Page:Our Girls.pdf/92

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78
OUR GIRLS

then it was found that the girl's mother was as well as ever she had been, Aggie and Ellen were going to school, and the baby did not exist.

But Tommy's sister is generally a girl with a heart of gold. When a comrade has bad news from the base hospitals, she whispers to her next neighbour, over the thud and rattle of the lathes, "Aggie's a-worryin' about 'er 'usband, he's wounded, pore thing." And when the telegram comes from the War Office saying Aggie's husband is dead, her chums make a collection to buy flowers to comfort her. It frequently happens that the munition girl is the sole support of her family, an invalid mother and perhaps two or three young children, and not rarely, when on the day-shift, she cleans up the house before starting out for the factory at six o'clock in the morning, and when on the night-shift, she gets up too frequently at three in the afternoon (equivalent to three in the morning) to do the shopping for the following day.