Moon Valley

Author: Jack London
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-04-01
Features: "Listen to me, Saxon. Let's go together. Maybe it's a bricklayer's gathering. I'll meet some gentleman friends, and you'll find friends too. The Alvesta Band will be performing live. You know their music is divine, and you love dancing—" A groan came from a stout, elderly woman twenty feet away, interrupting the girl's persuasion. The old woman hunched over, her slack, bulging, and deformed back beginning to twitch and spasm. "God!" she cried, "Oh, God!" Her expression, like that of a cornered animal, swept wildly up and down the spacious, white-painted factory. The factory was sweltering. A group of ironing women, holding irons, steamed up puffs of vapor from wet cloth, making the air damp. Other women nearby, moving the irons mechanically and swiftly, glanced over quickly, their work momentarily pausing or the number of ironings insufficient, affecting their efficiency. The old woman's cries in the ironing room caused a commotion among the women, resulting in a loss of their earnings...