Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/648

 628 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

his toil directly to them and then turned apathetically away to begin half-hearted preparations for another year's crop. His wife and children shared his labors, sharing also his empty- handedness.

This went on through the dragging years of the South's agricultural prostration, until the last decade came, with its mills and its revolution, when the moneyless and landless ones drew into the new communities, to try breadwinning under unfamil- iar conditions. The mothers and daughters had often worked on the farms, so they did not hesitate at the factory door, except when very young children claimed the care of the former. In most instances, indeed, the women's fingers proved the readiest for the new occupation.

But neither women nor men acquired dexterity without a period of laborious effort such as all workmen must struggle through when, possessed of only the inherited instincts of generations of bucolic ancestors, they set themselves to some form of mechani- cal labor. That period being done with, a certain amount of skill began to appear in all fairly intelligent operatives, and shortly they found themselves bringing home each Saturday night, or alternate Saturday night, according as pay-day fell, what appeared to many of them an amazing pile of money.

Cases such as the following are multiplied many times over: The father, mother, and six or eight boys and girls (for large families are the rule in this class), ranging from twelve to twenty-odd years of age, are at work in one mill. The adults, if fair weavers, easily average $22 each per month ; the younger members of the family are probably spinners and average about $14 each per month. This family, then, that in the old life of the farm thought themselves fortunate, indeed, to handle $100 in cash throughout a year, now bring home something like $175 every month. Is it strange that extravagance seizes upon this metamorphosed household? If the sudden transition from pen- nilessness to plethoric pocketbooks did not in itself lead straight to spendthrift living, the precedents of their neighbors would speedily teach the trait. So the housewife loads the table with luxuries hitherto unknown, the pretty girl is tempted into all the