
and milk TO drink, and the bread will
be dreadful and the meat better left
alone. There may be a pretense of
style, but where she pays So or 81 a
week board the best food is to be had
where the least style obtains.
She will make friends, not like the
friends at home, but people whom she
may think know great deal more than
the boys and girls who live in the coun-
try. By and by she may change her
mind; in the meantime She is happy.
Sometimes she has friends who assist
her in business and who guide her fall
tel'ing steps socially and make her for
get she is lonely or ever discouraged.
Then she is fortunate.
But there is the other girl who is not
so fortunate. She has no experience,
no friends, little money, and only the
recommendation of the clergymen or
the school teacher at home.
1t would be well for the girl, whose
name is legion and who burns to dis
tinguish herself by going into a city
shop or factory, to think of all these
things. 1t is better TO fail, to be de-
pendent, but it is hard struggle to win
laurels in a big city for the rosy-cheeked
maid, who can churn butter and milk
COWS better than talk slang. and when
she goes back to the proud home folks
with laurels on her brow there are apt to
be lines of care and sorrow on the brow,
too, which are not worth the laurels.