Obvious common sense. But how
could she goad these unfortunates, force their clumsy fingers
to move faster, make their long and weary day longer and
wearier--with nothing for them as the result but duller brain,
clumsier fingers, more wretched bodies? She realized why those
above lost all patience with them, treated them with contempt.
Only as one of them could any intelligent, energetic human
being have any sympathy for them, stupid and incompetent from
birth, made ever more and more stupid and incapable by the
degrading lives they led. She could scarcely conceal her
repulsion for their dirty bodies, their stained and rotting
clothing saturated with stale sweat, their coarse flesh reeking
coarse food smells. She could not listen to their
conversation, so vulgar, so inane. Yet she felt herself--for
the time--one of them, and her heart bled for them. And while
she knew that only their dullness of wit and ignorance kept
them from climbing up and stamping and trampling full as
savagely and cruelly as did those on top, still the fact
remained that they were not stamping and trampling.
As she was turning in some work, Miss Tuohy said abruptly:
"You don't belong here. You ought to go back."
Susan started, and her heart beat wildly. She was going to
lose her job!
The forelady saw, and instantly understood. "I don't mean
that," she said. "You can stay as long as you like--as long as
your health lasts.
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