Chapter 16

AMY BEGINS TO SPIN.

"Well, deary, it's time. Oh, me fathers, to think it! Wake up, Amy, me colleen, me own precious lamb."

Six o'clock of a gray November morning is not an inspiriting hour to begin any undertaking. Amy turned in her comfortable bed, rubbed her eyes, saw Cleena standing near with a lighted candle in her hand, and inquired, drowsily:--

"Why--what's happened? Why will you get up in the middle of the night? Don't bother me--yet."

"Faith, an' I won't. Upon honor it's wrong, it's all wrong. What'll your guardian angel think of old Cleena to be leavin' you do it! Body an' bones, I'll do naught to further the business--not I!"

The woman's voice was tremulous with indignation or grief, and all at once Amy remembered. Then she sprang from her cosy nest, wide-awake and full of courage.

"Hush, dear old Goodsoul, I forgot. I forgot, entirely. I was dreaming of Fairacres. It was a beautiful dream. The old house was full of little children and young girls. They were singing and laughing and moving about everywhere. I can hardly believe it wasn't real; but, I'm all right now. I'll be down stairs in a few minutes. Don't wake anybody else, for there's no need. Is it six o'clock already? It might be midnight or--any time. Why, what's this?"

"A frock I've made for you, child."

"_You_ made a frock for me? Why, Cleena!"

"Sure, it's not so handy with the needle as the broom me fingers is. But what for no? Them pretty white ones will never do for the nasty old mill. This didn't need so much. The body'll about fit, thinks I, if I sew it fast in the front an' split it behind. The skirt's not so very long. She was a mite of a woman, God rest her. Well, I'll go an' see the milk doesn't boil over, an' be back in a jiffy to fasten it for you. Ah, me lamb! Troth, a spirit's brave like your own will be prospered, I know."

Then Cleena went hurriedly out of the room. The frock which she had prepared for Amy's use in the mill was remodelled from an old one of her mistress's. As has been said, Amy had never worn any sort of dress except white. The fabric was changed to suit the season, but the color was not. Even her warm winter cloak was of heavy white wool, faced here and there with scarlet, to match the simple scarlet headgear that suited her dark face so well. Quite against the habits of her own upbringing, Mrs. Kaye had clothed her daughter to please the taste of her artist husband, and therefore it had not greatly mattered that this taste dictated a style more fanciful than useful.

Now everything was altered, and Cleena had consulted Mrs. Jones with the result just given. But from a true delicacy, the faithful old servant did not stay to watch the girl as she adopted the new garb which belonged to the new fortunes, though she need not have been afraid.

For a moment Amy held the gray dress in her hand, feeling it almost a sacrilege to put it on. She remembered it as the morning gown of her mother, plain to the extreme, yet graceful and precious in her sight because of the dear wearer. Then she lifted the garment to her lips, and touched it lightly.

"Mother, darling, it is a good beginning. It seems to me it is like a sister of mercy putting on her habit for the first time. It is a protection and a benediction. If I can only put on my mother's beautiful character with her clothing, I shall do well, indeed." Then she examined the alterations which Cleena had been instructed by the cottager to make, and was able to smile at them.

"The new sewing and the old do not match very well, but it will answer, and it does fit me much better than I would have thought. My! but I must already be as large, or nearly so, as she was. Well, no time for thinking back now. It's all looking forward, and must be, if I am to keep my courage."

Then she knelt beside her bed, prayed simply and in full faith for success in her efforts to provide for her beloved ones, and went below, smiling and gay.

"Think of it, Cleena Keegan. This is Monday morning. On seventh day I expect to bring back two splendid dollars and put into your hands. I, just I, your own little Amy. Think of the oatmeal it will buy."

It was not in Cleena's heart to dampen this ardor by remarking how small a sum two dollars really was, considered in the light of a family support; and, after all, oatmeal was cheap. Fortunately, it also formed the principal diet of this plainly nurtured household, and even that very breakfast to which the young breadwinner now sat down.

But the meal was exquisitely cooked, and the hot milk was rich and sweet. Also, there lay, neatly wrapped in a spotless napkin, the mid-day luncheon, which Cleena had been told to prepare, and which Mrs. Jones suggested should be of something "hearty and strong" for "working in the mill beats all for appetite."

Then Amy took the big gingham pinafore, that Cleena had also prepared, and with her little parcels under her arm, skipped away down the slope to the Joneses' cottage, where Gwendolyn was to meet and escort her to her first day's work.

"Pshaw! I thought you wasn't coming. We'll be late if we don't hurry. Hmm. Wore your white cloak, didn't you? Well, I guess the girls won't laugh at you much. A dark one would have been better."

"But I have no dark one, so it was this or nothing. How fast you walk, almost as if you were running!"

"We'll be late, I tell you. I don't want to get docked, if _you_ do."

"What is 'docked'?"

"Why, having something taken from your wages."

"Would that be done for just so short a time?"

"Yes, indeed. The time-keeper watches out and nobody has a chance to get off. To be late five minutes means losing a quarter day's wages. They count off a quarter, a half, three-quarters, or a whole, according to time."

"Then Gwendolyn, let's run. I wouldn't make you lose for anything."

"All right."

When they arrived at the mill, Gwendolyn said:--

"You come this way with me. Hang your cap and coat right here, next to mine. Never mind if the girls do stare, you'll get used to that. I felt as if I should sink the first day I came, though that was ages ago. Hello, Maud, where was you last night?"

Amy did not feel in the least like "sinking." She had overcome her drowsiness, and the light was already growing much stronger. She looked around upon these strangers who were to be her comrades at toil, with a friendly interest and curiosity. Some of her new mates regarded her with equal curiosity, though few with so kindly an interest as her own. The unconscious ease of Amy's bearing they esteemed "boldness," or even "cheek," and her air of superior breeding was distasteful to them.

"My, ain't she a brazen thing! Looks around on the whole crowd as if she thought she could put on all the airs she pleased, even in the mill. Well, 'ristocrat or no 'ristocrat, she'll have to come down here. We're just as good as she is and--"

"A little better, too, you mean," commented a lad, just passing.

The girl who scorned "'ristocrats" paused in fastening her denim apron and looked after the youth, who was, evidently, a personage of importance in the eyes of herself and mates. They watched his jaunty movements with undisguised admiration, and his passing left behind him a wake of smiles and giggles which to Amy seemed out of proportion to the wit of his remark.

However, there was little loitering, and the long procession of girls, with its sprinkling of men and boys, swiftly ascended the narrow open staircase to the upper floors. This staircase was built along the side wall of the great structure, flight above flight, an iron frame with steps of board. The only protection from falling upon the floor below, should one grow dizzy-headed, was a gas-pipe hand-rail; and even this might not have been provided had not the law compelled.

As she fell into line behind Gwendolyn and began the upward climb, Amy grasped this slender support firmly; but everything about her seemed very unlike her memory of her first visit here. Then the sun was shining, she was under the guidance of the genial superintendent, and the scene was novel--like a picture exhibited for her personal entertainment. Now the novelty was past, the scene had become dingy, and herself a part of it.

All around her were voices talking in a sort of mill _patois_ concerning matters which she did not understand. But nobody, not even Gwendolyn, spoke to her, and a sudden, overpowering dismay seized her stout heart and made her head reel. Then she made a misstep and her foot slipped through the space between two stairs. This brought the hurrying procession to a standstill, and recalled attention to the "new hand."

"My sake! Somebody's fell. Who? Is she hurt? Oh, that donkey girl. Well, she ain't so used to these horrid stairs as we be."

"Hold back! She's sort of giddy-headed, I guess."

Amy felt an arm thrown round her waist, a rather ungentle pull was given her dangling foot, and she was set right to proceed. But for an instant she could not go on, and she again felt the arm supporting and forcing her against the bare brick wall, so that those below might not be longer hindered.

Then she half gasped:--

"Oh, I am so sorry. I didn't mean--"

"Of course you didn't. Never mind. You ain't the first girl has had her foot through these steps, and you won't be the last. After somebody has broke a leg or two, then they'll put backboards to 'em. Not before. Is your head swimming yet?"

"It feels queerly. It jars so."

"That's the machinery and the noise. The whole building just shakes and buzzes when we get fairly started. Don't be scared. You're all safe. Lots of girls feel just that way when they first come. Lots of 'em faint away. Some can't stand it at all. But you'll get used, don't fear. I was one of the fainters, and I kept it up quite a spell. The 'boss' of the room got so mad he told me if I didn't quit fainting I'd have to quit spinning. So I made a bold face and haven't fainted since. You see, I couldn't afford to. I had to do this or starve."

By this time Amy's fright was past, and she was regarding her comforter with that friendly gratitude which won her the instant liking of the other, who resumed:--

"Pshaw! The girls didn't know what they were saying. You don't look a mite stuck up. You aren't, are you?"

"Indeed, no. Why should I be? But I do thank you so much for your kindness just now, and I'm sorry if my blundering has made you late. Will you be 'docked'?"

"Oh, no. We've time enough. Gwen is always in a desperate hurry. She likes a chance to talk before she begins work. She's a nice girl, but she isn't very deep. Say, have you seen her new winter hat?"

"No; has she another than that she wore this morning?"

"My! yes."

The "old hand" and the "new" were now quietly climbing to the top floor where their tasks were to be side by side, and Amy had time to examine her companion's face. It was plain and freckled, boasting none of that "prettiness" of which Gwendolyn was so openly proud, but it was gentle and intelligent, and had a look of delicacy which suggested chronic suffering, patiently borne. Amy had not far to seek the cause of this pathetic expression, for Mary Reese was a hunchback. In her attire there was as much simplicity as in Amy's own, but without grace or harmony of coloring.

"You're looking at my clothes, aren't you? Well, they're the great trouble of my life. After I pay my board and washing, I don't have more than fifty cents left. I do the best I can, but I'm no hand with a needle, and Saturday-halves are short. I thought you were the loveliest thing I ever saw, that day you went round the mill with the 'Supe.'"

"Oh, did you see me then? Did I see you? What is your name? Ah, are we up there already?"

"You can ask questions, can't you? Yes, I saw you. My name is Mary Reese. If you saw me, you certainly didn't notice me, and I'm always mighty glad when folks don't turn for a second stare at my poor shoulders."

"Mary, nobody would, surely," cried Amy, and flung her arm protectingly across the deformity of her new friend.

"You dear, to think you'd do that when you know me so little. Well, there's many a body touches my hump 'for luck,' but I can't remember when anybody did for--love. I'm not going to forget it, either. Even a homely little hunchback has her own power among these people. There, we're here. This is our 'jenny.' I'm so glad we are to work on the same machine. There'll be another girl on your side till you learn; then she'll be taken off and we'll be alone. I'll like that. Shall you?"

"I--think--so," responded Amy, absently, her attention now engrossed by the excitement about her. Girls were hurrying to take their places before the long frames filled with reels, on which fine woollen threads were being wound by the revolutions of the machinery overhead. These reels whirled round so rapidly that Amy could not follow their motion, and the buzz-buzz, as of a thousand bees humming, filled her ears and confused the instructions of the girl who was to give her her first lesson in winding and "tending."

Across the great frame Mary nodded encouragingly, but it is safe to say that Amy had never felt so incompetent and foolish as she did while she was striving to understand what was expected of her.

"No, no, no; you must be quicker. See, this spool is full. This is how. 'Doffer,' here!"

The lad who had created the ripple of admiration on his passage to this room, now approached. His motions were exact and incredibly swift. It was his duty to remove full spools and replace them by empty ones, and he did this duty for sixteen spinning frames. Seeing the "new hand's" astonishment at his deftness he became reckless and, intending an unusually dexterous movement, miscalculated his reach, and the result was a momentary tangle among the whirling spindles.

"Stupid, see what you're at!" cried Amy's instructor, as by a swift movement of her foot she brought the rapidly circling frame to a standstill. "Now, you've done it!"

"And I'll undo it," he returned, casting a side glance at the stranger.

"If those who've worked here so long make mistakes, I'll not give up," she thought; and Mary came round from behind the frame in time to read this thought.

"Don't you mind. You see, we have to be on guard all the time. If we're not, something happens like this. Wait. While they're fixing those spools, you watch me tie these threads. That's what you have to do. To keep everything straight and fasten on the new ends as the old ones run out."

"But I don't see you 'tie' it. There is no knot."

"Of course not. We couldn't have rough things in the thread that is going to make a carpet. We just twist it--so. Do you see? It can't pull apart, and it makes no roughness. Try; keep on trying; and after you have practised awhile, you'll be as swift as swift."

"I feel as slow as slow."

The "new hand" smiled into the eager face of her willing helper, and the poor hunchback's heart glowed. That so bright a creature should ever come to be a worker in that busy mill, side by side with her own self, was stranger than the strangest of the cheap novels she read so constantly.

"It beats all, don't it?" demanded Mary, clasping Amy's little brown hand.

"What, dear? What beats what? Have I done that one better? Do you think I'll ever, ever be able to keep up my side of the 'frame' after this other one leaves me?"

Mary's laugh was good to hear. Mr. Metcalf, entering the room, heard it and smiled. Yet his smile was fleeting, and his only comment a reprimand to "Jack doffer" for his carelessness.

"It must not happen again. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," answered the youth, humbly.

Of Amy herself the superintendent took no notice whatever beyond a curt nod. She did not understand this, and a pain shot through her sensitive heart. Then she reflected that he might not have seen her.

"Do you suppose he did, or that he knew me? You see, I've always worn white before, and maybe he did not recognize me."

"Oh, he saw you all right. He wouldn't more 'n nod to his own wife, if he's on his rounds, and full of business. I've heard that he was very pleasant outside the mill and among his folks, but I never saw him any different from just now. Seems to me he looks on us like he does the spools on the spinners. I always feel as if I were part of the machine--the poorest part--and I guess you will, too. There, it's fixed and starting up. Hurry to your place and don't get scared. Sallie's cross, but she can't help it. She used to be one of the 'fainters.' Yes; that's right. Now all there is, is to keep at it till twelve o'clock whistle."

That meant nearly five hours of the steadiest and most difficult labor which Amy had ever undertaken. Yet these others near her, and the crowds of spinners all through the great apartment, appeared to take this labor very easily, and were even able to carry on a conversation amid the deafening noise.

Amy watched so intently, and tried so faithfully to do just what and all that was expected of her that she did, indeed, make a rapid progress for one beginning; and when the welcome whistle sounded, she was surprised to see how instantly every frame was stopped, and to hear Mary saying:--

"If you don't want to go with anybody else, I'd admire to have you eat your lunch with me."

"I'd like to, certainly, but I don't believe I can eat. My head is whirling, whirling, just like those dreadful spools. Isn't it terrible?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't notice them now, except to make them say things. But come along, we have a half-hour nooning. We might have a whole hour, but most of the hands like to give up part of their dinner-time every day and then take the afternoon off on Saturday. The 'Supe' doesn't care, so that's the way we get our 'Saturday-half.' I sometimes wish we worked the other way, but of course we couldn't. If part stops, the other part has to, 'cause every room depends on some other room to keep it going."

"Why, I think that's beautiful, don't you? Like a big whole, and all of us the needed parts."

"No, I don't. I don't see one single beautiful thing about this hateful old mill. At least, I didn't before this morning, when you came."

Amy looked into Mary's face a moment. Then she stooped and kissed it gently. Small though Amy herself was, for her age, she was still taller than her new friend, and felt herself far stronger.

Away in another place Gwendolyn and her mates observed this little by-play, and one girl remarked:--

"Hmm. That settles _her_ hash. If she's going to take up with that horrid Mary Reese, there won't anybody go with her. Not a single girl, and as for the fellows--my!"

To this flirtatious young person to be ignored by "the fellows" meant the depth of misfortune. Happily, however, Amy had never hear the word "fellow," as at present applied, and to do anything for the sake of attracting attention to herself she would have considered the extreme of vulgarity.

Mary guided her to a quiet corner behind some bales, and filling a tin cup with water from a faucet, proceeded to open her own luncheon. Then she watched Amy, who, almost too weary to eat, loitered over the untying of the dainty parcel Cleena had made up. When she at last did so, and quietly sorted the contents of the neat box, she was surprised by Mary's astonished stare.

"What is it, dear? Aren't you hungry?"

"Hungry? I'm starved. But--see the difference. It goes even into our victuals. Oh dear, there isn't any use!" and, with a bitter sob, the mill girl tossed aside her own rude parcel of food and dropped her face in her hands.

Girlhood is swiftly intuitive. The boarding-house lunch which the hunchback had brought was quite sufficient in quantity, but it was coarse in extreme, and meats had been wrapped in one bit of newspaper along with the sweets, so that the flavor of each article spoiled the flavor of all. Yet it was the first time that Mary had rebelled against such an arrangement.

Now it was different. Amy's speech, Amy's manner and belongings, opened before the slumbering ambition of the mill girl a picture of better things, which she recognized as unattainable for herself.

Then she felt again the clasp of firm, young arms about her own neck, and a face that was both smiling and tearful pressed close to her own.

"You dear little girl. I see, I understand. But you've never had a chance to try how I've lived and I've never tried how you do. Let's change. Yes; I insist, for this once. You eat my lunch, and I'll eat yours. It will do Goodsoul's great heart no end of good when I tell her about it, and it will make me comprehend just how life looks from your side. Remember, we're both poor girls together now, and I--insist."

Amy had a will, as has been remarked. So, in a few seconds, the two lunches were exchanged, and for almost the first time in her life Mary Reese knew what it was to feed daintily and correctly.

"It makes me feel as if I was straighter, somehow. And you're a dear, dear girl."

"Thank you, of course it does. I wouldn't like to do anything that hurt my own self-respect, even in such a little thing as eating. But, you see, I had my darling mother. Now I've had to let her go; yet if you'll let me, I'll be so glad to teach you all she taught me. It will be keeping her memory green in just the very way she'd like."

"Teaching isn't all. The difference is _born_ in us."

"Nonsense. Think of Mr. Metcalf. They say he was a foundling baby, and yet he's a gentleman."

"Even if he doesn't speak to you in work hours?" asked Mary, with a mischievous glance that would have surprised her mill mates had they seen it. Already the leaven of kindness was working in her neglected life, and for the moment she forgot to be upon the defensive against the indifference of others.

"Even anything. But, hear me, Mary Reese. Here am I, as poor as poor can be, but determined to succeed in doing something grand. Guess what?"

"I couldn't tell. The whistle will blow again in a minute."

"I'm going to build a Home for Mill Girls, where they shall have all things that any gentlewoman should have. I haven't the least idea how nor when nor where. But I'm going to do it. You'll see. And you shall help. Maybe that's just why God let me come here and be a mill girl myself."

After a pause the other spoke. "It seems queer to hear you say such things. Yet you're not what I call 'pious,' I--guess."

"Don't be afraid. I'm not goody-goody, at all. But it's the most interesting thing mother taught me: the watching how everything 'happens' in life, like a wonderful picture or even a curious, beautiful puzzle. Each part, each thing, fits so perfectly into its place, and it's such fun to watch and see them fit. Yes, I believe that's the key to my coming."

For a moment these girlish dreamers clasped hands and saw visions. The next, a whistle sounded and, still hand in hand, they returned to their frame and to this toil which was part of a far-reaching "plan." On the way they passed "Jack doffer," wearing his most fetching smile, and a new necktie, recklessly disported during work hours for the sole purpose of dazzling the bright eyes of the pretty "new hand."

Unfortunately for his vanity, the "new hand" never saw him, because of those still lingering visions of a Home with a capital H; and oddly enough, the youth respected her the more since she did not. Later on things would be altered; but neither of them knew that then.