Katia did not respect Madame Cora's methods,
and had left before the strike.
Katia spent $2.50 a week for breakfast and dinner and for her share of a
room with a congenial friend, another Russian girl, in Harlem. The room
was close and opened on an air-shaft, but was quiet and rather pleasant.
She paid from $1.25 to $1.50 for luncheons, and, out of the odd hundred
dollars left from her income, had contrived, by doing her own washing and
making her own waists, to buy all her clothing, and to spend $5 for books
and magazines, $7 for grand opera, which she deeply loved, and $30 for an
outing. On account of her cleverness Katia was less at the mercy of
unjust persons than some of the less skilful and younger girls.
Among these, Molly Davousta, another young machine operative, was
struggling to make payments to an extortionate ticket seller, who had
swindled her in the purchase of a steamboat ticket.
When Molly was thirteen, her mother and father, who had five younger
children, had sent her abroad out of Russia, with the remarkable
intention of having her prepare and provide a home for all of them in
some other country.
Like Dick Whittington, the little girl went to London, though to seek,
not only her own fortune, but that of seven other people.
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