Lyddie

Dear Charles,

She held the pen so tight her fingers cramped.

I have heard from Mother that little Agnes has died. Did she write you as well this sad news? We must get Mother and Rachel home soon. I am saving most of my wages for the debt. I am working hard and making good pay. We can go home soon I stil hop. (ha ha). I trust you are well.

I am as ever your loving sister,

Lydia Worthen

A great blob of ink fell from the pen right at her name. She blotted it, but the black spread up into the body of the letter. She tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter—that Charlie would not be bothered, but she was too bothered by it herself. She’d meant the letter to show him how well she was doing—how she was learning and studying as well as working, but the black stain ruined it. She destroyed the page and could not seem to start another.

* * *

* * *

No matter how fast the machines speeded up, Lyddie was somehow able to keep pace. She never wasted energy worrying or complaining. It was almost as if they had exchanged natures, as though she had become the machine, perfectly tuned to the roaring, clattering beasts in her care. Think of them as bears she’d tell herself. Great, clumsy bears. You can face down bears.

From his high stool at the back corner of the great room, she could almost feel the eyes of the overseer upon her. Indeed, when Mr. Marsden got up to stroll the room he always stopped at her looms. She was often startled by the touch of his puffy white hand upon her sleeve, and when she turned, his little mouth would be forming something she took to be complimentary, for his eyes were crinkled as though the skin about them had cracked in the attempt to smile.

She would nod acknowledgment and turn back to her machines, which at least did not reach out and pat you when you weren’t watching.

He was a strange little man. Lyddie tried once to imagine him dressing in the morning. His impeccable wife tying that impeccable tie, brushing down that black coat, which by six A.M. would be white with the lint blowing about the gigantic room. Did she polish his head as well? And with what? You couldn’t use shoeblack of course. Was there a head grease that could be applied and then rubbed to a high shine? She saw the overseer’s impeccable wife with the end of a towel in either hand briskly polishing her husband’s head, just above the ears, then carefully combing back the few strands of grayish hair from one ear to the other. It was hard to put a face on the overseer’s wife. Was she a meek, obedient little woman, or someone like Mrs. Cutler, who would rule him as he ruled the girls under his watchful eye? Not a happy woman, though, for Mr. Marsden did not seem to be the stuff from which contentment could be woven.

Soon there was little time to wonder and daydream. She had done so well on her two, then three, machines that Mr. Marsden gave her a fourth loom to tend. Now she hardly noticed people anymore. At mealtimes the noise and complaints and banter of the other girls were like the commotion of a distant parade. She paid no attention that the food was not as bountiful as it had once been. There was still more than she could eat. Nor did she notice that the taste of the meat was a bit off or the potatoes moldy. She ate the food set before her steadily, with no attempt to bolt as much as possible in the short time allotted. When the bell rang, it didn’t matter what was left untasted, she simply pushed back from the table and went back to her bears.

She was too tired now at night to copy out a page of Oliver to paste to her loom. It hardly mattered. When would she have had time to study it? After supper she stumbled upstairs, hardly taking time to wash, changed to her shift, and fell into bed.

Though Amelia cajoled and Mrs. Bedlow made announcements at mealtime, Lyddie did not attempt to go to church. Her body wouldn’t have cooperated even if she’d had the desire to go. She slept out Sunday mornings and forced herself up for dinner, which she ate, as she ate all her meals now, automatically and without conversation. She was as likely to nap again in the afternoon as not.

“It’s like being a racehorse,” Betsy was saying. “The harder we work, the bigger prize they get.”

Amelia murmured something in reply, which Lyddie was too near sleep to make out.

“I’ve made up my mind to sign the next petition.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Wouldn’t I just?” Betsy laughed. “The golden lad finishes Harvard this spring. His fees are paid up, and I’ve got nearly the money I need now. My Latin is done. So as soon as I complete my botany course, I’ll be ready to leave this insane asylum.”

Even Lyddie’s sleep-drugged mind could feel a twinge. She did not want Betsy to go.

“It would be grand—going out with the bang of a dishonorable dismissal.”

“But where would you go? You’ve always said you could never settle in Maine.”

“Not to Maine, Amelia. To Ohio. I’m aiming to go to college.”

“To college?”

“Do I surprise you, Amelia? Betsy, in public the devourer of novels, in secret a woman of great ambition?”

“College. I wouldn’t have imagined—”

“If they dismiss m

e, I’d have to stop stalling and blathering and get myself to Oberlin College and a new life.” By now, Lyddie was propped up on her elbow listening, torn between pride for Betsy and horror at what she was proposing. “So, you’re awake after all, our sleeping beauty.”

“Lyddie, tell her not to be foolish.”