The Working Girl

*THE WORKER*

BRISBANE, JUNE 8, 1895

The Working Girl.

If you please, sir, I can't help it; I am only a working girl;

Low wages means low living; as perhaps you'll understand.

Six dollars was the highest weekly wage I ever drew,

But I have to live on less than that, and how do you think I do?

If I could earn six dollars every week all through the year,

Do you think I'd stand a shiverin' and a talkin' to you here?

But half of it's more like it, what with “slack” and no time, too;

I've got to make the best of it – the best that I can do.

I have no relations to fall back upon, like some;

And I've nothin' in the bank put by to draw when hard times come.

And I've got to dress respectable, and pay my way like you,

And live somehow beside, sir, as a woman wants to do.

No, I wouldn't like to die; I think the good Lord's hard

On us common workin' women, and I believe we are debarred

From His high uncertain heaven, where fine ladies all go to,

So I try to keep on livin', though the Lord knows how I do.

I wonder, oh, I wonder, as I sometimes sit and sew,

If lady callers take us for a sort o' waxwork show;

And what they'd say about us, if one-half the truth they knew;

And whether they would manage any better than we do.

Good night, my friend, if you are going; you don't give me no advice;

What I want is food and clothing, which is mostly virtue's price;

At least it seems to me so, though I'm not a poor wretch who

has tried her best and worst to live and found it hard to do.

MRS. T. J. MORGAN, in St. Louis Labour.