The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-09-18

| 4MSfKE/ ure were all too
A,NS!4Gn4I thick. Everything
| Nv" about her bespoke
OF d good appetite, laziness and slov.
enliness.
Rebecca thought she was beautiful
II she did not, why did she stroll the
length of the long room to fill her oil
can SIX times a day when the other
girls oiled their machines three times
at the most? Why did she wear the
dig bows of gay ribbon across the
BACK OF her head? Why were those
earrings in her ears and gay Jewels
on her fat hands? She deemed them
desirable adjuncts to her personal
loneliness.
TO Rosie Eisenstein, who was az
neat as pin, and to Lena Olson. who
mad not been brought up in the Ghet-
! 10, Rebecca was repulsive. But Re-
pecca loved them with a mad devotion
only less real than her devotion for
the man who sewed on the double
stitch machine
| Rebecca had come over from Rus
STA three or four years before. as had
most OF the girls in the sweatshop.
She had no education save for little
received as child. She had worked
on overalls since she was IA, three
years before, and had advanced NO
further than to earn four dollars a
] week, while others who started with
her were making as much as seven
dollars a week and doing piece work
What
seemed to be either her generous sup.
ply of affection for everyone-affection
not desired by any-or her strong
sense of humor. At lunch time her
Voluble conversation in Yiddish,
which came thickly and continuously
out OF her mouth while chunks of salt
fish went in, was greeted with fire.
quent shouts of laughter. Though
loved by no one, her society was not
summed, for her ever-ready fund of
jokes amused everybody.
1t happened one evening that Sadie.
little, frightened, dark-eyed, dark
skinned girl who had come shrinking
ly to work at the shop two weeks be-
fore, had received her first payment
of three dollars. The first weeks work
OF each girl had to be gratis.
Sadie had tied up the precious dol
lar bills in bit of coarse white cloth
which she had found by her machine
and had wrapped the whole around
with thread. Then she tucked the
package securely in her waist. She
put on her hat and coat at closing
time, quietly and silently, for Sadie
so shy and frightened was She
knew no one even after two weeks in
the shop.
She put her hand for the tenth
time inside her waist to feel the little
white bundle. Then a look of fright
convulsed her featues. 1t was gone
her money?
Her tongue then was loosened. A
volume of scattering Yiddish English
and Russian, Historically bursting
forth, made every girl anxious to do
what she could to relieve Sadies dis
tress
Going down on their knees on the
dirty floor, they looked under papers
and rags for the little white bundle
tied around with thread. They could
not find it anywhere.
"You would to steal it," Missed
Sadie, looking accusingly from one to
another, at Rebecca, Lena, Rosie and
last at Fannie.
They all denied the charge emphat-
ically in Yiddish, English and F.us-
sian.
Its lie!" said Fannie, incenged
that her honesty should be doubted by
a strange girl in the sweatshop. "Ain't
shamei Comes no robbers by he e."
But the strange little girl heard not.
A small tragic figure she was as her
dark eyes momentarily grew bigger
and more wild
He will to have fierce mad on
me- she moaned. Il can't to go on
my house. He may bees to hit mel"
Her voice broke piteously Sinking
in little forlorn heap on the floor,
she trembled and choked and sobbed.
Rosie, Lena, Fannie and Rebecca
stood silent Sadie shuddered VIC
lently and wept on.
"You could to have this, the whites
you are scairt to go on your house"
1t was Rebecca's big, warm 'toice that
spoke. 1t was Rebecca WI D impuls.
lively tucked three one-dollai bills into
the coarse, dirty hand of Sadie.
Sadie clutched the money eagerly
and went out silently and hurriedly
as if in fear that it would be taken
from her.
1t means much in the sweatshop to
give away three dollars. Though il
, happened that Sadie that evening
ripped herself open and found in one
of the crevices of her winter packing
, the white bundle tied with thread
Rebecca could not have known, any
more than did Rosie or Lena or Fan
ME, that the money was SAFE
Homogeneous it seemed that Rebecca
who had not feature indicating the
nobler sentiments, whose very pres
ence was repulsive, should have beer
the one to do the big and generous
: thing