"That's just it. You
can't, ever."
Fanny got up before six every morning of that Easter
vacation, and went to the mill, lunch box in hand. She came
home at night dead-tired. She did not take the street car
to and from the mill, as she might have, because she said
the other girls in the rag-room walked, some of them from
the very edge of town. Mrs. Brandeis said that she was
carrying things too far, but Fanny stuck it out for the two
weeks, at the end of which period she spent an entire Sunday
in a hair-washing, face-steaming, and manicuring bee. She
wrote her paper from notes she had taken, and turned it in
at the office of the high school principal with the feeling
that it was not at all what she had meant it to be. A week
later Professor Henning called her into his office. The
essay lay on his desk.
"I've read your thesis," he began, and stopped, and cleared
his throat. He was not an eloquent man. "Where did you
get your information, Miss Brandeis?"
"I got it at the mill."
"From one of the employees?"
"Oh, no.
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