She had begun in a box
factory, she told him. And then she'd been a candy-dipper. Now, you
work in a lowered atmosphere in order not to spoil your chocolate.
For which reason candy-dippers, like all the good, are likely to die
young. Seven of the girls in Gracie's department "got the T.B." That
made Gracie pause to think, and the more she thought about it, the
clearer it seemed to her that if one has to have a short life, one
might at least make a bid for a merrier one than candy-dipping. So
she made her choice. The short life and merry, rather than the T.B.
and charity.
"And has it been so merry, Gracie?" asked Peter, looking at the hard
young face wonderingly.
"Well, it's been heaps better than choc'late-dippin'," said Gracie,
promptly. "I don't get no worse treated, when all's said an' done.
I've got better clothes an' more time an' I don't work nothin' like
so hard. An' I got chanst to see things. You don't see nothin' in
the fact'ry. Say I feel like goin' to the movies, or treatin' myself
to a ice-cream soda or a choc'late a-clair, why, I can do it without
nobody's leave--when I'm lucky.
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