She abandoned the though of appealing to the other department stores and now wandered on, feeling a certain safety and relief in mingling with the crowd.
In her indifferent wandering she turned into Jackson Street, nor far from the river, and was keeping her way along the south side of that imposing thoroughfare, when a piece of wrapping paper, written on with marking ink and tacked up on the door, attracted her attention.

It read, "Girls wanted wrappers & stitchers." She hesitated a moment, then entered.
The firm of Speigelheim & Co, makers of boys' caps, occupied one floor of the building, fifty feet in width and some eighty feet in depth.

It was a place rather dingily lighted, the darkest portions having incandescent lights, filled with machines and work benches.

At the latter labored quite a company of girls and some men.

The former were drabby-looking creatures, stained in face with oil and dust, clad in thin, shapeless, cotton dresses and shod with more or less worn shoes.
Many of them had their sleeves rolled up, revealing bare arms, and in some cases, owing to the heat, their dresses were open at the neck.