The Harvester World: Volume 2, number 7, April 1911

              The Harvester World
31
It was not long before an alarm whistle blew and they scattered up and down the stairs like a flock of eager birds—only a few loiterers.
Hot coffee for a penny or two at noon helps out a lunch, and I thought the girls were quite as well off as their associates, the men, for whom coffee was provided but beer denied in the mill. "Good business," a sleek looking visitor said, and I guessed he might be right.
Back from lunch to the spinning room and the eighty or ninety girls who where taking care of two to four machines each, if I understood right. A boy wheeled the cans of fibre by the machine and the girl took the coil,' only two or three inches thick now, and threaded it across a huge combing machine again, and before I knew I was in it, I had slipped from her hand and was winding around a big bobbin, whirling like mad but covered up tight by a sort of hood—a guard, the girls called it, so that if the bobbin got too excited and ' 'flew off the handle" it couldn't hurt the girl and she was safe from getting her hands caught in what they called the "flyer. "   Good name, all right.
The girl snatched me and the bobbin off the rods just at the right moment, "all full," slipped another empty bobbin in the place and then she walked around or sat down WRere she could watch the fibre creeping across the comb and then having hysterics around the bobbin.
T* •W/' I   I**
Not the girl having hysterics — she seemed to be dream¬ ing of Poland, or sunny Italy, or Dakota. I was on a rack by the side until a big boy came along and loaded all the full bobbins on a truck and wheeled us away to the bailers.
More girls to work at my life, but no more combing —top floor of a big building and twine bobbins and balls everywhere, a few men still doing the heavy lifting and ever so many girls "balling." It was not so noisy here and I could hear the girls saying a word to a neighbor sometimes—not always in English but often in the language of their mother country. More than twenty nations have in one way or another greeted me today and they were all represented by the women — no girls under sixteen, not many over twenty-five. The younger age cannot be employed because of laws, and the older ones slip away because of loves. They get married and go to housekeeping. All this I learned by hearing the answers to questions put by one they called "the welfare lady."
But hsten to what happened. Just as I thought I could find out about a new "contraption" put on the machine so the girl could pull the ball off more easily without bumping it up with her knee—collapsible spin¬ dle it was—suddenly the fire whistle sounded, ma¬ chinery at once shut off, employes formed in lines, single and double, marching out through different sections in accordance with signals given on air whistles.
There was no fire that day. Fire Chief Pollard, without notifying anybody, had the signal sounded to see how quickly the floor could be cleared, and whether the superintendent might feel satisfied that the women
employes were really so well drilled that their safety was absolutely assured. They all went in directions in accordance with signals sounded, guided by one of the staff through doors which would lead to safety. Men were stationed at the firedoors to keep them open until employes   passed   out.    Firemen mounted  the   hose
1    ,. JwU.   ^''^
li   ::'    l!li"-'!^n[ji;,   ."li
II                                     i'        ib' ,ii ,
h
¦^^j^^^^jB^Mj^Sg^^^^^
¦
N
1               '  'jHMi«e',^.'.               1
Section showing Kitchen in the Lunch Room at Deering Twine Mills
others the extinguishers and other fire equipment in the room.
From the time the alarm was sounded until the room was cleared of all employes, the time was 54 seconds as shown by the stop watch in the chief's hand. There must have been 100 women in the room or perhaps more, and only two persons knew whether it was a real fire or a drill.
"How often are these given?" was asked the superin¬ tendent, and the answer was " Usually weekly."
All windows are balance weighted so they can be raised immediately, and if they are directed to this exit, the girls would go safely down the fire escapes, which reach to the ground.
After the drill, when the girls were notified by a signal that the fire was over, several were asked, "Were you frightened?" The invariable answer was, "Oh, no, we know what to do."
There was a fire at this works once where a girl pulled down the hose and extinguished the fire herself.    One
A Comer of the Rest Room at the Deering Twine Mills.
day there was a fire on the first floor in the room adjoin¬ ing the girls, and they worked along, saying, "Oh ! the foreman will let us know if there is danger." All the floors can be signaled from the ground floor.
And so in this factory where the material is of an inflammable nature, the fire protection is as it should