There she gayly bade him
good-by and ran up the steps shutting herself in the vestibule
from which she did not emerge until the dazzled and bewildered
young man had vanished down the street.
Then there is the ever-recurring difficulty about dress; the
insistence of the young to be gayly bedecked to the utter
consternation of the hardworking parents who are paying for a
house and lot. The Polish girl who stole five dollars from her
employer's till with which to buy a white dress for a church
picnic was turned away from home by her indignant father who
replaced the money to save the family honor, but would harbor no
"thief" in a household of growing children who, in spite of the
sister's revolt, continued to be dressed in dark heavy clothes
through all the hot summer. There are a multitude of working
girls who for hours carry hair ribbons and jewelry in their
pockets or stockings, for they can wear them only during the
journey to and from work. Sometimes this desire to taste
pleasure, to escape into a world of congenial companionship takes
more elaborate forms and often ends disastrously. I recall a
charming young girl, the oldest daughter of a respectable German
family, whom I first saw one spring afternoon issuing from a tall
factory. She wore a blue print gown which so deepened the blue
of her eyes that Wordsworth's line fairly sung itself:
The pliant harebell swinging in the breeze
On some gray rock.
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