Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/99

 an ambition to sustain her, an objective point toward which she would bend her endeavors. As soon as she felt sufficient confidence, she left the shop and started as house-to-house seamstress at one dollar per day. Sometimes she worked with members of the family who employed her, sometimes with more competent house-to-house dressmakers, but it did not take her long to discover that the problem of the average family was the gowning of the girl who had just reached the awkward age, the age of angles and of hysterical tears over dresses that would not simulate curves.

She began to study the possibilities of the awkward age. What styles of skirts, blouses, girdles and fichus would soften those angles? What fabrics lent themselves best to soft effects, and what trimmings should be avoided? What changes could be made in prevailing style to secure becoming results for unhappy Miss Fifteen? All these problems she studied and worked out with a more than artistic eye—the enthusiasm of the girl with the one idea. To-day that girl commands $2.50 per day. She has all she can do in town during the winter, spring and fall, and her hot-weather days are spent at a resort on the New Jersey coast, where in two wealthy families she makes, early fall finery for growing girls. Thus she has her expenses paid to and from the resort, her daily