Chapter 2

ENTERING.

"Hallo, Katie, wake up, wake up!" and Eric rattled the knob of his sister's door. But he was compelled to do so many times before he heard a sleepy "What's the matter?"

"Matter? Why, it's high time you were up if you mean to get to the factory this morning."

"It's the middle of the night," said Katie, yawning.

"Indeed, it is not. It's after five o'clock, and work begins at half-past six. You haven't a moment to spare if you want to dress yourself, get your breakfast, and get to the mill in time; it's farther off than the bindery. Come, be a brave girl, and jump up quickly."

Thus adjured, the little girl jumped out of bed--but how cold and dark it was! although Eric had left the lamp in the hall outside. One of Katie's failings--not an uncommon one among girls and boys--was a great dislike to getting up early in the morning, and her mother had always humored her in the matter, getting up herself and giving the boys their breakfast early, and then waking her little girl just in time to eat her own and get to school at nine o'clock. Even then it was sometimes a difficult task.

The young work-woman had not included the necessity of getting up so very early in the morning as one of the many anticipated delights of her new position. This first taste of it seemed, on the contrary, quite a hardship. Still, when she was once out of bed, there was a certain romance in dressing by lamplight, and she knelt down by her bedside to offer her morning prayer, with a strange feeling of mingled awe and thankfulness.

Katie Robertson was a Christian girl, and was really desirous to please the blessed Saviour who had done so much for her. She could not remember the time when she did not love him; but for the last few years, since she had grown older and begun to understand things better, she had felt a longing desire to be like him and to please him in her life and actions. She found time to open her little Bible this morning and read one or two verses by the light of the lamp. They were these:--

"In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths"; "Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or _whatsoever_ ye do, do all to the glory of God," and "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

And then she prayed earnestly that she might in these "ways" upon which she was entering always "acknowledge" God, be faithful to her work, do it "to the glory of God," and have the strength which the Lord Jesus Christ has promised to give to those who ask him, to resist temptation and stand up for truth and righteousness in the new life which lay before her. She prayed, also, that her heavenly Father would give her some work to do for him among her companions in the mill, and then she went downstairs.

Breakfast was all ready, and it seemed quite funny to eat it by lamplight; but by the time it was over it was pretty light outside, and when, warmly wrapped up, Katie left the house with her brothers there was a rosy flush over the snow which sparkled and glistened, and the young factory-girl set out in high spirits for her first day's work. The boys escorted her as far as the great gates, where a good many other girls and boys were waiting among a crowd of men and women, and then ran back to be in time at the bindery, which was a little nearer home.

It was rather cold waiting outside, and, if the truth must be told, our little girl felt just a trifle homesick among so many strangers, for as yet she had not seen a familiar face, and something seemed to rise in her throat that she found hard to swallow; but just as she felt that she _must_ have a good cry, and at the same time resolved that she wouldn't, the great steam-whistle shrieked, the bell in the tower rang, the gates opened from the inside, the gathered crowd rushed in, and all along the road might be seen flying figures of men, women, boys, and girls, hurrying to be in their places at the commencement of work and thus avoid the fine imposed upon stragglers. There was a pause of a few moments in the paved inside court while the inner doors of the great brick building were opened, and then the incoming crowd entering in various directions, scattered among the different corridors and left the "new girl" standing alone and bewildered at the entrance.

In front of her stretched a long, narrow hall, clean and fresh (Squantown Paper Mills were new and built after the most approved models), with doors opening from it at intervals on both sides. Some of these doors were open and some were shut; into some the work-people were constantly disappearing, as though the doors were mouths that opened suddenly and swallowed them up, and into some of the open ones Katie peeped timidly and turned back disconsolately as she discovered that they only afforded entrance to similar corridors, pierced by similar rows of doors.

At length the last straggler had entered, gone his way, and disappeared, and dead silence reigned. Katie felt as though she were alone in the universe, and almost wondered if she were to be left there forever, when a short, sharp, deafening whistle echoed through the hall, and at the same instant the great building vibrated from top to bottom, the roar of machinery swallowed up the silence, and the day's work began.

Immediately afterward a side door, close to where our little girl was standing, opened, and out of it came the foreman of the mill, who had been up to this moment in the office, receiving his orders for the day.

"Hallo, you!" he said crossly, seeing a girl standing idle in the hall; "why don't you go about your business? Go to work if you belong here; go home if you don't! No idlers or beggars allowed here, so close to the office door, too. Come, run away quickly."

"If you please, Mr. Thornton, I've come to work in the mill, in the rag-room, but I don't know which way to go."

"Oh!" said the foreman, "you're a new hand, eh? Rather a small one. It seems to me Mr. Mountjoy will end by having a nursery rather than a mill, but he knows his own business best, I suppose. New hands are not in my department, however. Mr. James," he called, reopening the office door and putting his head in again, "here's some work for you."

The "new hand" expected now to have an interview with the awful Mr. Mountjoy, Miss Etta's father, of whom she had heard so much, but had never yet seen, and began to tremble a little in anticipation. But, instead, a rosy-faced, light-haired young man appeared, to whom the foreman made a slight bow, and then went away. This was Mr. James Mountjoy, Miss Etta's brother, and the only son of the proprietor of the