Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/62

 times, indeed, when she did not leave the store until seven o'clock, but those times were caused rather by customers than by the management of the store, which could prevent new shoppers from entering the doors after six, but could hardly turn out those already inside.

The automatic time-machine and a score of more annoying, and equally automatic, human beings kept watch upon all that she did. The former, in addition to the floor-walker in her section of the store, recorded her every going and coming, the latter reported every movement not prescribed by the regulations of the establishment; and the result upon Katie and her fellow-workers was much the result observable upon condemned assassins under the unwinking surveillance of the Death Watch.

If Katie was late, she was fined ten cents for each offense. She was reprimanded if her portion of the counter was disordered after a mauling by careless customers. She was fined for all mistakes she made in the matter of prices and the additions on her salesbook; and she was fined if, having asked the floor-walker for three or five minutes to leave the floor in order to tidy her hair and hands, in constant need of attention through the rapidity of her work and the handling of her dyed wares, she exceeded her time limit by so much as a few seconds.

There were no seats behind the counters, and Katie, whatever her physical condition, remained on her feet all day long, unless she could arrange for relief by a fellow-worker during that worker's luncheon time. There was no place for rest save a damp, ill-lighted "Recreation Room" in the basement, furnished with a piano that nobody had time to play, magazines that nobody had