But she needn't have worried.

There was an argument in that advertisement, "Easier than washing, ironing, scrubbing or sewing," that appealed to many a feminine imagination, and when the fancy, thus awakened, played around the promising phrase "$21 a week--and up," hope presently turned to desire--and desire to resolution.
"We'll have to set up more machines," said Mary to Archey when she saw the size of her first class.

And looking them over with a proudly beating heart she called out, "Good morning, everybody! Will you please follow me ?" From this point on, particularly, I like to imagine the eight Josiah Spencers who had gone before following the proceedings with ghostly steps and eyes that missed not a move--invisible themselves, but hearing all and saying nothing.

And how they must have stared at each other as they followed that procession over the factory grounds, the last of the Spencers followed by a silent, winding train of women, like a new type of Moses leading her sisters into the promised land! As Mary had never doubted for a moment, the women of New Bethel proved themselves capable of doing anything that the women of Europe had done; and it wasn't long before lines of feminine figures in Turkish overalls were bending over the repetition tools in the Spencer shops--starting, stopping, reversing gears, oiling bearings--and doing it all with that deftness and assurance which is the mark of the finished workman.
Indeed, if you had been near-sighted, and watching from a distance, you might have been pardoned for thinking that they were men--but if you looked closer you would have seen that each woman had a stool to sit on, when her work permitted, and if you had been there at half past ten and again at half past three, you would have seen a hand-cart going up and down the aisles, serving tea, coffee, cake and sandwiches.
Again at noon you would have seen that the women had a rest room of their own where they could eat their lunch in comfort--a rest room with couches, and easy chairs, and palms and flowers, and a piano, and a talking machine, and a floor that you could dance on, if you felt like dancing immediately before or after lunch.

And how the eight Josiahs would have stared at that happy, swaying throng in its Turkish overalls--especially on Friday noon just after the pay envelopes had been handed around! Meanwhile the school was adding new courses of study.