For that matter, there were times in the next two years when Mary herself hardly knew what she was up to next, for if ever a girl suddenly found herself in deep waters, it was the last of the Spencers.

Strangely enough--although I think it is true of many of life's undertakings--it wasn't the big things which bothered her the most.
She soon demonstrated--if it needed any demonstration--that what the women of France and Britain had done, the women of New Bethel could do.
At each call of the draft, more and more men from Spencer & Son obeyed the beckoning finger of Mars, and more and more women presently took their places in the workshops.

That was simply a matter of enlarging the training school, of expanding the courses of instruction.
No; it wasn't the big things which ultimately took the bloom from Mary's cheeks and the smile from her eyes.
It was the small things that worried her--things so trifling in themselves that it would sound foolish to mention them--the daily nagging details, the gathering load of responsibility upon her shoulders, the indifference which she had to dispel, the inertia that had to be overcome, the ruffled feelings to be soothed, the squabbles to be settled, the hidden hostilities which she had to contend against in her own office--and yet pretend she never noticed them.
Indeed, if it hadn't been for the recompensing features, Mary's enthusiasm would probably have become chilled by experience, and dreams have come to nothing.

But now and then she seemed to sense in the factory a gathering impetus of efficient organization, the human gears working smoothly for a time, the whole machine functioning with that beauty of precision which is the dream of every executive.
That always helped Mary whenever it happened.
And the second thing which kept her going was to see the evidences of prosperity and contentment which the women on the payroll began to show--their new clothes and shoes--the hopeful confidence of their smiles--the frequency with which the furniture dealers' wagons were seen in the streets around the factory, the sounds of pianos and phonographs in the evening and, better than all, the fact that on pay day at Spencer & Sons, the New Bethel Savings Bank stayed open till half past nine at night--and didn't stay open for nothing! "If things could only keep going like this when the war ends, too," breathed Mary one day.

"...I'm sure there must be some way ...