She crossed over to the Administration Building, and
stopped at the door marked, "Mrs. Knowles." If you had been
an employee of the Haynes-Cooper company, and had been asked
to define Mrs. Knowles's position the chances are that you
would have found yourself floundering, wordless. Haynes-
Cooper was reluctant to acknowledge the need of Mrs.
Knowles. Still, when you employ ten thousand people, and
more than half of these are girls, and fifty per cent of
these girls are unskilled, ignorant, and terribly human you
find that a Mrs. Knowles saves the equivalent of ten times
her salary in wear and tear and general prevention. She
could have told you tragic stories, could Mrs. Knowles, and
sordid stories, and comic too; she knew how to deal with
terror, and shame, and stubborn silence, and hopeless
misery. Gray-haired and motherly? Not at all. An
astonishingly young, pleasingly plumpish woman, with nothing
remarkable about her except a certain splendid calm. Four
years out of Vassar, and already she had learned that if you
fold your hands in your lap and wait, quietly, asking no
questions, almost any one will tell you almost anything.
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