Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/91

 the laborer will be considered worthy of her hire.

We will take it for granted that you have fairly good health, strong eyesight, a gift for setting neat stitches and running a machine evenly, and a fair amount of good taste. You think you would like to be a dressmaker, but you have no capital.

You must start as an apprentice or helper, according to your age. If you are a mere slip of a girl, you will start your dressmaking career by running errands, delivering finished work, executing small shopping commissions, and holding a box of pins for the fitter. All of those tasks hold possibilities. Running errands and delivering work will bring you in direct contact with customers and give to you your first training in tactful treatment of patrons. The shopping commissions will prove lessons in values, combinations of color, or of fabrics and trimmings, and the retail markets. By watching the fitter closely, the mere holder of pins gains her first idea of the value of lines and what constitutes failure or success in fitting.

As an errand girl, the apprentice will not re'ceive more than $2 a week. She may have to work several months for nothing. At the end of six months she starts on linings at $4 a week. When promoted to do over-sewing and finishing, she will receive $6 for her week's work.