In that moment she understood the look that had
been stamped on the girl's face that night; the look that
had cried: "Release!" For this platform, shaking under the
thud of bundles, bundles, bundles, was the stomach of the
Haynes-Cooper plant. Sixty per cent of the forty-five
thousand daily orders passed through the hands of this girl
and her assistants. Down the chutes swished the bundles,
stamped with their section mark, and here they were caught
deftly and hurled into one of the dozen conveyers that
flowed out from this main stream. The wrong bundle into the
wrong conveyer? Confusion in the shipping room. It only
took a glance of the eye and a motion of the arms. But that
glance and that motion had been boiled down to the very
concentrated essence of economy. They seemed to be working
with fury, but then, so does a pile-driver until you get the
simplicity of it.
Fanny bent over the girl (it was a noisy corner) and put a
question. The girl did not pause in her work as she
answered it. She caught a bundle with one hand, hurled one
into a conveyer with the other.
Pages:
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378