Lyddie

“Shall I read to you?” Betsy asked.

Lyddie nodded gratefully and closed her eyes and turned her back against the candlelight.

Betsy did not give any explanation of the novel she was reading, simply commenced to read aloud where she had broken off reading to herself. Even though Lyddie’s head was still choked with lint and battered with noise, she struggled to get the sense of the story.

The child was in some kind of poorhouse, it seemed, and he was hungry. Lyddie knew about hungry children. Rachel, Agnes, Charlie—they had all been hungry that winter of the bear. The hungry little boy in the story had held up his bowl to the poorhouse overseer and said:

“Please sir, I want some more.”

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And for this the overseer—she could see his little rosebud mouth rounded in horror—for this the overseer had screamed out at the child. In her mind’s eye little Oliver Twist looked exactly like a younger Charlie. The cruel overseer had screamed and hauled the boy before a sort of agent. And for what crime? For the monstrous crime of wanting more to eat.

“That boy will be hung,” the agent had prophesied. “I know that boy will be hung.”

She fought sleep, ravenous for every word. She had not had any appetite for the bountiful meal downstairs, but now she was feeling a hunger she knew nothing about. She had to know what would happen to little Oliver. Would he indeed be hanged just because he wanted more gruel?

She opened her eyes and turned to watch Betsy, who was absorbed in her reading. Then Betsy sensed her watching, and looked up from the book. “It’s a marvelous story, isn’t it? I saw the author once—Mr. Charles Dickens. He visited our factory. Let me see—I was already in the spinning room—it must have been in—”

But Lyddie cared nothing for authors or dates. “Don’t stop reading the story, please,” she croaked out.

“Never fear, little Lyddie. No more interruptions,” Betsy promised, and read on, though her voice grew raspy with fatigue, until the bell rang for curfew. She stuck a hair ribbon in the place. “Till tomorrow night,” she whispered as the feet of an army of girls could be heard thundering up the staircase.

11

The Admirable Choice

The next day in the mill, the noise was just as jarring and her feet in Triphena’s old boots swelled just as large, but now and again she caught herself humming. Why am I suddenly happy? What wonderful thing is about to happen to me? And then she remembered. Tonight after supper, Betsy would read to her again. She was, of course, afraid for Oliver, who was all mixed up in her mind with Charlie. But there was a delicious anticipation, like molded sugar on her tongue. She had to know what would happen to him, how his story would unfold.

Diana noticed the change. “You’re settling in faster than I thought,” she said. But Lyddie didn’t tell her. She didn’t quite know how to explain to anyone, that it wasn’t so much that she had gotten used to the mill, but she had found a way to escape its grasp. The pasted sheets of poetry or Scripture in the window frames, the geraniums on the sill, those must be some other girl’s way, she decided. But hers was a story.

As the days melted into weeks, she tried not to think how very kind it was of Betsy to keep reading to her. There were nights, of course, when she could not, when there was shopping or washing that had to be done. On Saturday evenings they were let out two hours early and Amelia corralled Lyddie and Prudence for long walks along the river before it grew too dark. Betsy, of course, did whatever she liked regardless of Amelia. Sundays Amelia dragged the reluctant Lyddie to church. At first Lyddie had been afraid Betsy would go on reading without her, but Betsy waited until Sunday afternoon, when Amelia and Prudence were down in the dining room writing their weekly letters home, and she picked up the story just where she had stopped on the previous Friday evening.

It was several weeks before Lyddie caught on that the novel was from the lending library and thus cost Betsy five cents a week to borrow. On her own, Betsy could have read it much faster, Lyddie was sure of that. As much as she hated to spend the money, on her first payday, Lyddie insisted on giving Betsy a full ten cents to help with Oliver’s rent. Betsy laughed, but she took it. She, too, was saving her money, she confessed quietly to Lyddie and asked her not to tell, to go for an education. There was a college out West in Ohio that took female students—a real college, not a young ladies’ seminary. “But don’t tell Amelia,” she said, her voice returning to its usual ironic tone, “she’d think it unladylike to want to go to Oberlin.”

It seemed strange to Lyddie that Betsy should care at all what Amelia thought. But Lyddie, who had never had any ambition to be thought a lady, did find herself asking, What would Amelia think?—and censoring her own behavior from time to time accordingly.

Then, all too soon, the book was done. It seemed to have flown by, and there was so much, especially at the beginning—when Lyddie was too tired and, try as she might, could not listen properly—so much at the beginning that she needed to hear again. Actually, she needed to hear the whole book again, even the terrible parts, dear Nancy’s killing and the death of Sikes.

She wished she dared to ask Betsy to read more, but she could not. Betsy had given her hours and hours of time and voice. And besides, with July nearly upon them, the three roommates were making plans for going home. The very word was like a blow to her chest. Home. If only she could go. But she had signed with the corporation for a full year of work. If she left, even just to see the cabin and visit for an hour or so with Charlie, she would lose her position. “And if you leave without an honorable discharge,” the clerk had said, “not only will you never work at the Concord Corporation again, but no other mill in Lowell will ever engage you.” Blacklisted! The word sent chills down her backbone.

So she watched her roommates pack their trunks and listened as they chattered about whom they would see and what they would do, and tried not to mind. Amelia would go to New Hampshire where her clergyman father had a country church. Her mother would welcome her help around the manse and with the tutoring of the farm children in the parish Sunday School. Prudence was bound for the family farm near Rutland, where, Amelia hinted, a suitor on a neighboring farm was primed to snatch her away from factory life forever. Betsy’s parents were dead, but there was an uncle in Maine who was always glad for her to come and help with the cooking. Haying season would soon be here, and there would be many mouths to feed. There was a chance, as well, Betsy said, of seeing her brother. But again, he might be too pressed with invitations from his university mates to find time for a visit with a sister who was only an old spinster and a factory girl to boot.

After they are gone, I will be earning and saving, Lyddie said to comfort herself. I may earn even more. If the weaving room is short of workers, Mr. Marsden may assign me another loom. Then I could turn out many more pieces each week. For she was proficient now. Weeks before she had begun tending her own loom without Diana’s help.

She hadn’t imagined that Diana would go on holiday as well, but when Diana told her she was going, she felt a little thrill. Mr. Marsden was sure to give her charge of at least two looms, perhaps a third. She didn’t want Diana to think she was rejoicing in her absence, but she was not skilled at feigning feelings she did not own. “I’ll miss you,” she said.

Diana laughed at her. “Oh, you’ll be glad enough to see me gone,” she said. “There’ll be three looms for you to tend, a nice fat raise to your wages for these several weeks.” Lyddie blushed. “You needn’t feel bad. Enjoy the money. I think you’ll find you’ve earned every penny. It’s hot as Hades up here in July.”

“But where will you be going?” Lyddie asked, trying to shift attention from herself. She quickly repented, remembering too late that Diana had no family waiting to see her.

“It’s all right,” Diana said in reply to Lyddie’s pained look. “I was orphaned young. I’m used to it. I suppose this mill is as much home as I can claim. I started here as a doffer when I was ten. So I’ve fifteen years here. But only a scant handful of Julys.”

Lyddie wanted to ask, then, if she had no home to go to, where she was headed, but it wasn’t rightly her business, and Diana didn’t offer the information except to say when the noise of the machines insured that no one could overhear, “There’ll be a mass meeting at Woburn on Independence Day.” When Lyddie looked puzzled, she went on, “Of the movement. The ten-hour movement. Miss Bagley will speak, as well as some of the men.” When Lyddie still said nothing, she continued, “There’ll be a picnic lunch, a real Fourth of July celebration. How about it? I promise no one will make you sign your name to anything.”

Lyddie pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No,” she s

aid. “I expect I’ll be busy.”