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diff --git a/old/68521-0.txt b/old/68521-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b50a70a..0000000 --- a/old/68521-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5897 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Through the mill, by Al Priddy - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Through the mill - The life of a mill-boy - -Author: Al Priddy - -Illustrator: Wladyslaw T. Benda - -Release Date: July 14, 2022 [eBook #68521] - -Language: English - -Produced by: David E. Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian - Libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH THE MILL *** - - - - - -THROUGH THE MILL - - - - -[Illustration: THEN THE EPILEPTIC OCTOGENARIAN LET ME GO AND THE PAUPER -LINE WENT IN BEFORE THE PARISH CLERK FOR THE CHARITY SHILLING] - - - - - THROUGH THE - MILL - - _THE LIFE OF A MILL-BOY_ - - BY - AL PRIDDY - - _ILLUSTRATIONS BY - WLADYSLAW T. BENDA_ - - [Illustration] - - THE PILGRIM PRESS - - BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO - - - - - _Copyright, 1911_ - BY LUTHER H. CARY - - - THE · PLIMPTON · PRESS - [W · D · O] - NORWOOD · MASS · U · S · A - - - - - Affectionately Dedicated - TO - MY WIFE - - “_Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, - Grinding life down from its mark; - And the children’s souls, which God is calling sunward, - Spin on blindly in the dark._” - --E. B. BROWNING - - - - -_Note_ - - -How many thousand pens are busy reporting and recording mill life! It -is a splendid commentary on the fineness of our social conscience that -there are so many champions on behalf of overworked boys and girls. - -Coming now, to take its place among the multitudes of investigations -and faithful records of factory life, is this frank, absolutely real -and dispassionate Autobiography--written by a mill-boy who has lived -the experiences of this book. So far as can be found this is the _first -time that such an Autobiography has been printed in English_. - -Since its appearance in the Outlook, the Autobiography has been -entirely rewritten and new chapters have been added, so that the book -will be practically new to anyone who chanced to read the Outlook -chapters. - - - - -_Contents_ - - - CHAPTER I PAGE - - _A Mixture of Fish, Wrangles, and Beer_ 3 - - CHAPTER II - - _Dripping Potatoes, Diplomatic Charity, and Christmas Carols_ 27 - - CHAPTER III - - _My Schoolmates Teach Me American_ 47 - - CHAPTER IV - - _I Pick Up a Handful of America, make an American Cap, whip a - Yankee, and march Home Whistling “Yankee Doodle”_ 59 - - CHAPTER V - - _I cannot become a President, but I can go to the Dumping - Grounds_ 67 - - CHAPTER VI - - _The Luxurious Possibilities of the Dollar-Down-Dollar- - a-Week-System of Housekeeping_ 81 - - CHAPTER VII - - _I am given the Privilege of Choosing my own Birthday_ 93 - - CHAPTER VIII - - _The Keepers of the Mill Gate, Snuff Rubbing, and the Play - of a Brute_ 113 - - CHAPTER IX - - _A Factory Fashion-plate, the Magic Shirt Bosom, and Wise - Counsel on How To Grow Straight_ 129 - - CHAPTER X - - _“Peter One-Leg-and-a-Half” and His Optimistic Whistlers_ 141 - - CHAPTER XI - - _Esthetic Adventures made possible by a Fifteen-Dollar Piano_ 149 - - CHAPTER XII - - _Machinery and Manhood_ 165 - - CHAPTER XIII - - _How my Aunt and Uncle Entertained the Spinners_ 179 - - CHAPTER XIV - - _Bad Deeds in a Union for Good Works_ 191 - - CHAPTER XV - - _The College Graduate Scrubber Refreshes my Ambitions_ 205 - - CHAPTER XVI - - _How the Superintendent Shut Us Out from Eden_ 223 - - CHAPTER XVII - - _I Founded the Priddy Historical Club_ 233 - - CHAPTER XVIII - - _A Venture into Art_ 243 - - CHAPTER XIX - - _A Reduction in Wages, Cart-tail Oratory, a Big Strike, and - the Joys and Sufferings Thereof_ 255 - - CHAPTER XX - - _My Steam Cooker goes wrong, I go to Newport for Enlistment - on a Training-ship_ 265 - - CHAPTER XXI - - _The Ichabod of Mule-rooms, some Drastic Musing, College - at my Finger-tips, the Mill People wait to let me pass - and I Am Waved into the World by a Blind Woman_ 273 - - - - -_Illustrations_ - - - THEN THE EPILEPTIC OCTOGENARIAN LET ME GO AND THE PAUPER - LINE WENT IN BEFORE THE PARISH CLERK FOR THE CHARITY - SHILLING _Frontispiece_ - - FACING - PAGE - - WHEN THE TRAIN STARTED FOR LIVERPOOL, I COUNTED MY PENNIES - WHILE MY AUNT WEPT BITTERLY 52 - - PAT AND TIM LED ME TO THE CHARLES STREET DUMPING GROUND--WHICH - WAS THE NEIGHBORHOOD GEHENNA 78 - - I WAS GIVEN A BROOM, AND THEN I FOUND MYSELF ALONE WITH MARY 122 - - “PETER-ONE-LEG-AND-A-HALF” LED US AT NIGHT OVER HIGH BOARD - FENCES 146 - - THE SPINNERS WOULD NOT STOP THEIR MULES WHILE I CLEANED THE - WHEELS 170 - - HE PLUCKED THE VENERABLE BEARD OF A SOMNOLENT HEBREW 196 - - THE GANG BEGAN TO HOLD “SURPRISE PARTIES” FOR THE GIRLS IN - THE MILL 246 - - - - -THROUGH THE MILL - - - - -_Chapter I. A Mixture of Fish, Wrangles, and Beer_ - - - - -THROUGH THE MILL - -[Illustration] - - - - -_Chapter I. A Mixture of Fish, Wrangles, and Beer_ - - -My tenth birthday was celebrated in northern England, almost within -hailing distance of the Irish Sea. Chaddy Ashworth, the green-grocer’s -son, helped me eat the birthday cake, with the ten burnt currants on -its buttered top. - -As old Bill Scroggs was wont to boast: “Hadfield was in the right -proper place, it being in the best shire in the Kingdom. Darby-shir -(Derbyshire) is where Mr. George Eliot (only he said ‘Helliot’) got -his ‘Adam Bede’ frum (only he said ‘Hadam Bede’). Darby-shir is where -Hum-fry Ward (he pronounced it ‘Waard’) placed the ‘Histry o’ Davvid -Grieve.’ If that don’t top off the glory, it is Darby-shir that has -geen to the waarld Florence Nightengale, Hangel of the British Harmy!” - -It was in the first of those ten years that I had been bereft of my -parents and had gone to live with my Aunt Millie and Uncle Stanwood. -In commenting on her benevolence in taking me, Aunt Millie often said: -“If it had been that none of my own four babbies had died, I don’t know -what you’d have done, I’m sure. I shouldn’t have taken you!” - -But there I was, a very lucky lad indeed to have a home with a -middle-class tradesman in Station Road. My uncle’s property consisted -of a corner shop and an adjoining house. The door of the shop looked -out upon the main, cobbled thoroughfare, and upon an alleyway which -ended at a coffin-maker’s, where all the workhouse coffins were -manufactured. We passed back and forth to the shop through a low, -mysterious door, which in “The Mysteries of Udolpho” would have -figured in exciting, ghostly episodes, so was it hidden in darkness -in the unlighted storeroom from which it led. As for the shop itself, -it was a great fish odor, for its counters, shelves and floor had -held nothing else for years and years. The poultry came only in odd -seasons, but fish was always with us: blue mussels, scalloped cockles, -crabs and lobsters, mossy mussels, for shell fish: sole, conger eels, -haddock, cod, mackerel, herring, shrimps, flake and many other sorts -for the regular fish. Then, of course, there were the smoked kind: -bloaters, red herrings, kippered herring, finnan haddock, and salt cod. -In the summer the fish were always displayed outside, with ice and -watercresses for their beds, on white platters. Then, too, there were -platters of opened mussels a little brighter than gold in settings of -blue. My uncle always allowed me to cut open the cod so that I might -have the fishhooks they had swallowed. There was not a shopkeeper in -the row that had half as much artistic window display skill as had -Uncle Stanwood. He was always picking up “pointers” in Manchester. When -the giant ray came in from Grimsby, the weavers were always treated to -a window display twice more exciting than the butcher offered every -Christmas, when he sat pink pigs in chairs in natural human postures, -their bodies glorified in Christmas tinsel. Uncle Stanwood took -those giant fish, monstrous, slimy, ugly nightmares, sat them in low -chairs, with tail-flappers curled comically forward, with iron rimmed -spectacles on their snouts, a dented derby aslant beady eyes, and a -warden’s clay pipe prodded into a silly mouth--all so clownish a sight -that the weavers and spinners never tired of laughing over it. - -But while Uncle Stanwood was ambitious enough in his business, seeking -“independence,” which, to the British tradesman, represents freedom -from work and therefore, “gentlemanliness,” though he knew the fine -art of window display and was a good pedler, he was never intended -by nature to impress the world with the fact of his presence in it. -He lacked will power. He was not self-assertive enough at critical -times. The only time when he did call attention to himself was when -he took “Bob,” our one-eyed horse, and peddled fish, humorously -shouting through the streets, “Mussels and cockles alive! Buy ’em -alive! Kill ’em as you want ’em!” At all other times, the “Blue Sign” -and the “Linnet’s Nest,” our public-houses, could lure him away from -his business very readily. Uncle Stanwood had a conspicuous artistic -nature and training, and it was in these public-houses where he could -display his talents to the best advantage. He could play a flute -and also “vamp” on a piano. True his flute-playing was limited to -“Easy Pieces,” and his piano “vamping” was little more than playing -variations on sets of chords in all the various keys, with every now -and then a one-finger-air, set off very well by a vamp, but he could -get a perfunctory morsel of applause for whatever skill he had, and -very few of the solo singers in concerts attempted to entertain in -those public-houses without having “Stan” Brindin “tickle it up” for -them. In regard to his piano-playing, uncle had unbounded confidence. -He could give the accompaniment to the newest ballad without much -difficulty. The singer would stand up before the piano and say, “Stan, -hast’ ’eard that new piece, just out in t’ music ’alls, ‘The Rattling -Seaman?’” - -“No,” uncle would say, “but I know I can ‘vamp’ it for thee, Jud. Hum -it o’er a bar or two. What key is’t in?” “I don’t know _key_,” would -respond the singer, “but it goes like this,” and there would ensue a -humming during which uncle would desperately finger his set of chords, -cocking his ear to match the piano with the singer’s notes, and the -loud crash of a fingerful of notes would suddenly indicate that -connections had been made. Then, in triumph, uncle would say, “Let me -play the Introduction, Jud!” and with remarkable facility he would stir -the new air into the complex variations of his chords; he would “vamp” -up and down, up and down, while the singer cleared his throat, smiled -on the audience, and arranged his tie. Then pianist and singer, as -much together as if they had been practising for two nights, would go -together through a harmonious recital of how: - - “_The Rattling Seaman’s jolly as a friar, - As jolly as a friar is he, he, he._” - -After the song, and the encore that was sure to follow, were done, -uncle always had to share the singer’s triumph in the shape of noggins -of punch, and mugs of porter, into which a red hot poker from the coals -had been stirred, and seasoned with pepper and salt. This would be -repeated so many times in an evening that uncle soon became unfit for -either piano or flute-playing, and I generally had to go for the flute -the next morning before I went to school. - -Uncle Stanwood had a golden age to which he often referred. In the -first place, as a young bachelor he had traveled like a gentleman. His -tour had included Ireland, France, and the Isle of Man. This was before -he had learned to play a flute and piano and when public-houses were -religiously abhorred. He was always repeating an experience that befell -him in Ireland. I can record it verbatim. “I was walking along through -a little hamlet when night came on. I saw one of them sod houses, and -I knocked on the door. A blinking Irish woman asked me what I wanted. -I told her, ‘a night’s lodging.’ She pointed to a far corner in the -sod house where a pig and some hens lay, and said to me, ‘Ye can dossy -down in the corner wid th’ rist of the fam’ly!’” In its time there was -no more vivid story that caught my imagination than that--pig, hens, -and blinking Irish woman. About his Isle of Man experiences, uncle -was always eloquent. Besides all else he had a ditty about it, to the -accompaniment of which he often dandled me on his knee. - - “_Aye, oh, aye! Lissen till I tell you - Who I am, am, am. - I’m a rovin’ little darkey - All the way from Isle of Man. - I’m as free as anybody, - And they call me little Sam!_” - -Previous to his marriage, also, he had been the teacher of a very large -young men’s class in one of the churches. That was his proudest boast, -because, as explained to me over and over again in after years, “It was -that work as a teacher that made me read a lot of mighty fine books. I -had to prepare myself thoroughly, for those young fellows were reading -philosophy, religion, and the finest fiction. I had to keep ahead of -them in some way. It is to that work that I owe what little learnin’ -I’ve got.” - -The inclinations toward the finer, sweeter things of life were wrapped -up in uncle’s character, but his will was not strong enough to keep him -away from the public-house. - -“That’s my downfall,” he said. “Oh, if I’d not learned to play the -flute and the piano!” His art was his undoing; but never did his -undoing smother his golden age. When almost incoherently drunk it was -his habit to whimper, “I was better once--I was. I taught a young men’s -class. Look at me now!” - -It always seemed to me that Aunt Millie was overstocked with the things -that uncle lacked--will-power, assertiveness, and electric temper. She -was positively positive in every part of her nature. She was positive -that “Rule Britannia” should come next after “Nearer, my God, to Thee!” -She was likewise positive as to the validity of her own ideas. Her -mind, once made up--it did not take very long for that--was inflexible. -The English landed nobility never had a more worshipful worshiper -than my aunt. She was positive that it was one of our chief duties -to “know our place,” and “not try to be gentlemen and ladies when we -don’t have the right to be such.” “It’s no use passing yourself off as -middle-classers if you arn’t middle-classers and why should, on the -other hand, a middle-classer try to pose as a gentleman?” - -She was always reciting to me, as one of the pleasant memories she had -carried off from her girlhood, how, when the carriage of a squire had -swept by, she had courtesied graciously and humbly. - -“Did they bow to you, Aunt?” I asked. - -“Bow to me!” she exclaimed, contemptuously, “who ever heard the -likes!” Once she had seen a _real_ lord! Her father had been one of -those hamlet geniuses whose dreams and plans never get much broader -recognition than his own fireside. He had built church organs, played -on them, and had composed music. He had also made the family blacking, -soap, ink, and many other useful necessities. He had also manufactured -the pills with which the family cured its ills, pills of the -old-fashioned sort of soap, sugar, and herb, compounded. Once he had -composed some music for his church’s share in a national fête, on the -merit of which, my aunt used to fondly tell me, _real_ gentlemen would -drive up to the door merely to have a glimpse at the old gentleman, -much as if he had been Mendelssohn in retirement. - -Aunt sent me daily to one or other of the public-houses for either -a jug of ale or a pint of porter. Sometimes she took more than a -perfunctory jug, and then she was on edge for a row instantly. -When intoxicated she fairly quivered with jealousy, suspicion, and -violent passion. One question touching on a delicate matter, one word -injudiciously placed, one look of the eye, and she became a volcano of -belligerent rage, belching profanity, and letting crockery or pieces of -coal express what even her overloaded adjectives could not adequately -convey. And when the storm had spent itself, she always relapsed into -an excessive hysteria, which included thrillingly mad shrieks, which my -poor, inoffensive uncle tried to drown in showers of cold water. - -“I’ve brought it all on myself,” explained Uncle Stanwood, in -explanation of his wife’s intoxication. He then went on to explain -how, when he had been courting, he had taken his fiancée on a holiday -trip to the seaside. While there, in a beer-garden, he had pressed -her to drink a small glass of brandy. “It all started from that,” he -concluded. “God help me!” - -He certainly had to pay excessive interest on that investment, for if -ever a mild man was nagged, or if ever a patient man had his temper -tried, it was Uncle Stanwood. By my tenth birthday the house walls were -no longer echoing with peace, for there were daily tirades of wrath and -anger about the table. - -These family rows took many curious turns. In them my aunt, well read -in Dickens, whose writings were very real and vivid to her, freely -drew from that fiction master’s gallery of types, and fitted them to -uncle’s character. “Don’t sit there a-rubbin’ your slimy hands like -Uriah Heep!” she would exclaim; or, “Yes, there you go, always and -ever a-sayin’ that something’s bound to turn up, you old Micawber, -you!” But this literary tailoring was not at all one-sided, for uncle -was even better read than his wife, and with great effect he could -say, “Yes, there you go, always insinuatin’ everlastingly, like Becky -Sharp,” and the drive was superlatively effective in that uncle well -knew that Thackeray’s book was aunt’s favorite. I heard him one day -compare his wife to Mrs. Gamp, loving her nip of ale overmuch, and -on another occasion she was actually included among Mrs. Jarley’s -wax-works! - -There was a curious streak of benevolence in my aunt’s nature, a -benevolence that concerned itself more with strangers than with those -in her own home. I have seen her take broths and meats to neighbors, -when uncle and I have had too much buttered bread and preserves. I have -seen her take her apron with her to a neighbor’s, where she washed the -dishes, while her own had to accumulate, to be later disposed of with -my assistance. There was a shiftless man in the town, the town-crier, -who would never take charity outright. Him did aunt persuade to come -and paint rural scenes, highly colored with glaring tints, as if nature -had turned color-blind. There were cows in every scene, and aunt -noticed that all the cows were up to their knees in water. Not one -stood clear on the vivid green hills. - -“Torvey,” she remarked to the old man, “why do you always put the cows -in water?” The old artist responded, “It’s this way, Mrs. Brindin, you -see, ma’am, I never learnt to paint ’oofs!” As a further benevolence -towards this same man, she kept on hand a worn-out clock, for him to -earn a penny on. After each tinkering the clock was never known to -run more than a few minutes after the old man had left. But aunt only -laughed over it, and called Torvey “summat of a codger, to be sure!” - -I attended a low brick schoolhouse which in spring and summer time was -buried in a mass of shade, with only the tile chimneys free from a -coat of ivy. The headmaster gave us brief holidays, when he had us run -races for nuts. In addition to the usual studies I was taught darning, -crocheting, plain sewing, and knitting. Every Monday morning I had to -take my penny for tuition. - -Outside of school hours there were merry times, scraping sparks on the -stone flags with the irons of our clogs, going to the butcher’s every -Tuesday morning, at the slaughter-house, where he gave us bladders to -blow up and play football with; and every now and then he would ask us -to lay hold of the rope and help in felling a bull across the block. -The only apple I ever saw growing in England hung over a brick wall in -a nest of leaves--a red crab no bigger than a nutmeg. I used to visit -that wall with my companions, but not to try for that apple--it was too -sacred in our eyes for that--but to admire it, as it bent up and down -in the wind, and to wonder how many more were inside the wall among the -larger branches. On Saturdays, after I had brightened the stone hearth -with blue-stone and sand, I went out to greet the Scotch bag-piper who, -with his wheezy pibroch, puffed out like a roasted Christmas goose, -perambulated down our road so sedately that the feather in his plaid -bonnet never quivered. As this did not take up all the morning, we -borrowed bread-knives from our families, and went to the fields, where -we dug under the sod, amongst the fresh, damp soil, for groundnuts, -while the soaring lark dropped its sweet note down on us. - -But the gala days were the holidays, filled as only the English know -how to fill them with high romance and pure fun. There were the -Sunday-school “treats,” when we went to the fields in holiday clothes -and ran, leaped, and frolicked for prize cricket balls and bats, and -had for refreshment currant buns and steaming coffee. There was the -week at the seashore, when aunt and uncle treated me to a rake, shovel, -and colored tin pail, for my use on the shore in digging cockles, -making sand mountains, and in erecting pebble breastworks to keep -back the tide. To cap all else as a gala opportunity, full of color, -noise, music, and confusion, came Glossop Fair, to which I went in -a special train for children. There I dodged between the legs of a -bow-legged, puffy old man to keep up with the conductor of our party, -and I spent several pennies on shallow glasses filled with pink ices, -which I licked with such assiduity that my tongue froze at the third -consecutive glass. I was always given pennies enough to be able to -stop at the stalls to buy a sheep’s trotter, with vinegar on it; to -eat a fried fish, to get a bag of chipped potatoes, delicious sticks -of gold, covered with nice-tasting grease, and to buy a Pan’s pipe, a -set of eight-reed whistles on which, though I purchased several sets, -I was never able to attain to the dignity and the thrill of so simple -a tune as “God Save the Queen.” The grand climax of the fair, the very -_raison d’être_, were the fairy shows, held under dirty canvases, with -red-nosed barkers snapping worn whips on lurid canvases whereon were -pictured: “Dick Whittington and His Cat,” at the famous milestone, with -a very impressionistic London town in the haze, but inevitable for -Dick and His Cat; or “Jack and the Beanstalk,” showing a golden-haired -prince in blue tights and a cloud of a giant reaching out a huge paw to -get the innocent youth and cram him down his cavernous maw. - -“’Ere you are, Ladies and Gents!” screamed the barker, pattering -nervously and significantly on these pictures, “Only ’riginal ‘Dick -Whittington and His Cat,’ Lord Mayor o’ Lunnon! Grown ups a penny, -childer ’arf price! Step up all! The band will play! ’Ere you are, now! -Tickets over there!” - -My tenth birthday marked the end of my boyish, merry play-life. Over -its threshold I was to meet with and grasp the calloused hand of Labor. -Not the labor which keeps a healthy lad from mischief or loafing, not -the labor of mere thrift, but the more forbidding form of it; the labor -from which strong men cringe in dread, the labor from which men often -seek escape by self-inflicted death, the labor of sweat, of tears, of -pitiless autocracy--the labor of Necessity! And necessity, which is not -induced by reasonable and excusable circumstances, nor is the result -of a mere mistaken judgment of events, such as comes through unskilled -business acumen or an overconfidence in a friend’s advice, but the -necessity which is rooted in carelessness, squandering, drunkenness. - -For in that tenth year of my life, what had appeared to be the strong -walls of my uncle’s house collapsed utterly. The undermining had been -unseen, unthought of. In that year the parlors of the “Linnet’s Nest” -and “The Blue Sign” saw more of my uncle than they had previously. -His piano-playing and his flute solos formed an almost continuous -performance from early afternoon until late at night. When he started -out to peddle his fish, he would stop Bob in front of the “Linnet’s -Nest” and forget his customers until I went and reminded him. The -public-house tills began to draw the money that came to uncle’s from -his peddling, his shop, and the interest from his bank account. But -the money loss was trivial in comparison with the loss of what little -business initiative or inclination he had possessed. He soon became -unfit to order fish from Manchester. His former customers could not -depend upon him. Uncle Stanwood had become a confirmed drunkard. - -Previous to this, in spite of the incompatibility of temper between -uncle and aunt, there had always been a little breath of peace around -our fender, but now it fled, and the house was filled with nervous -bickerings, hiccoughs, and piggish snortings. The temple of man that -had been so imperfectly built was henceforth profaned. The fluent words -passed, and an incoherent gurgle took their place. The intelligent -gleam grew dim in those sad grey eyes. The firm strides which had -indicated not a little pride became senile, tottering, childish. There -was written over the lintels of our door: “Lost, A Man.” - -All this was not one thousandth part so serious to the creditors who -clamored for their pay as it was to aunt and me. To see that slouching, -dull-eyed, slavering creature cross the kitchen threshold and tumble -in a limp heap on the sanded floor was a sword-thrust that started -deep, unhealing wounds. The man and boy changed places, suddenly. That -strange, huddled, groping creature, helpless on the couch, his muddy -shoes daubing the clothes, was not the uncle I had known. I seemed to -have no uncle. I had lost him, indeed, and now had to take his place as -best I could. Aunt tried her best, with my help, to keep the business -going, but the task was beyond us, as we plainly saw. - -But uncle fought battles in his effort to master himself. He strained -his will to its utmost; postulated morning after morning intentions -of “bracing up”; took roundabout routes with his cart to avoid the -public-houses, left his purse at home, sent aunt to Manchester to buy -the fish so that he would not have that temptation, took me with him to -remind him of his promises, even sent word to the “Blue Sign” and the -“Linnet’s Nest” to give him no more credit, and signed the pledge; but -the compelling thirst would not be tamed. To take a roundabout route -in the morning only meant that he would tie up his horse at the “Blue -Sign” lamp-post on his way back; to send aunt to Manchester only meant -that, with her out of the way, he had a clear road to the “Linnet’s -Nest.” When I went with him, as a moral mentor, he bribed me with a -penny to get me out of the way. Sometimes he left me waiting for him -until I grew so miserable that I drove home alone. As uncle was a good -customer, the public-houses only smiled when he sent word to them not -to give him credit; they were not in the business of sobering customers. - -So it was a losing fight all the way. Uncle was a coward in full -retreat. He blamed nobody but himself; in _that_ he was not a coward. -In his sober moments there was a new and discouraging note in his -voice. He echoed the language of those who fail. He met me with an -ashamed face. He looked furtively at me, just as a guilty man would -look on one he had deeply wronged. His shoulders stooped, as do the -shoulders of a man who for the first time carries a heavy burden of -shame. - -Aunt Millie, in attempting to mend matters, unfortunately used the -wrong method. She antagonized her husband, sometimes beyond mortal -patience. She generally waited until my uncle was sober, and then let -loose vituperative storms that fell with crashing force on his spirit. -She was mistress of the vocabulary of invective; the stinging word, -the humiliating, the maddening word was instant on her lips. She did -not have her word once and for all. If she had, it would probably have -saved matters; but she kept up a steady stream of abuse throughout the -time uncle was in the house. Often he was planning for a night of home -when his wife would unload the full burden of her ire on him; and if -only for quietness, he would leave the house altogether and find solace -in the noggins and mugs. - -As an onlooker, and though a mere lad, I saw that my aunt was taking -the wrong course, and every now and then, like a Greek chorus at the -tragedy, I would remonstrate with her, “Why don’t you let him alone -when he wants to stay at home? You’ve driven him off when he was not -going out, aunt!” - -“You clown!” she would storm, “mind your place and manners before I -turn on you and give you a taste of the strap!” - -After that it became my custom, whenever uncle was getting a -tongue-lashing, to say to him, in a whisper, “Don’t mind her, uncle. -Don’t leave the house. She doesn’t know what she’s saying!” In -secret, uncle would say to me, “It’s more than flesh and blood can -stand, Al, this constant nagging. I’d not be half so much away in the -public-houses if she’d let me have a peaceful time at home.” - -Indeed, my uncle, intoxicated was five times more agreeable than was -his wife when angered. She herself was drinking mildly, and every sup -of ale fired her temper until it burned at white heat. All the bulldog -of the British roared and yelped in her then. If contradicted by my -uncle or me, she threw the first thing to hand, saucer, knife, or -loaf. So fearful was I that murder would ensue, that several times I -whispered to my uncle to go off to the “Linnet’s Nest” in the interests -of peace. - -Like the reports of the messengers bringing to Job the full measure of -his loss, came market letters from Manchester, unpaid bills from the -town merchants, and personal repudiations by my uncle’s old customers. -We had to solicit credit from the shop-keepers. Failure was on its way. - -One spring day in that year Uncle Stanwood came into the house in great -excitement. He met my aunt’s inquiring remark with, “I’m going to ship -for the United States, Millie!” - -“Ship your grandaddy!” she retorted. “Been drinking gin this time, eh?” - -“I’m sober enough, thank God” replied uncle. “I’ve borrowed enough -money to carry me across. That’s the only way I shall ever straighten -out and get away from the public-houses. It’s best; don’t you think so, -old girl?” - -“What about us?” asked my aunt with an angry gleam in her eyes. “What’s -to become of us?” - -“Why,” stammered uncle, “you see I must go on ahead and get something -to do, first; then I can send for you, Millie. Think what it means for -us to get away to America, where are so many bright chances! God knows -but I shall be able to lift up my head there, and get a new start. I -can’t do anything so long as I stay here.” - -So, after the first shock had passed, it was arranged. For the first -time in many days I saw my uncle put his arms around his wife’s -shoulders, as if he were courting her again, and re-dreaming youth’s -dream, as he painted with winsome colors this new adventure. When hope -was shining its brightest in his eye my aunt’s caught the gleam of it, -and in a much kinder voice than I was used to hearing, she said, “Do -it, Stanwood! Do it, and we’ll look after the business while you get -ready for us in the new world!” - -In another week my uncle had packed his belongings in a tin trunk, had -said good-by to his old-time friends, had taken us with him to the -station to talk earnestly, manfully with us until the Liverpool train -came in. Then we went through the gates to the compartment, and saw him -shut in by the guard. Through the open window he whispered counsel and -tender words, and re-echoed his new purposes. Then there was a stir, -the train began to move away from us, and my uncle was plunging off -towards a new world, and, we prayed, towards a new manhood, leaving -aunt and me dazed at our new loneliness. - - - - -_Chapter II. Dripping Potatoes, Diplomatic Charity, and Christmas -Carols_ - - - - -_Chapter II. Dripping Potatoes, Diplomatic Charity, and Christmas -Carols._ - - -Contrary to his promise, Uncle did not write to us announcing his -arrival. In fact, for some strange reason, no letter had arrived by -the end of summer. After the leaves had gone and the trees were left -stripped by the fall winds, no word had come to comfort us from America. - -Aunt and I had tried to keep the shop open, but we saw every day that -we had not the skill to make it a success. Already, in the minds of -the townspeople, we had failed. It was not long before we were selling -nothing but the smoked and dried fish with which the shop was stocked. -We could get no fresh fish on credit. Even the grocer would not longer -trust us, and shut off supplies. We tried to make out as well as we -could, but not philosophically, on dry bread, smoked fish, and tea, -with monotonous regularity. Aunt Millie was the wrong kind of person -to live with in reduced circumstances. She took away the taste of a red -herring by her complaints and impatient tirades against the author of -our misfortune. The failure of letters, too, only increased her anger. -There was heated complaint for dessert at every meal. That Scriptural -word, “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is,” might have meant -much to me during those hungry days. - -Then our collateral had to go, a piece at a time. Bob, the one-eyed -horse, friend of those early years, harnessed to his cart, brought in -some money with which we could buy a little fresh stock which I tried -to peddle in a hand-cart. But I could not get around very skilfully, -and as I trudged over the same route where previously my uncle had gone -with his humorous shout of “Mussels alive! Buy ’em alive!” people did -not trade with me, but pitied me, and stroked my head in sympathy. When -the stock was gone, and it was soon gone, my aunt thought that she had -better give up the fight and sell out at auction! - -By this time winter was full on us. There were snow and dismal winds -which made lonely sounds down our chimney. Old Torvey, the town-crier, -was called in for a consultation, and the auction definitely planned. -The following Saturday, in the morning, while the housewives were -busy polishing their fenders, Old Torvey, clanging his hand-bell with -great unction, came up the middle of the road, stopping at strategic -points, and when the aproned housewives and their children stood -at their doors alert, he solemnly announced, in his sing-song way: -“To--be--sold--at--Public--Auction--this--day--at--two--in--the-- -afternoon--all--the--stock--in--trade--of--Stanwood--Brindin--at-- -his--shop--at--the--head--of--Station--Road--together--with--all-- -the--movable--fixtures--therein--and--any--other--items--not--herein-- -mentioned--Sale--to--begin--sharply--on--time--and--goods--to--go--to-- -the--highest--bidder--Terms--cash--and--all--bids--welcomed--Come--one-- -and--all--Two--in--the--afternoon. Now--get--back--to--your--cleaning-- -before--your--chaps--get--whom!”--this last as a sally for the women, -“whom” meaning “home.” - -All the afternoon, while the auction was in session, aunt and I sat -in the parlor of our house, behind the flower-pots, watching all who -went in. Aunt kept up a running commentary: “Yes, you go in, too, -Jane Harrup. You wouldn’t come near me to buy, would you? Um, that -blood-sucker, Thompson! What a crowd of vampires a sale can bring out! -I didn’t think that you were looking for bargains from us, Martin -Comfort. It’s beyond me how folks do gather when you are down!” - -Then, when the last of the curious crowd had gone and the shop had -passed from our control, there came anxious shopmen demanding the -settlement of their bills. And when the last item had been paid there -was hardly a shilling left. We had merely succeeded in settling the -honor of our house. - -The next week the town-crier once more -paraded the streets of the town, announcing: -“To--be--sold--at--public--auction--at--two--in--the--afternoon-- -many--of--the--household--effects--of--Stanwood--Brindin--etc.” -This time our parlor was stripped of its piano, several ornamental -pieces of furniture, and various bric-à-brac. When the bidders had -carted away their “bargains,” my aunt said to me, “Here is one room -less to look after, Al. I suppose I ought to be thankful enough, but -I’m not!” After that, we lived entirely in the kitchen. - -So, with only a few shillings from the proceeds of the last auction, -aunt and I faced the winter. We were buoyed up by the hope that Uncle -Stanwood would send us a letter despite his strange silence. But day by -day the coal grew less and less in the cellar, the wood was burned up, -and the larder needed replenishing. - -There came to our ears whispers of gossip that were spreading through -the town: that uncle had parted from aunt and would never live with her -again, that our financial perplexities were really ten times worse than -people imagined, that we should eventually be forced into the workhouse! - -Behind that door, which only opened every now and then in answer to a -friendly knock, a real battle with poverty was fought. Dry bread and -tea (the cups always with thick dregs of swollen, soaked leaves which -I used to press with a spoon to extract every possible drop of tea) -finally formed the burden of unnourishing meals. Even the tea failed at -last, and the bread we ate was very stale indeed. Yet I found dry bread -had a good taste when there was nothing else to eat. - -It was in the middle of December that Aunt bethought herself of some -herring-boxes piled in the garret over the empty shop. She had me -split them into kindlings, tie them into penny bundles, and sent me -out to peddle them at the doors of our friends. Aunt made me wait -until darkness when I first went out with the kindling. She did not -want me to be seen in the daylight carrying the wood. That day we had -eaten but a breakfast of oat-cake and water, and I was very hungry and -impatient to sell some wood that I might have something more to eat. -But aunt was firm, so that it was six o’clock and very dark when I -took two penny bundles. The cotton mills had all their lights out. The -street-lamps were little dismal spots in the silent streets. Warm glows -of light came from front windows, and the shadows of housewives serving -supper were seen on many window blinds. My own hunger redoubled. I -hurried to the first house on a side street, gave a timid knock, and -waited for an answer. A big, rosy-cheeked woman opened the door, and -peered down on me, saying, “Where art’?” - -“Please, ma’am, if you please,” I replied, “I’m Al Priddy, and me and -Aunt haven’t got anything to eat for tea, and I’m selling bundles of -dry wood for a penny apiece.” - -“Bless ’is little ’eart,” exclaimed the big woman. “Bless th’ little -’eart! ’is belly’s empty, that it is. Come reight in, little Priddy -lad, there’s waarm teigh (tea) and ’ot buttered crumpets. Sarah Jane,” -she shouted towards the rear of the house from whence came the tinkle -of spoons rattling in cups and a low hum of voices, “get that tu’pence -from under th’ china shep’erdess on’t mantle and bring it reight off. -Come in, Priddy, lad, and fill th’ belly!” - -“If you please, ma’am,” I said, “I can’t stop, if you please. Aunt -Millie hasn’t got anything to eat and she’s waiting me. I think I’ll -take the money, if you please, and be sharp home, thank you!” - -“Bless ’is little ’eart,” murmured the big woman, “’ere’s tuppence -’apenny, an’ come ageen, wen tha has’t moor wood to sell.” - -“If you please,” I interposed, “it’s only tu’pence. I can’t take more; -aunt said so!” - -“Bless ’is ’eart, that’s so,” said the big woman. “Is th’ sure th’ -won’t eat a waarm crumpet, little Priddy, lad?” - -I had to refuse again, and clutching the two pennies, I ran exultantly -down the road toward home, where aunt was sitting near the very tiny -light that a very tiny piece of coal was giving in the big fireplace. -With one penny I purchased a warm loaf and with the other I bought some -golden treacle, and that night there was not a lord in England whose -supper had the taste to it that mine had. - -Two days after that, when we were once more without food in the house, -and when I had had but a scant breakfast, I met a rough-garbed boy not -much older than myself, a homeless waif, known and condemned by the -name of “Work ’Ouse Teddy.” This day that I met him, he performed his -usual feat of wriggling his fingers on his nose, a horrible, silent, -swear gesture, and called out to me, “Hey, Fishy, got a cockle on your -nose?” - -“No,” I replied, being secretly afraid of him, “I’ve not. I’m hungry. I -haven’t had any dinner.” - -“Aw, yer got chunks of money, you have, I knows. Don’t taffy me like -that or I’ll squeege yer nose in my thumbs, blast me, I will!” and he -made a horrible contortion of his face to frighten me. - -“I am hungry!” I protested. “We are poor now, Teddy.” - -Then I told him all our story, as well as I could, and when I told him -about selling the kindling, he laughed and said, “Blow me, you codger! -You oughter get your meals like I gets um. Say, now, blokey, wot you -say to--well, let’s see,” and he mused awhile. - -Then, “Well, say, wot would yer say to ’taters in gravy, some meat-pie, -cold, and a drink of coffee?” - -“Oh,” I gasped, “that would be rich.” Then Teddy winked, a broad, -meaningful wink. “I’m yer Daddy, then,” and after that, “make a cross -over yer ’eart, and say, ‘Kill me, skin me, Lord Almighty, if I tell!’” -and when I had so sworn, he explained, “Now yer won’t let on where I -keep things, so come on, blokey, I’m yer Daddy!” and he laughed as -merrily as if he did not have to sleep out like a lost sheep of society -or to dodge the police, who were ever on his tracks trying to get him -put back into the workhouse. - -Teddy led me through the open gates of the mill-yard when darkness -had come on. The firemen, in the glow of their furnaces, called out, -cheerily, “Blast th’ eyes, Teddy, don’t let the boss catch thee!” and, -“Got a chew of thick twist (tobacco) for me, Ted, lad?” After he had -given the man a chew, and had boxed a round with the other stoker, -Teddy came to where I stood, and said, “They let me sleep here nights. -They’re good blokes. Now, here’s where I keeps things.” So saying, he -led me to a corner of the immense coal heap, and there, in a box amidst -thick heaps of coal powder, he drew out a pitcher with the lip gone and -only a useless fragment of the handle left. He also drew out a sort -of pie plate and a small fruit basket. “I keeps ’em there to keep the -dust off,” he explained, and handed me the basket. “Now we get ready to -eat dripping potatoes and meat-pie, bloke.” Then he took me near the -furnaces, behind a heap of coal, so that the boss watchman would not -find us, and elaborately explained to me the procedure to be followed -in getting so tasty a supper. - -“When the mill lets out at six, me an’ you’ll stand there at the gates, -you standin’ on one side and me on t’ther. You don’ be shy, bloke, but -speak up, and say, ‘Any leavin’s, good folks!’ ‘Give us yer leavin’s!’ -Some on um’ll grumble at you, an’ some’ll say, ‘Get off, you bloke, -we’ll tell the Bobby,’ but they won’t. You’ll find some that’ll open -their boxes and turn ’em inside out for you right in the basket. Then -you just come over to my side, and I’ll show you. Just remember that -it’s dripping ’taters an’ meat-pie an’ ’ot coffee! Don’t that make yer -mouth water, bloke?” - -I said that it would be a regular feast. - -At six o’clock, when the clang of a big bell in the mill tower let -itself out in a riot of din, the Whole inside of the factory seemed to -run down with a deepening hum, then the quiet precincts of the yards -became filled with a chattering, black army. Teddy and I stood on our -respective sides of the big gateway, and waited for the exodus. I grew -suddenly afraid that I should be trampled under foot, afraid that my -voice would not be heard, afraid that I should be jailed. So I let most -of the crowd past unsolicited, and then I grew afraid that Teddy would -perform all manner of horrible and grewsome tortures on me if I did not -try, so I darted my basket almost into the stomach of a tall man, and -piped, “Got any leavings, sir?” He paused, looked me over, took the -dirty pipe from his mouth as he further extended his contemplation, and -said, “Sartinly, lad,” and deposited in my basket a currant bun and a -slice of cold meat, and went on muttering, “It might be my own, God -knows!” - -The gas lights were out in the mill, and the huge bulk was merely -part of the silent night, when I went across and showed Teddy what -I had obtained. He laughed, “Not at all bad--for a learner, that!” -he commented. “It takes practice to get dripping ’tato and meat-pie, -bloke. I got it and a jug o’ coffee. We’ll eat near the bilers,” and he -led the way into the yard, making me dodge behind a pile of boxes as -the night watchman came to lock the gates. The firemen allowed Teddy -to warm the coffee and the food, and then we sat in the glow of the -opening doors, in a bed of coal dust, and ate as sumptuous a meal as -had passed my lips for some time. - -When I expressed my thanks, Teddy said, “Be on deck to-morrer, too, -bloke. It’ll be fish then. Would you like fish?” - -“I do like fish,” I agreed. “I will come to-morrow, Teddy, thank you -kindly.” - -“I’ll go to the gate with yer an’ give yer a leg o’er. The gate’s -locked, bloke.” After many slips, Teddy at last had me over, and as he -said good-night through the pickets, I said, “Will you sleep out in the -snow, to-night, Teddy?” - -He laughed, “Oh, no, blokey, not me. Wot’s the matter with a snooze -near the bilers with a cobble o’ coal for a piller, eh?” Knowing that -he would be perhaps warmer than I, I left him, and ran home to tell my -aunt what a good supper I had picked up. - -When I had finished the recital of the adventure, my aunt grew very -indignant and gave me a severe whipping with a solid leather strap. -“Shamin’ me up and down like that!” she cried. “Beggin’ at a mill gate! -I’ll show you!” and I had to swear not to have anything more to do with -Work’ouse Teddy. - -But evidently through that experience, and on account of my having sold -the kindling wood, our friends were at last apprised of the actual -poverty in our house, and for a while there seemed to be no end to the -little offerings of food that were brought in. I shall always remember -with pride the diplomacy with which most of the food was given. When -Mrs. Harrup brought in a steaming pigeon-pie, wrapped in a spotless -napkin, she said, “Mrs. Brindin, I had more meat than I knew what to do -with and some pie-crust left to waste, so I says to our Elizabeth Ann, -‘Lizzie Ann, make up a little pie for Mrs. Brindin, to let her see how -well you’re doing with crust. She knows good crust when she _tastes_ -it, and I want you to let her pass judgment on it, Lizzie Ann.’ I said, -likewise, ‘Lizzie Ann, if thy pie-crust doesna’ suit Mrs. Brindin, then -thy ’usband’ll never be suited.’ So here’s it, Mrs. Brindin. Never -mind washing the dish, please.” - -Mrs. Harrow, the iron monger’s demure wife, herself a bride of but -two months, came in one morning, dangling a long, lank hare. She had -a doubtful expression on her face, and, as soon as she had crossed -the threshold of our kitchen, she made haste to fling the hare on our -table, exclaiming, “There, Mrs. Brindin. There it is for you to tell -us on’t. I bought it yestere’en down’t lower road and it come this -morning, early. I was going to stew it, but then I smelled it. It’s not -a bit nice smell, is’t? I couldn’t bring myself to put it in the stew. -I made a pudding and dumpling dinner ’stead. Just you sniff at it, -Mrs. Brindin. You know about ’em, bein’ as you sold ’em, mony on ’em. -It don’t smell tidy, do it?” She looked anxiously at aunt. “Why, Mrs. -Harrow,” said my aunt, “’Ares always are that way. It all goes off in -the cooking. It’s nothing to bother over.” - -“Uh,” said the iron monger’s wife, “come off or not, I could never eat -it. I never could. I wonder, Mrs. Brindin, if you will let Al, there, -throw it away or do something with it. I will never have such a thing -in my house!” and she hurried out of the kitchen. - -“Al,” smiled aunt, a rare smile, “here’s stew and pie for near a week.” - -Our neighbors could not always be doing such diplomatic acts, and after -a while we had to go back to treacle and bread, hourly expecting word -from America. We had faith that Uncle Stanwood would let us hear from -him, though his long, disheartening silence worried us considerably. -Aunt did not go to work, because she hoped at any day to hear the call, -“Come to America.” Then in desperation Aunt had her name put on the -pauper’s list for a shilling a week. I had to go to the parish house on -Monday mornings, and stand in line with veteran paupers--“Barley-corn -Jack,” the epileptic octogenarian, Widow Stanbridge, whose mother and -grandparents before her had stood in this Monday line, Nat Harewell, -the Crimean hero, who had a shot wound in his back, and many other -minor characters who came for the shilling. The first Monday I stood -in’t, I chanced to step in front of “Barley-corn” Jack, who, unknown to -me at the time, was usually given the place of honor at the head of the -line. He clutched me by the nape of the neck, whirled me around, lifted -up my upper lip with a dirty finger, and grinned, “Got a row of ’em, -likely ’nough! Screw th’ face, young un, screw it tight, wil’t?” - -I was so terror stricken, and tried to escape his clutch with such -desperation, that Nat Harewell interjected, “Lend ’im hup, Jack, lend -’im hup, owld un!” and Jack did let me go with a whirl like a top -until I was dazed. I fell in line near the Widow, who laughed at me, -showing her black teeth; and then, while she twisted an edge of her -highly flavored and discolored shawl, and chewed on it, she asked, -“Was’t ale ur porter ’at browt thee wi’ uns, laddie?” - -I replied that I was Al Priddy and that _I_ was “respectable.” With -that, the line began to move past the clerk’s window, and there was no -more talking. - -In such circumstances we reached the Christmas season, and still we had -no word from America. It was the night before Christmas, and a night -before Christmas in an English town is astir with romance, joy, and -poetic feeling. The linen draper had a white clay church in his window, -with colored glass windows behind which burned a candle. The butcher -had his pink pig in his window with a hat on its head, a Christmas grin -on its face, and a fringe of pigs’ tails curled into spirals hanging -in rows above him. There were tinsel laden trees with golden oranges -peeping out from behind the candy stockings, wonderlands of toys, and -The Home of Santy, where he was seen busy making toys for the world. I -had gone down the row with my aunt, looking at all that, for aunt had -said, “Al, there’s to be a sorry Christmas for you this time. You had -better get all you can of it from the shop windows.” We were pushed -this way and that by the crowds that went by doing their shopping. -Once we had been with them in the Christmas spirit, now we dwelt apart -because of our poverty. - -“My,” commented aunt, with the old bitterness in her tone, “the fools! -Parading afore us to let us see that _they_ can have a good time of it!” - -Our dark home had a more miserable aspect about it than ever when we -got back. “Get right up to bed,” commanded aunt, “there’s no coal to -waste. You can keep warm there!” and though her manner of saying it was -rough, yet I heard a catch in her voice, and then she burst into tears. - -“Never mind, Aunt Millie,” I comforted, “uncle will write, I feel -sure!” She looked up, startled, and seemed ashamed that I had found her -crying and had struck her thought so. - -“Who’s whimpering?” she cried fiercely. “Mind your business!” But I -noticed that when she came in my room that night and thought me asleep, -when in reality I was keeping my ears open for the carols, she kissed -me very tenderly and crept away silently. - -When the carols first strike a sleeping ear, one imagines that the -far-away choirs of Heaven are tuning up for the next day’s chorus -before God. The first notes set such dreams a-spinning as are full of -angels and ethereal thoughts. Then the ear becomes aware of time and -place, and seizes upon the human note that may be found in Christmas -carols when they are sung by mill people at midnight in winter weather. -Then the ear begins to distinguish between this voice and that, and to -follow the bass that tumbles up and down through the air. Then there -is a great crescendo when the singers are right under one’s window, -and the words float into the chamber, each one winged with homely, -human tenderness and love. So I was awakened by the carol singers that -Christmas night. The first tune sung for us was, “Christians Awake,” -and when its three verses had awakened us, and we had gone to the -window to look down on the group, “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” was -followed by a soaring adaptation of Coronation. It was a group of about -fifteen. There were Old Bill Scroggs with his concertina, Harry Mills -with his ’cello, and Erwind Nichols with his flute. Torvey was there, -though he could not sing. He carried the lantern, caught the money -that was dropped into his hat from the windows, and kept the young men -and women from too much chattering as they approached the different -stands. When they had finished their anthems, aunt called from the -window, “Happy Christmas good folks. It was kind of you to remember us -so. It’s real good.” Old Torvey answered back, “Merry Christmas, Mrs. -Brindin. We must get along.” Then the crowd sent up a confused “Merry -Christmas,” and passed on. - -Then it was back to bed again to sleep until awakened by an unnatural -pounding on our door below. “What is it, aunt?” I cried. “I don’t -know,” she answered. “Put on your clothes and get down before they -break in the door!” I dressed hurriedly, inserted the massive iron key -in the lock, gave it a turn only to have the door thrust open wide by -Old Torvey, who cried excitedly, as he waved a letter in the air, “It’s -from Hammerica, from him!” - -My aunt ran down at that, partly dressed, and screamed in her -excitement. With fluttering, nervous fingers she tore open the -envelope, and examined the contents in a breathless minute. - -“Stanwood sent it,” she laughed, “there’s tickets for America and a -money order for five pounds!” and then she gave in to a hysterical -relapse which required the calling in of the green-grocer’s wife. It -_was_ a Merry Christmas! - - - - -_Chapter III. My Schoolmates Teach me American_ - - - - -_Chapter III. My Schoolmates Teach me American_ - - -It was an extraordinary excuse that Uncle Stanwood gave for his neglect -of us. He disposed of the matter by saying, in his Christmas letter, “I -was so busy and so hard put to that I had no heart to write till I had -gathered enough money to send for you. I know it must have worried you.” - -His steamship tickets, however, had suddenly put us in the limelight -in the town. “The Brindins are going over!” was the word that passed -around. I can imagine no more perfect fame than the United States had -gained in the minds of the men and women of our little town. America -was conceived as the center of human desire, the pivot of worldly -wealth, the mirror of a blissful paradise. If we had fallen heirs to -peerages or had been called to Victoria’s court, it is doubtful if more -out-and-out respect would have been showered on us than was ours when -it was known that we were going to the “States.” - -The impression prevailed that in America the shabbiest pauper gets a -coat of gold. During the packing, when the neighbors dropped in while -Mrs. Girion made a hot brew of porter and passed it around to the -visitors and the workers, an America was constructed for us rivaling -the most extravagant fairy-tale ever told by Grimm. - -“Yis,” chattered Old Scroggs, “they’s wunnerful likely things over -theer in Hammerica, I’m told. I heer’s ’at they spends all ther coppers -for toffy and such like morsels, havin’ goold a plenty--real goold! -Loads o’ it, they saay!” - -“That’s so,” put in Maggie, our next-door neighbor. “Everybody has a -chance, too. Double wages for very little work. All sorts of apples and -good things to eat. Fine roads, too, and everybody on cycles; they’re -so cheap out there. They say the sun is always out, too, and not much -rain!” - -In somebody’s memory there lingered traditions brought from America -by a visitor from that country. Besides these traditions, which had -to do with “gold,” “paradise,” and “easy work,” there were a half a -dozen Yankee words which we dearly loved to prate, as if by so doing -we had at least a little fellowship with the wonderful country. In the -school-yard my fellows drilled me on these words, Billy Hurd saying, -“Now, Al, them Yankees allus talk through the nose, like this,” and he -illustrated by a tinpanish, nasal tone that resembled the twang of a -tight piano wire. “Now, if you’re going to be American, talk like that, -it’s real Yankee. Now let’s see you try the word, ‘Candy,’ which is -what they call toffy over there. Only don’t forget to talk through the -nose like I did.” - -So I dug my hands deep in my pockets, “cocked my jib,” as we called -looking pert, and drawled out in most exaggerated form, “Saay, Ha’nt, -want tew buy teow cents wuth of kaandy?” - -“That’s just like Yankee,” complimented Billy. So I went home, called -my aunt’s attention to what I was going to do, and repeated the -sentence, much to her delight. - -“That’s right, Al,” she said, “learn all the American you can, it will -help out when we get there!” - -Filled with incidents like these, the days of our English lingering -rapidly drew to an end, and every thought in my mind had an ocean -steamship at the end of it. The neighbors made it a “time of tender -gloom,” for it could be nothing else to a mature person, this taking -up of the Brindin family history by the root for transplantation, -this breaking off of intimate relationships which, through blood, -reached back into misty centuries. Then, too, there was the element of -adventure, of risk, for we little knew what prospects were in store -for us in that strange land: what would be the measure of our reward -for going there. The neighbors were very solemn, but the strange thing -about it lay in the fact that there was not one, insular as the British -are heralded, who thought that the proposed trip should not be taken! - -Finally we came to the farewells and I made mine very concrete. As it -was clearly understood that everybody who went to America attained -great wealth, I told Clara Chidwick that I would send her a fine gold -watch, and when her sister Eline cried with envy, I vowed to send -her a diamond brooch. Harry Lomick went off with the promise of five -new American dollars, Jimmy Hedding was consoled with the promise of -two cases of American “candy,” while Chaddy Ashworth vowed eternal -friendship when I promised him a barrel of American apples, and, on the -strength of that, as my dearest friend, we mutually promised to marry -sisters, to keep house next door to one another when we grew up, and to -share whatever good fortune might come to us in the shape of money! - -Quite a body-guard of friends saw us off at the station. “Good luck to -you!” was the prevailing cry, as we sat in our compartment waiting for -the train to start for Liverpool. Then the guard shouted, “All aboard!” -and we were in the first, exciting stage of our great adventure. - -[Illustration: WHEN THE TRAIN STARTED FOR LIVERPOOL, I COUNTED MY -PENNIES WHILE MY AUNT WEPT BITTERLY] - -I settled myself back against the leather back of the seat wondering -why my aunt was crying so, and then I began to count the pennies with -which I planned to purchase some oranges in Liverpool. - -Our night in Liverpool, our last night on English soil, is summed up -in a memory of a cheap hotel, a stuffy room, and a breakfast on an -uncountable number of hard-boiled eggs. In the morning, early, we -left that place and were taken on a tram-car to the dock. There I -did purchase some oranges from an old witch of an orange woman, big -football oranges, which when peeled were small enough, for they had -been boiled to thicken the peel, so Aunt said. - -On the steerage deck we were jostled by Jews with their bedding and -food supplies. At ten o’clock, after we had stood in the vaccination -line, the ship sailed from the dock, and I leaned over the side -watching the fluttering handkerchiefs fade, as a snow flurry fades. -Then the tugs left us alone on the great, bottle-green deep. There was -a band in my heart playing, “I’m going to the land of the free and the -home of the brave!” - -When one makes a blend of bilge-water, new paint, the odor of raw -onions, by confining them in an unventilated space under deck, and adds -to that blend the cries of ill-cared-for babies, the swearing of vulgar -women, and the complaining whine of sickly children, one knows what -the steerage on the old “Alaska” was to me. The Jews owned the warm, -windswept deck, where they sat all day on the tins which covered the -steam-pipes, and munched their raw fish, black bread, and flavored the -salt air with the doubtful odor of juicy onions. I heard the English -forswear the bearded tribe, denounce them for unbelievers, sniff at the -mention of the food they ate; but after all, the English had the wrong -end of the stick; they had to stay below deck most of the time, and -sicken themselves with the poor, unwholesome fare provided by the ship. - -My aunt said to me, one day, “Al, I’d give the world for one of them -raw onions that the Jews eat. They’re Spanish onions, too, that makes -it all the more aggravating.” - -“Why don’t you ask them for a piece of one?” I inquired innocently. - -“What,” she sniffed, “ask a Jew? Never!” But when I begged one from a -Jew boy, she ate it eagerly enough. - -The height of romance for me, however, was in the person of Joe, a real -stowaway. He was found on the second day out, and was given the task -of peeling the steerage potatoes, a task that kept him busy enough -throughout the day. My mouth went open to its full extent, when, after -helping him with his potatoes, he would reward me by paring off thick -slices of callouse from his palms. Joe said to me, “Never mind, lad, if -I work hard they’ll sure land me in Boston when we arrive. I’m going to -wark hard so they’ll like me. I do want to go to the States!” - -In the women’s cabins, where I had my berth, they held evening concerts -of a very decided pathetic kind. Like minor tunes, they always ended -in a mournful wailing; for many of the women knew tragedies at first -hand, and were in the midst of tragedy, so that their songs and humors -were bound to be colored by despair. Carrie Bess, a stout woman whose -white neck was crumpled in folds like a washboard, had wit enough -to change the somberness of a morgue. She was usually the presiding -officer in charge of the concerts. She was on her way to rejoin her -husband, though she did not know where he was, but she said, “I’ll get -on the train and have it stop in Texas where Jek (Jack) is.” And with -this indefinite optimism she threw care to the winds and frolicked. She -would throw herself astride a chair, wink at us all, open her mouth -like a colored minstrel, and sing lustily, - - “It’s very hard to see a girl - Sitting on a young man’s knee. - If I only had the man I love, - What a ’apy girl I’d be!” - -Then, when the program had been gone through, with the oft-repeated -favorites, like Carrie Bess’ “It’s Very Hard,” the concert would always -close with an old sea song that somebody had introduced, a song which, -as I lay in my berth and sleepily heard it sung under those miserable -swinging lamps, amid the vitiated atmosphere of the cabin, and with the -sea sounds, wind, splash of waves, and hissing steam, summed up all the -miserable spirit of isolation on a great ocean: - - “Jack was the best in the band, - Wrecked while in sight of the land, - If he ever comes back, my sailor boy, Jack, - I’ll give him a welcome home!” - -When the numbered sails of pilots hove in sight, and the lightships, -guarding hidden shoals with their beacon masts, were passed, the -steerage began to get ready for its entrance in the land of dreams. The -song went up, every throat joining in: - -“Oh, we’re going to the land where they pave the streets with money, -la, di, da, la, di, da!” - -Finally we sighted a golden band in the distance, a true promise of -what we expected America to be. It was Nantasket Beach. That made us -put on our Sunday clothes, tie up our goods, and assemble at the rail -to catch a further glimpse of the great paradise. An American woman -gave me a cent, the first bit of American money my fingers ever touched. - -Then the black sheds, the harbor craft, and the white handkerchiefs -came into view. I strained an eager, flushing face in an effort to -place Uncle Stanwood, but I could not find him. - -Nearly all the passengers had left in company with friends, but my -aunt and I had to stay on board in instant fear of having to return -to England, for uncle was not there to meet us. I saw poor Joe, the -stowaway, in chains, waiting to be examined by the authorities for his -“crime.” I felt fully as miserable as he, when I whispered to him, -“poor Joe!” - -After many hours uncle did arrive, and we had permission to land in -America. I confess that I looked eagerly for the gold-paved streets, -but the Assay Office could not have extracted the merest pin-head from -the muddy back street we rode through in a jolting team of some sort. I -saw a black-faced man, and cried for fear. I had a view of a Chinaman, -with a pigtail, and I drew back from him until uncle said, “You’ll see -lots of them here, Al, so get used to it.” When I sat in the station, -waiting for the train, I spent my first American money in America. I -purchased a delectable, somewhat black, banana! - - - - -_Chapter IV. I pick up a handful of America, make an American cap, whip -a Yankee, and march home whistling “Yankee Doodle”_ - - - - -_Chapter IV. I pick up a handful of America, make an American cap, whip -a Yankee, and march home whistling, “Yankee Doodle”_ - - -The full revealing of the America of my dreams did not come until the -following morning. Docks, back streets, stations, and the smoky, dusty -interiors of cars, were all I had seen the previous night. When we had -arrived in New Bedford, I heard the noise of a great city, but I had -been so stupid with excitement and weariness that no heed had been paid -to passing scenes. I had gone to bed in a semi-conscious state in the -boarding-house where Uncle Stanwood made his home. But in the morning, -after I realized that I was in America, that it was an American bed -on which I slept, that the wall-paper was American, and that the -window-blind, much crumpled and cracked, over the window, was the great -drop-curtain which, drawn to its full height, would show me a stage, -set with a glitter of things wondrous to the sight, I exclaimed aloud, -“Chaddy, oh, Chaddy, I’m in America!” - -Just as one hesitates with esthetic dreaming over a jewel hidden in -a leaden casket, getting as much joy from anticipation as possible, -so I speculated in that dingy room before I pulled up the curtain. -What should I see? Trees with trunks of chrysolites, with all the -jewels of Aladdin’s cave dripping from their boughs, streets paved -with gold, people dressed like lords? All, all outside, with only that -crumpled blind between me and them? Thus, with an inflamed anticipation -and a magnified dream fancy, I hurried across the room, and let the -window-blind snap out of my nervous clutch clear to the top. I pressed -my eyes close to the glass, and there--Oh, the breaking-down of -dreams, the disillusionment of the deluded! There was a glaring sun -staring down on a duck-yard: a magnified duck-yard, bare of grass, of -shrubs, criss-crossed with clotheslines, littered with ashes, refuse, -and papers, with flapping mill clothes, and great duck-house; drab -tenements, all alike, and back of them the bleak brick walls of a -cotton-mill! - -But never mind, I was in America! Chaddy was not. The scene I had -looked upon was disheartening, somewhat like a sudden blow in the face, -for those box-like, wooden duck-houses were not to be compared with -the ivy-covered, romantic rows of Hadfield with their flower-gardens, -arches, and slate roofs! But I was in America, anyway! - -We had the breakfast-table to ourselves, uncle, aunt, and myself, for -the boarders had gone to work long ago, and this was our holiday, our -first American day! What are those round golden things with holes in? -Doughnuts? They don’t grow on trees, do they? Baked? Isn’t it funny -they call them “nuts?” I don’t taste any nut flavor to them. But I -could not linger too long at the table with all America waiting to be -explored. - -“Don’t gulp down things like that,” warned aunt, “you’ll be sick, -proper sick. Chew your food!” - -“I want to go out and see America, aunt!” - -“All right,” she assented. “Go on out, but mind the American lads, now!” - -So I left the house, and the first act done when I reached the gate had -in it, crystallized, the deep reverence an alien feels for America. I -bent down and picked up a handful of dirt. I wanted to feel America. - -Then I walked down the street of tenements, looking for an outlet from -them, and hoping to get away from the shadow of the mill. At last the -tenements were passed, and I saw some vacant building lots, with huge, -gaudy sign boards staring from them. It was here that I heard a voice -from across the road, shouting in broad derision, “Strike him!” A group -of school boys were pointing at me. In the hasty survey I gave them, I -noted that they all wore round caps. Mine had a shining visor on it. I -hurried along behind one of those huge signs, took out my pocket knife, -and slashed off the visor. Immediately I felt Americanized. I went -forth with some show of a swagger, for I thought that now, wearing a -round cap, everybody would take me for a full-fledged American! - -But it was not so. Under a railway viaduct, where the shadows were -thick and cool, I was met by a lad of my own age, but with twenty times -more swagger and pertness showing on him. When he saw me, he frowned -at first, then, grinning insultingly, he came to within two inches of -me, planted himself belligerently, and mocked, “’Ello, Green’orn! Just -come acrost, ’ast?” Whereat, knowing full well that he was heaping -slander on my mother speech, I threw caution to the winds, hurled -myself at him, and was soon engaged in tense battle. The fight did not -last long, for, keeping up the English schoolboy tradition, I not only -pounded with clenched fists, but freely used my feet--a combination -that put to nought whatever pugilistic skill my antagonist possessed. - -“No fair, usin’ feet,” he complained, as he nursed a bruised shin and -hobbled off, “Green’orn!” - -That word, “Greenhorn,” startled me. I cautiously felt of my head, for -it flashed into my mind that it was very possible, in this magic land, -that English people grew green horns immediately upon arrival; but I -was consoled to find that none had sprouted overnight. - -I continued my exploration, and found myself surrounded on every hand -by mills, tenements, and shops. The streets were very dirty: the whole -scene was as squalid as could be. Yet, the thought kept comforting me, -I was in America. I returned home, covered with burdock burrs, arranged -in the form of epaulets, stripes, and soldier buttons, whistling with -gusto a shrill rendition of “Yankee Doodle.” So ended my first morning -as an American. - - - - -_Chapter V. I cannot become a President, but I can go to the Dumping -Grounds_ - - - - -_Chapter V. I cannot become a President, but I can go to the Dumping -Grounds_ - - -Uncle and aunt went out that afternoon. “We’re going looking for a -tenement,” said uncle. “We’ll be back by supper time, Al. Mind now, and -not get into mischief.” They were gone until past the regular supper -hour, and I waited for them in my room. When they did arrive, uncle -seemed very much excited, and in greeting me he put five cents in my -hand, and then extracted from his pocket a handful of crisp, baked -pieces which he said were “salted crackers.” The only crackers with -which I was acquainted were Chinese crackers, which we exploded on Guy -Fawkes day in England. - -“Will they shoot off?” I asked him. - -“No, they’re to eat,” he answered. “There’s salt on them to make you -eat more, too.” - -“Where do you get them?” was my next question. - -“At saloons,” he replied. “When you get a drink of beer, they have -these near to make you drink more.” I looked up startled, and sniffed -the breath of my aunt, who stood near, nodding her head rapidly, as if -answering the questions of a Gatling gun. - -“Why,” I gasped, “you’ve both been drinking! Both of you!” Aunt Millie -made a stroke at my head, then lurched in doing it, and almost sprawled -to the floor. - -“What if we have, Impudence?” she snapped. “When did you sit in -judgment o’er us, eh?” - -Then my uncle, in an apologetic tone, broke in, “There, Al, lad, we -only stopped in one place; sort of celebration, lad, after being -separated so long. Don’t say anything about it, lad. I’ll give you -five cents more.” But Aunt Millie flew into a terrible rage. “Don’t -apologize, Stanwood. Give him a clout i’ the head, and let him be -careful what he says. Drinkin’, eh? I show him,” and she suddenly swung -her fist against my ear, and sent me stumbling to the floor. At that, -Uncle Stanwood rushed at her, although he was lurching, and grasping -her wrist, called, “There, Millie, that’s enough.” That brought on an -altercation, in the midst of which the landlady came up, and said, -“Stop that noise, or I’ll call the police. I’ll give you another day -for to get out of this. I keep a respectable house, mind you, and I -won’t, I simply won’t have drinking taking place here. The boarders -won’t stand for it!” - -“Oh, you insultin’ vixin, you!” screamed aunt, brandishing her arms -in the air with savage fury, “Don’t you go to sittin’ on the seat of -virtue like that! Didn’t I see the beer man call in your kitchen this -morning? You hypocrite, you!” - -“Oh,” screamed the landlady, leaving the room, “let me hear one more -sound and in comes the police. I won’t stand it!” - -“There,” cried Aunt Millie, consoled by the landlady’s departure, “I -knew that would bring her. Now, Stanwood, let’s finish that little -bottle before bedtime. This is our first day in America.” Uncle -Stanwood pulled from his pocket a flask of whisky, and I left them -sitting on the edge of the bed drinking from it. - -The next morning Uncle Stanwood went to the mill where he was working, -and told the overseer that he must have another day off in which to -get a tenement and get settled. Then he and aunt found a tidy house -just outside the blocks of duck-houses, and, after renting it, went to -the shopping center, where they chose a complete housekeeping outfit -and made the terms of payment,--“One Dollar Down and a Dollar a Week.” -That plunged us into debt right off, and I later learned that even our -steamship tickets had been purchased from an agency on somewhat the -same terms. The landlady had told Aunt Millie that my uncle had been a -steady drinker since his stay with her, shortly after his arrival in -the United States. - -“That accounts for his having so little money, then,” commented my -aunt. “I fail to see where he’s making a much better man of himself -than he was across the water.” - -At last Aunt Millie had the satisfaction of “setting up American -housekeeping,” as she termed it. But she did not find much romance in -this new kind of housekeeping. - -“See that homely thing,” she complained, indicating the stove, “Give -me that old fireplace and the stone kitchen floor! I’ve a good mind to -pack my tin box and take the next boat,” she half cried, throughout -those first days of Americanization. “I don’t, for the life of me, see -whatever brought me over here to this forsaken place!” - -I had to share in the blunders that were made. I was heartily laughed -at by the produce pedler when I asked him for “two pounds of potatoes.” -The yeast-cake man looked at me blankly when I asked for “a penny’s -worth of barm.” Aunt Millie did not see how she was ever going to make -a family baking from a piece of yeast an inch square, when she had -been wont to put in the same amount of flour a handful of brewer’s -barm. On Sunday morning the baker’s cart came with hot pots of beans -crested with burnt lumps of pork. We had to learn to eat beans and -brown bread. - -“I’m sure,” said my aunt when I brought home a five-cent loaf, “that -they rise the dough with potatoes; its so light and like dried chips!” -For the first time in my life I was surfeited with pastry. I bought -several square inches of frosted cake from the baker for five cents, -and ate it in place of the substantial food I had lived on in England. -In place of making meals, when she wanted to visit with the neighbors, -my aunt would give me five cents to spend on anything I liked. - -The springtime was full on, and I found much pleasure in mixing with -the tenement boys and girls, after school hours. While the schools -were in session, however, I had a lonely time of it. But it was on -those steps that I began to form a conception of what it means to be -an American. It meant to me, then, the ability to speak slang, to be -impertinent to adults, calling one’s father, “Old Man,” one’s mother, -“My Old Woman,” and one’s friend, “that guy.” The whole conception -rounded out, however, in the hope of some day becoming the President of -The United States, and I was considerably chagrined, and my coming to -America seemed a fruitless task, when I learned, from Minnie Helphin, a -German girl, that “You got for to be borned into the United States, for -to be like us ’Mericans, to be Preser-dent. My brudder, Hermann, him -for to be Preser-dent, sometimes.” - -I grew tired of being alone while the others went to school, so that -one day, in spite of the warning that the “truant officer” might get -hold of me, I went to one of the school yards, and, through the iron -fence, watched all my friends at play, and immediately I said to -myself, “You ought to go, too!” That night I said to my aunt, at the -supper table, “I want to go to an American school.” She looked at me -with a frown. - -“School, is it? Who said so, the government?” - -“No,” I answered, trembling in fear of her, “it wasn’t the government. -I get lonely while they are at school. That’s why I want to go.” - -She laughed, “Oh, we’ll soon find something for you to do more -profitable than going to school. Go to school! What are you bothering -me about school for? Education’s only for them that are learning to be -gentlemen. You’re a poor lad, and must be thinking more about getting -to work. Here we are, head and ears in debt! Up to our neck in it, -right away! We owe for the furniture. That chair you’re sitting on -isn’t ours. That stove isn’t paid for. Nothing’s ours, hardly the -clothes on our backs. How we are to pay for it all, gets me. You’ve got -to knuckle down with a will, young man, and help us out of the hole -we’re in!” - -“But the lad’s got to have schooling, Millie!” protested my uncle. She -turned upon him with flashing eyes, and, half-crying with sudden anger, -shouted at the top of her voice, “Listen to that! I’d like to know what -_you_ have to strike in this for. It’s you and your drinking’s brought -us to this pitch. There you can sit, while we are head and ears in -debt, nothing to call our own, and propose that this Impudent go to -school. He’s got to go out on the street with the McNulty lads and get -wood and coal. That will be something towards helping out. Never mind -about school till the government makes him go. That will be plenty of -time for SCHOOL!” - -“Picking wood and coal?” I asked, with interest in this new scheme to -keep me busy. - -“Yes,” she explained. “I was in McNulty’s this afternoon, and Mrs. -McNulty was telling me that she’s entirely kept in coal and wood by her -two lads, Pat and Tim. Seems to me that you might make yourself useful -like that, too, instead of bothering your little brain about getting -learning.” - -“I don’t like to have him out on the street,” protested Uncle, somewhat -feebly. - -“It’s not a case of like or dislike, this time,” said Aunt Millie, -“it’s a case of got to. You don’t bring in enough to pay up everything, -so you _shut up_! You and your fifteen dollars won’t make creation, -not a bit! Get off out of this. Go to the toy store, and get a cart or -something for Al to get wood in, instead of sitting there telling me -what is right and what is wrong. Go on; I’m going to send him out in -the morning.” - -Uncle took me with him to the toy store, where I helped select an -express wagon, with tin rims, front wheels that turned this way and -that, and the name, “Champion,” in red letters on its sides. Uncle -rode me home in it, and seemed to enjoy the drag it gave him up hill. -“There,” he whispered when we reached our door, “don’t tell your aunt -that I rode you. She might not like it, Al, lad!” - -The next morning Pat and Tim called at the house for me. They had been -generously kept at home that day to show me their “pickings.” I felt -a trifle puffed up over the gaudy appearance of my new wagon, for my -companions’ was a crude, deep box with odd baby-carriage wheels, and -it was named, by a black smudged tar sign, “The Shamrock.” But I did -not long exult, for Tim, a little undersized fellow of fourteen, said, -manfully, “Now, Priddy, if we shows yer things, yer got to divvy up, -see!” - -“What?” I asked. - -“Got to square up,” he said, and with no more ado he placed himself -in my new wagon. When we were out of sight of the house, Pat gave him -the handle of “The Shamrock,” and placed himself in the depths of that -dilapidated wagon, and I was told to “Drawr us. Yer th’ hoss. See?” - -So Pat and Tim took me to the “pickings.” In our excursions we visited -buildings that were in the process of reshingling, when we piled our -wagons to abnormal heights with the dry, mossy old ones. We went -on the trail of fires, where we poked among the fallen timbers for -half-burnt sticks. There were skirmishes in the vicinity of coal-yards, -at the rear of the sheds, where, through breaks and large, yawning -cracks, pieces of coal sometimes dropped through. We scouted on the -trail of coal wagons through cobbled, jolt streets, and managed to -pick up what they lost. We adventured on dangerous spurs of railroad -track, on marshy cinder dumps outside mill fences, and to the city -dumping-grounds for loads of cinders, coal, and wood. - -After a washing rainstorm, in the night, my aunt would say, “Now, Al, -there’s been a good rain, and it must have washed the dust off the -clinkers and cinders so that you might get a good bagful of cinders. -You’d best go before someone else gets ahead of you.” True enough, I -would find them in the ash heaps, as black as seeds in a watermelon, -the half-burnt coals, which I loaded in my bushel bag and carried home -in my wagon at five cents a load. If I returned with my bag empty, -there was always some drastic form of punishment given me. - -[Illustration: PAT AND TIM LED ME TO THE CHARLES STREET DUMPING -GROUND--WHICH WAS THE NEIGHBORHOOD GEHENNA] - -Life on the city dumping-grounds was generally a return to the survival -of the fittest. There was exemplified poverty in its ugliest aspect. -The Charles street dumps were miniature Alps of dusty rubbish rising -out of the slimy ooze of a pestiferous and stagnant swamp, in which -slinking, monstrous rats burrowed, where clammy bullfrogs gulped, over -which poisonous flies hummed on summer days, and from which arose an -overpowering, gassy nauseation. On a windy day, the air was filled by -a whirling, odorous dust of ashes. It stirred every heap of rubbish -into a pungent mass of rot. When the Irishmen brought the two-horse -dump-carts, and swung their load on the heap, every dump-picker was -sure to be smothered in a cloud of choking dust, as sticks, hoes, -rakes, and fingers, in mad competition, sought whatever prize of rag, -bottle, wood, or cinder came in sight. This was the neighborhood -Gehenna, in which the Portuguese, Irish, and Polish dwellers -thereabouts flung all that was filthy, spoiled, and odorous, whether -empty cans, ancient fruit and vegetables, rats from traps, or the -corpses of pet animals or birds. - -Pat, Tim, and I, in our search for fuel, met quite a cosmopolitan -life on those ash-hills. There they were, up to their knees in filth, -digging in desperation and competition, with hungry looks and hoarse, -selfish growls, like a wolf pack rooting in a carcass: the old Jew, -with his hand-cart, the Frenchwoman, with her two-year old girl; the -Portuguese girls and the Irish lads, the English and the American -pickers, all in strife, clannish, jealous, pugilistic, and never free -from the strain of tragedy. Pat and Tim could hold their own, as they -were well-trained street fighters. - -“Git on yer own side, Sheeny,” Tim used to scream to the venerable -Israelite; “I’ll punch yer in the plexus!” and without a word, but with -a cowed look of the eyes, the old man would retreat from the property -he had been cunningly encroaching upon. Then Tim’s commanding voice -could be heard, “Say, Geeser, hand over that copper-bottomed boiler -to yer uncle, will yer, or I’ll smash yer phiz in!” But when “Wallop” -Smitz brought his rowdy crowd to the dump, it was like an invasion of -the “Huns.” We were driven from the dump in dismay, often with our -clothes torn and our wagons battered. - -And oh, what prizes of the dump! Cracked plates, cups and saucers, -tinware, bric-à-brac, footwear, clothing, nursing-bottles and nipples, -bottles with the dregs of flavoring extracts, cod-liver oil, perfumes, -emulsions, tonics, poisons, antiseptics, cordials, decayed fruit, and -faded flowers! These were seized in triumph, taken home in glee, and -no doubt used in faith. There is little philosophy in poverty, and -questions of sanitation and prudence come in the stage beyond it. “Only -bring me coal and wood,” commanded my aunt, in regard to my visits to -the dumps, but I managed to save rubbers, rags, and metal, as a side -product, and get money for them from the old Jew junk-man. - - - - -_Chapter VI. The Luxurious Possibilities of the -Dollar-Down-Dollar-a-Week System of Housekeeping_ - - - - -_Chapter VI. The Luxurious Possibilities of the -Dollar-Down-Dollar-a-Week System of Housekeeping_ - - -During the remainder of the school year, from March to June, no -public-school officer came to demand my attendance at school. - -“Aren’t we lucky?” commented Aunt Millie. “It gives you such a chance -to help out. The instalment men must be paid, and we need every cent. -It’s _such_ a mercy that the long holiday’s on. It gives you a good -chance.” - -By this time I had added to my activities that of carrying my uncle’s -dinner to the mill. My aunt always considered this a waste of time. “It -takes Al away from his own work,” she would remonstrate with my uncle. -“If he has to carry your dinner, I wish he would take it in his wagon -so that he can bring back what coal and wood he finds on the street.” -When that combination was in effect, she was mollified, for I managed -to secure a load of fuel almost every day in my journey from the mill -to the house. - -This was the first cotton-mill I ever entered. Every part of it, -inside, seemed to be as orderly as were the rows of bricks in its -walls. It was a new mill. Its walls were red and white, as were the -iron posts that reached down in triple rows through the length of it. -There was the odor of paint everywhere. The machinery seemed set for -display, it shone and worked so smoothly. The floor of the mule-room, -where uncle worked, was white and smooth. The long alleys at the ends -of the mules were like the decks of a ship. The whirling, lapping belts -had the pungent odor of new leather about them, and reminded me of the -smell of a new pair of shoes. The pulleys and shaftings gleamed under -their high polish. Altogether it was a wonderful sight to my eyes, -which, for some time, had only seen dismal tenements, dirty streets, -and drifting ash heaps. - -The mill was trebly attractive on chilly, rainy days, when it was so -miserable a task outside to finger among soggy ash piles for coals and -to go splashing barefooted through muddy streets. At such times it was -always a relief to feel the warm, greasy boards of the mill underneath -my feet, and to have my body warmed by the great heat. No matter how it -rained outside with the rain-drops splashing lonesomely against the -windows, it did not change the atmosphere of the mill one jot. The men -shouted and swore as much as ever, the doffers rode like whirlwinds on -their trucks, the mules creaked on the change, the belts hummed and -flapped as regularly as ever. - -It was very natural, then, that I should grow to like the mill and hate -the coal picking. My uncle gave me little chores to do while he ate his -dinner. He taught me how to start and stop a mule; how to clean and -take out rollers; how to piece broken threads, and lift up small cops. -When the doffers came to take the cops off the spindles, I learned -to put new tubes on and to press them in place at the bottom of the -spindles. I found it easy to use an oil can, to clean the cotton from -the polished doors of the mules, to take out empty bobbins of cotton -rope, and put in full ones to give a new supply for the thread which -was spun. - -I became so valuable a helper during the noon hour that my uncle -persuaded my aunt to put in some dinner for me, also, so that I could -eat it with him. He did this simply because he wanted me to have some -reward for my work besides the fifteen cents a week he gave me. So I -used to sit with him, and he would divide a meat-pie with me, let me -drink some coffee from the top of the dinner pail, and share a piece -of pudding. There was always a bright gleam in his eyes as he watched -me eat, a gleam that said as plainly as words, “It’s good to see you -have a good time, Al, lad!” - -By the end of the summer I was so familiar with the mill that I wanted -to spend my whole time in it. I had watched the mill-boys, some of -them not much older than myself--and I was only eleven--and I wanted -to swagger up and down the alleys like them. They were lightly clad -in undershirt and overalls, so that in their bared feet they could -run without slipping on the hot floor. _They_ were working for wages, -too, and took home a pay envelope every Saturday. Just think of going -home every Saturday, and throwing an envelope on the table with three -dollars in it, and saying, nonchalantly, “Aunt, there’s my wages. Just -fork over my thirty cents spending money. I’m going to see the matinee -this afternoon at the theater. It’s ‘Michael Strogroff,’ and they say -there’s a real fight in the second act and eight changes of scenery, -for ten cents. They’ve got specialties between the acts, too!” - -Other temporal considerations entered into this desire to go into the -mill. I wanted to have a dinner pail of my own, with a whole meat-pie -in it, or a half-pound of round steak with its gravy dripping over -a middle of mashed potatoes with milk and butter in them! Then there -were apple dumplings to consider, and freedom from coal picking and the -dirty life on the dumps. All in all, I knew it would be an excellent -exchange, if possible. I spoke to my uncle about it one noon-hour. - -“Why can’t I work in the mill, too?” I asked. - -“Wouldn’t you rather get some learning, Al?” he asked. “You know men -can’t do much in the world without learning. It’s brains, not hands, -that makes the world really go ahead. I wish you could get a lot of -schooling and perhaps go to college. It’s what I always wanted and -never got, and see where I am to-day. I’m a failure, Al, that’s what I -am!” - -“But aunt says that I’ve got to go in the mill as soon as I can, uncle.” - -His face grew sad at that, and he said, “Yes, through our drinking and -getting in debt! That’s what it’s all leading to! It’s a pity, a sad -pity!” and he grew so gloomy that I spoke no more about the matter that -day. - -It was one of the paradoxes of my home, that being heavily in debt for -our steamship tickets and household furnishings, and both giving a -large amount of patronage to the saloons, my aunt and uncle involved -themselves more inextricably in debt by buying clothes and ornaments -on the “Dollar-Down-Dollar-a-Week” plan. There was no economy, no -recession of tastes, no limit of desire to save us. Every penny that -I secured was spent as soon as earned. I learned this from my foster -parents. Uncle had his chalk-mark at the saloon, and aunt received -regular thrice-a-week visits from the beer pedler. On gala days, when -there was a cheap excursion down the bay, aunt could make a splendid -appearance on the street in a princess dress, gold bracelets, a pair -of earrings, and gloves (Dollar-Down-Dollar-a-Week plan). When Mrs. -Terence O’Boyle, and Mrs. Hannigan, daughter to Mrs. O’Boyle, and Mrs. -Redden, the loom fixer’s wife with her little baby, came to our house, -after the breakfast had been cleared away, and the men were hard at -work, Aunt Millie would exclaim, “Now, friends, the beer man’s just -brought a dozen lagers and a bottle of port wine. Sit right up, and -make a merry morning of it. You must be tired, Mrs. Hannigan. Won’t -your babby take a little sup of port for warming his stomach?” Of -course, Mrs. O’Boyle returned these parties, as did her daughter and -Mrs. Redden. - -My uncle dared not say too much about the visits of the beer-wagon, -because he had his own score at the saloon, and his appetite for drink -was transcendant. Aunt had little ways of her own for pacifying him in -the matter. She would save a half dozen bottles till night, and then, -when he came home, she would say, “Now, Stanwood, after tea, let’s be -comfortable. I’ve six bottles in for you, and we’ll take our comfort -grand!” - -By Friday morning the financial fret began. My aunt, as financier -of the house, had the disposal of her husband’s fifteen dollars in -charge. In the disposal of this amount, she indulged in a weird, -incomprehensible arithmetical calculation, certainly original if not -unique. In place of numerals and dollar signs, she dotted a paper with -pencil points, and did some mysterious but logical ruminating in her -head. Her reasoning always followed this line, however: - -“Fifteen dollars with a day out, that leaves--let me see--oh, say in -round numbers, thirteen, maybe a few cents out. Well, now, let me see, -out of that comes, first of all, forty cents for union money, if he -pays it this week; two and a half for rent, only we owe fifty cents -from last week, which we must pay this, or else we’ll be thrown out. -Then there’s fifteen cents for that dude of an insurance man--he says -he’ll lapse us if we let it run on like we have. Let him do it, the -old cheat! I don’t believe they’d plan to pay us if any of us should -die. They’re nothing but robbers, anyhow. Where was I, Al? Let me -see, there’s owing a dollar for the furniture--WHEN will we have it -paid for?--and there’s two dollars that should be paid the Jew, only -we’ll have to satisfy him with fifty cents this week, because there’s -a day out.” (The Jew was the man who kept the “New England Clothing -and Furnishing Company,” from whom we had bought our clothes, a set of -furs, and the gold bracelets on instalments.) “This week’s bill for -groceries is five dollars and sixty-three cents, the baker has owing -him about seventy-five, the meat man let me have them two ham bones and -that shank end, and I owe him for that; there’s some white shirts and -collars at the Chinaman’s, but I want to say right here that your uncle -will have to pay for those out of his own spending money. That’s too -much of a luxury, that is; we can’t go on with such gentlemanly notions -in this house and ever get ahead. Oh, these debts, when will they -be paid! That is all I think of except the beer man. He won’t wait, -whatever comes or goes. There, that reckons up to--why, how in the name -of God are we going to face the world this way? I’m getting clean worn -out with this figuring every week!” - -After finding that she would not have money enough to go around to -satisfy all the clamorants, she would proceed with a process of -elimination, putting off first the tradesman who received explanations -with the most graciousness. The insurance man she did not care for, -so he had to be put off, but, with his own interests in mind, he -would carry us out of his own pocket until some grand week when aunt -would feel kindly towards him, and she would generously make up all -back payments. Aunt always went to the uttermost limit of credit -possibility, arranging her numerous creditors like checkers on a board -to be moved backwards and forwards week by week. The _beer man got -his pay every week_. He did not allow _his_ bills to grow old. In -arranging for that payment, aunt used to say, as if protesting to her -own conscience, “Well, suppose some others _do_ have to wait! I want -to have a case of lager in over Sunday. We’re not going to scrimp and -slave without _some enjoyment_!” - -Week after week this same exasperating allotment of uncle’s wage took -place, with but minor variations. Time after time the insurance would -drop behind and would be taken up again. Time after time the Jew would -threaten to put the lawyers on us. Time after time the grocer would -withhold credit until we paid our bill, yet the beer-wagon stopped -regularly at our door, and Mrs. O’Boyle, her daughter, and Mrs. Redden -would exchange courtesies and bottles. And Aunt was always consoling -her sister women on such occasions with this philosophy: “The rich -have carriages and fine horses and grand mansions for enjoyment; we -poor folks, not having such, must get what comfort we can out of a -stimulating sup!” - -And Mrs. Redden would reply, “Yes, Mrs. Brindin, you’re right for -sure. Just warm a bit of that ale with a bit of sugar stirred in, will -you, please? It will warm the baby’s belly. I forgot to bring his milk -bottle, like the absent-minded I am.” - - - - -_Chapter VII. I am given the Privilege of Choosing my own Birthday_ - - - - -_Chapter VII. I am given the Privilege of Choosing my own Birthday_ - - -The reopening of the public-schools in the fall found Aunt Millie -stubbornly refusing to allow me to enter. “I shall never know -anything,” I protested. But she replied, with confidence, “All -knowledge and wisdom isn’t in schools. There’s as much common sense -needed in getting a living. I’ll keep you out just as long as the -truant officer keeps away. Mind, now, and not run blind into him when -you’re on the street. If you do--why, you’ll know a thing or two, young -man!” - -Uncle pleaded with her in my behalf, but she answered him virulently, -“Stop that, you boozer, you! We must get out of debt and never mind -making a gentleman, which you seem set on. I’d be ashamed if I was you. -Let him only earn a few dollars, and we’d be relieved. Goodness knows -when you’re going to drop out, the way you’re guzzling things down. It -wouldn’t surprise me to see you on your back any day, and I want to be -ready.” - -But some days later, my uncle came back home from work with much to -say. “Look here, Millie, it might be good for us to send Al to school -right away. If he must go in the mill, as it seems he must as soon as -he can, then it’s to our advantage to get him in right away!” - -“What do you mean?” - -“I mean that he can’t go into the mill, according to law, until thirty -weeks after he’s thirteen, and can show his school-certificate.” - -“But he’s only just turned eleven,” protested my aunt, “that would keep -him in the school practically three years. _Three years!_” - -“Normally, it would,” agreed Uncle Stanwood, “but it don’t _need_ to -take that long, if we don’t care to have it so.” - -“I’d like to know why!” - -“Well, Millie,” explained uncle, “Al’s not been to school in America, -yet. All we have to do is to put his age forward when he does go -in--make him a year or two older than he actually is. They won’t -ask for birth certificates or school papers from England. They will -take our word for it. Then it won’t be long before we can have him -working. Harry Henshaw tells me the trick’s common enough. Then when -Al’s worked a while, and we get out of debt, he can go on with his -schooling. It’s the only way to keep ahead, though I do hate to have -him leave school, God knows!” - -“None of that cant,” snapped aunt; “if it wasn’t for your drinking he -wouldn’t have to go in the mill, and you know it.” - -“Yes,” agreed uncle, sadly, “I know it!” - -“Then,” said aunt, once more referring to the immediate subject of the -conference, “it’s all decided that we get him in as soon as possible.” - -“Yes,” agreed uncle, “we can put him any age we want, and lie about it -like many are doing. What age shall we make him, Millie?” - -“Better push his age forward as near to thirteen as possible,” said -aunt. “He’s big for eleven, as big as some lads two years older. Lets -call him twelve and a half!” - -“Twelve, going on thirteen,” answered my uncle. - -“Yes,” mused his wife, “but nearly thirteen, say thirteen about -Christmas time, that would give him thirty weeks to go to school, and -he would be in the mill a year from now. That will be all right.” - -“If we get caught at it,” warned uncle, “it means prison for us, -according to law.” - -“Never mind, let’s take our chances like the rest,” answered aunt with -great decision. “You tell me there aren’t any ever get caught!” - -“Oh,” sighed uncle, “it’s safe enough for that matter, though it’s hard -and goes against the grain to take Al from school.” - -“_Stop that cant!_” thundered Aunt Millie. “I won’t have it. You want -him to go into the mill just as bad as I do, you old hypocrite!” - -“Don’t flare up so,” retorted uncle, doggedly. “You wag too sharp a -tongue. It’s no use having a row over the matter. Let’s dispose of the -thing before bedtime.” - -“What else is there to settle?” asked my aunt. - -“Al’s got to have a new birthday.” Aunt Millie laughed at the notion, -and said, addressing me, “Now, Al, here’s a great chance for you. What -day would you like for your birthday?” - -“June would do,” I said. - -“June _won’t_ do,” she corrected, “the birthday has got to come in -winter, near Christmas; no other time of the year is suitable. Now what -part of November would you like it? We’ll give you that much choice.” - -I thought it over for some time, for I seriously entered into the -spirit of this unique opportunity of choosing my own birthday. “The -twentieth of November will do, I think,” I concluded. - -“The twentieth of November, then, it is,” answered my aunt. “You will -be thirteen, _thirteen_, next twentieth of November, mind you. You are -_twelve, going on thirteen_! Don’t forget that for a minute; if you do, -it might get us all in jail for per-_jury_! Now, suppose that a man -meets you on the streets to-morrow and asks you what your age is, what -will you tell him?” - -“I’m thirteen, going on----no, I mean twelve, going on thirteen, and -will be thirteen the twentieth of November!” - -“Say it half a dozen times to get it fixed in your mind,” said aunt, -and I rehearsed it intermittently till bedtime, so that I had it -indelibly fixed in my mind that, henceforth, I must go into the world -and swear to a lie, abetted by my foster parents, all because I wanted -to go into the mill and because my foster parents wanted me in the -mill. Thus ended the night when I dropped nearly two years bodily out -of my life, a most novel experience indeed and one that surely appeals -to the imagination if not to the sympathy. - -The following week, a few days before I was sent to the public-school, -we removed to a part of the city where there were not so many mill -tenements, into the first floor of a double tenement. There were only -two of these houses in the same yard with a grass space between them -facing the highway. In this space, during the early fall, the landlord -dumped two bushels of apples every Monday morning at half-past eight. -It was definitely understood that only the children of the tenants -should be entitled to gather the fruit. No one was allowed to be out -of the house until the landlord himself gave the signal that all was -ready, so we could be found, peering from the back and front doors, -a quick-eyed, competitive set of youngsters, armed with pillow-slips -and baskets, leaping out at the signal, falling on the heap of apples, -elbowing one another until every apple was picked, when the parents -would run out, settle whatever fights had started up, note with -jealous eyes how much of the fruit their respective representatives -had secured, all the while the amused landlord stood near his carriage -shouting, “Your Harry did unusually well to-day, Mrs. Burns. He beat -them all. What a pillow-slipful he got, to be sure!” - -Finally I found myself in an American school. I do not know what grade -I entered, but I do know that my teacher, a white-haired woman with a -saintly face, showed me much attention. It was she who kept me after -school to find out more about me. It was she who inquired about my -moral and spiritual welfare, and when she found that I did not go to a -church, mainly on account of poor clothes, she took me to the shopping -district one afternoon, and with money furnished her by a Woman’s -Circle, fitted me out with a brand new suit, new shoes and hat, and -sent me home with the promise that I would go with her to church the -following Sunday morning. In passing down a very quiet street on my -solitary way to church, the next Sabbath, I came to that high picket -fence behind which grew some luscious blue grapes. I clambered over -the fence, picked a pocketful of the fruit, and then went on to meet -my teacher at the doors of the sombre city church, where the big bell -clamored high in the air, and where the carpet was thick, like a -bedspread, so that people walked down the aisles silent like ghosts and -as sober. It was a strange, hushed, and very thrilling place, and when -the massive organ filled the place with whispering chords, I went back -to my old childish faith, that angels sat in the colored pipes and sang. - -My days in the school-yard were very, very strenuous, for I had always -to be protecting England and the English from assault. I found the -Americans only too eager to reproduce the Revolution on a miniature -scale, with Bunker Hill in mind, always. - -My attendance at this school had only a temporary aspect to it. When -my teacher spoke to me of going to the grammar school, I replied, “Oh, -I’m going in the mill in a year, please. I want to go into the mill -and earn money. It’s better than books, ma’am.” I had the mill in mind -always. Every day finished in school was one day nearer to the mill. I -judged my fellows, on the school-ground, by their plans of either going -or not going into the mill as early as I. - -This desire to enter the mill was more and more strengthened as the -winter wore on, for then I was kept much at home and sent on the -streets after wood and coal. It was impossible to pick cinders with -mittens on, and especially the sort of mittens I wore--old stocking -feet, doubled to allow one piece to hide the holes in its fellow. On a -cold day, my fingers would get very blue, and my wrists, protruding far -out of my coat-sleeves, would be frozen into numbness. Any lad who had -once been in a mill would prefer it to such experiences. - -My aunt kept me at home so often that she had to invent a most -formidable array of excuses to send to my teacher, excuses which I had -to write and carry. We never had any note-paper in the house, as there -were so few letters ever written. When there was an excuse to write, -I would take a crumpled paper bag, in which had been onions or sugar, -or, when there were no paper bags, and the school bell was ringing, -requiring haste, I would tear off a slip of the paper in which salt -pork or butter had been wrapped, and on it write some such note as this: - -“Dear Miss A: This is to say that Al had to stay home yesterday for not -being very well. I hope you will excuse it. Very truly yours,” and my -aunt would scribble her name to it, to make it authoritative. - -It must have been the sameness of the notes, and their frequency, -that brought the white-haired teacher to remonstrate with my aunt for -keeping me away from school so much. - -“He can never learn at his best,” complained the teacher. “He is really -getting more and more behind the others.” - -My aunt listened humbly enough to this complaint and then unburdened -herself of her thoughts: “What do I care what he learns from books! -There is coal and wood that’s needed and he is the one to help out. -I only let him go to school because the law makes me. If it wasn’t -for the law you’d not see him there, wasting his time. It’s only -gentlemen’s sons that have time for learning from books. He’s only a -poor boy and ought to be earning his own living. Coal and wood is more -to the point in this house than books and play. Let them play that has -time and go to school that has the money. All you hear in these days -is, ‘School, school, school!’ Now, _I_ have got through all these -years without schooling, and others of my class and kind can. Why, -Missis, do you know, _I_ had to go into the mill when I was a slip of -a girl, when I was only _seven_, there in England. I had to walk five -miles to work every morning, before beginning the hard work of the day, -and after working all day I had to carry my own dinner-box back that -distance, and then, on top of that, there was duties to do at home when -I got there. No one ever had mercy on me, and it isn’t likely that I’ll -go having mercy on others. Who ever spoke to _me_ about schooling, -I’d like to know! It’s only people of quality who ought to go to -get learning, for its only the rich that is ever called upon to use -schooling above reading. If _I_ got along with it, can’t this lad, I’d -like to know?” - -And with this argument my teacher had to be content, but she reported -my absences to the truant officer, who came and so troubled my aunt, -with his authority, that she sent me oftener to school after that. - -About this time, at the latter end of winter, uncle removed to the -region of the mill tenements again. I changed my school, also. This -time I found myself enrolled in what was termed the Mill School. - -As I recall it, the Mill School was a department of the common schools, -in which were placed all boys and girls who had reached thirteen and -were planning to enter the mill as soon as the law permitted. If you -please, it was my “finishing school.” I have always considered it as -the last desperate effort of the school authorities to polish us off as -well as they could before we slipped out of their care forever. I am -not aware of any other reason for the existence of the Mill School, as -I knew it. - -However, it was a very appropriate and suggestive name. It coupled the -mill with the school very definitely. It made me fix my mind more than -ever on the mill. Everybody in it was planning for the mill. We talked -mill on the play-ground, drew pictures of mills at our desks, dreamed -of it when we should have been studying why one half of a quarter is -one fourth, or some similar exercise. We had a recess of our own, -after the other floors had gone back into their classrooms, and we had -every reason to feel a trifle more dignified than the usual run of -thirteen-year-old pupils who plan to go through the grammar, the high, -and the technical schools! After school, when we mixed with our less -fortunate companions, who had years and years of school before them, -we could not avoid having a supercilious twang in our speech when we -said, “Ah, don’t you wish _you_ could go into the mill in a few months -and earn money like _we’re_ going to do, eh?” or, “Just think, Herb, -I’m going to wear overalls rolled up to the knees and go barefooted all -day!” - -If the thumbscrew of the Inquisition were placed on me, I could not -state the exact curriculum I passed through during the few months in -the Mill School. I did not take it very seriously, because my whole -mind was taken up with anticipations of working in the mill. But the -coming of June roses brought to an end my stay there. The teacher gave -me a card which certified that I had fulfilled the requirements of the -law in regard to final school attendance. I went home that afternoon -with a consciousness that I had grown aged suddenly. When my aunt saw -the card, her enjoyment knew no bounds. - -“Good for you, Al!” she exclaimed, “We’ll make short work of having you -in the mill now.” - -As I attempt to visualize myself to myself at the time of my -“graduation” from the common school, I see a lad, twelve years of -age and growing rapidly in stature, with unsettled, brown hair which -would neither part nor be smoothed, a front tooth missing, having been -knocked out by a stone inadvertently thrown while he was in swimming, -a lean, lank, uncouth, awkward lad at the awkward age, with a mental -furnishing which permitted him to tell with authority when America was -discovered, able to draw a half of an apple on drawing-paper, just -in common fractions, able to distinguish between nouns and verbs, and -a very good reader of most fearsome dime novels. The law said that I -was “fitted” now to leave school and take my place among the world’s -workers! - -But now that I was ready to enter the mill, with my school-certificate -in my possession, Uncle Stanwood raised his scruples again, saying -regretfully enough, “Oh, Al mustn’t leave the school. He might never -get back again, Millie.” My aunt laughed cynically, and handed two -letters to her husband. - -“Read them, and see what you think!” she said. Uncle read the two -letters, and turned very pale, for they were lawyer’s letters, -threatening to strip our house of the furniture and to sue us at law, -if we did not bring up the back payments we owed on our clothing and -our furniture! “You see, canter,” scoffed aunt, “he’s got to go in. -There’s no other help, is there!” Uncle, crushed, said, “No, there -isn’t. Would to God there was!” And so the matter was decided. - -“In the morning you must take Al to the school-committee and get his -mill-papers,” said my aunt, before we went to bed. - -“I’ll ask off from work, then,” replied my uncle. - -I always enjoyed being in the company of Uncle Stanwood. He was always -trying to make me happy when it was in his power to do so. I knew his -heart--that despite the weakness of his character, burned with great -love for me. He was not, like Aunt Millie, buffeting me about, as if I -were a pawn in the way. He had the kind word for me, and the desirable -plan. On our walk to the school-committee’s office, in the heart of -the city, we grew very confidential when we found ourselves beyond the -keen, jealous hearing of Aunt Millie. - -“That woman,” he said, “stops me from being a better man, Al. You don’t -know, lad, how often I try to tone up, and she always does something to -prevent my carrying it out. I suppose it’s partly because she drinks, -too, and likes it better than I do. Drink makes quite a difference in -people, God knows! It’s the stuff that kept me from being a man. Now -that you’re going into the mill, Al, I hope you’ll not be led off to -touch it. Whatever you’re tempted to do, don’t drink!” Then he added, -“I’m a nice one to be telling you that. You see it every day, and -probably will see it every day while your aunt’s with me. I could leave -it alone if she weren’t in the house. But now we’ve got to be planning -what we are going to do in the office that we’re going to, I suppose. -There’s a lie in it for both of us, Al, now that we have our foot in -so far. You’ll have to swear with me that you’re the right, legal age, -though it’s a deliberate lie. My God, who would ever have thought that -I’d come to it. It’s jail if we’re caught, lad, but we won’t be caught. -Don’t do anything but answer questions as they’re put. That will keep -you from saying too much. Stand on your tip-toes, and talk deep, so -that you’ll seem big and old.” - -Finally we approached the office of the school-committee, in a dingy, -wooden building, on the ground floor. A chipped tin sign was tacked -underneath the glass panels of the door, and, sure of the place, we -entered. We were in a narrow, carpeted hall, long and darkened, which -passed before a high, bank desk, behind which sat a young man mumbling -questions to a dark woman, who stood with her right hand held aloft, -while a boy stood at her side trying to button his coat as fast as he -could, in nervousness. There were several other boys and a few girls, -seated with their parents on the settee near the wall. We found a place -among them, and watched the solemn proceedings that were taking place -before us, as boys and girls were questioned by the young man, vouched -for by their parents, and sent off with their mill-certificates. - -One by one they left us: tall Portuguese lads, with baggy, -pepper-and-salt trousers over their shoe tops, and a shine on their -dark cheeks, little girls in gaudy dresses and the babyishness not yet -worn off their faces; Irish lads, who, in washing up for this solemn -time, had forgotten patches of dirt in their ears and on their necks; -an American boy, healthy, strong, and self-confident, going to join the -ranks of labor. - -Then it was my turn. Uncle stood up before that perfunctory young -man and began to answer questions, pinching me every now and then in -warning to remember what he had said. I braced up, as well as I could, -muttering to myself, “Thirteen on the twentieth of November, going on -fourteen, sir!” lest, when the time came, I should make a guilty slip. -My school-certificate was produced, the books were consulted, and that -part of the matter ended. The clerk then looked me over for an instant, -asked me a few questions which I cannot now recall, and then turned -to uncle. Slowly, with hand raised to God, my uncle swore that I was -“thirteen last November.” In about five minutes the examination was -completed. In that time there had been a hurried scratching of a pen, a -flourish or two, the pressure of a blotter and a reaching out of uncle -Stanwood’s hand. The last barrier between me and the mill was down! The -law had sanctioned my fitness for a life of labor. Henceforth neither -physician could debar me, nor clergyman nor teacher nor parent! No -one seemed to have doubted my uncle’s word, nor to have set a moral -plumb-line against me. It had been a mere matter of question and -answer, writing and signing. The law had perfunctorily passed me, and -that was enough! - -So we passed out of that office, my uncle grimly clutching the piece -of paper for which he had perjured himself--the paper which was my -warrant, consigning me to years of battling beyond my strength, to -years of depression, morbidity, and over-tired strain, years to be -passed in the center of depravity and de-socializing doctrine. But that -was a memorable and glad moment for me, for to-morrow, maybe, I should -carry my own dinner pail, and wear overalls, and work for wages! - - - - -_Chapter VIII. The Keepers of the Mill Gate, Snuff Rubbing, and the -Play of a Brute_ - - - - -_Chapter VIII. The Keepers of the Mill Gate, Snuff Rubbing, and the -Play of a Brute_ - - -“The first question that we have to settle,” commented my aunt, when we -returned home with the mill-certificate, “is, what is Al going to work -at in the mill?” - -“It might be well to let him go into the weave-shed and learn to -weave,” said my uncle; “after he’s learned, he might be able to run -some looms and earn more than he could in any other part of the mill.” - -“Meanwhile, he don’t draw any money while he’s learning, and it takes -some months, don’t it?” - -“Yes.” - -Then I interrupted, “I’d like the weave room, Aunt Millie. I want to -draw as big a wage as I can.” - -“You shut your yap!” she retorted, angrily. “You haven’t any finger -in this, mind. I say that he must get to work at something right away, -that will bring in immediate wages.” - -“But think of the pay he’d get after he’d learned weaving, Millie,” -retorted my uncle; “It would make up for the time he’d spent in -learning. He’d get treble what he can by taking up sweeping, in the -long run!” - -“Into the mill he goes,” concluded my aunt, firmly, “and he goes to -work at something that will pay money right off, I don’t care a snap -what it is!” - -“That’s no reason!” - -“Reason,” she snapped, “you speaking of reason, and here we are head -over ears in debt. It’s time this fellow was earning his keep.” - -Next neighbor to us was a family named Thomas. My aunt exchanged -library books with Sarah Ann Thomas. Uncle went to the Workingmen’s -Club with “Matty” Thomas, and I was the boon companion of -“Zippy” Thomas. When Zippy learned from me that I had secured my -mill-certificate, his joy was unbounded. He gave me a broad wink, and -whispered, “You had to fake it, didn’t you, Al?” I nodded. - -“They did mine, too! I won’t tell, you know. I wish you’d come and work -in the same room with me. I’m sweepin’, and get three plunks a week.” -Then he winked again, and said, “There’s some nice girls sweepin’ with -me, too. Won’t it be bully if you can strike it with me. They need -another sweeper. One got fired this morning for boring a hole in the -belt-box to get electricity on a copper wire to kill cockroaches. You -could get his job if you wanted and tried.” I told him to wait for me -till I ran and told my uncle about it. - -Uncle came out with me, and met Zippy. - -“Where does the second hand live, lad?” he asked. - -“He’s Canadian, his name’s Jim Coultier,” announced Zippy. “He lives at -the other end of the tenements.” - -We found Jim at home. No sooner was the object of our visit made known -than he nodded his head, and said, “Tol’ him to coom wid Sippy’ morrer -mornin’,” whereat my uncle was so pleased that he invited the Frenchman -to go out with him to Riley’s saloon, to celebrate my entrance into the -mill. - -“So you’re going to be a wage-earner, like your uncle, are you?” -laughed my aunt, when I returned with the news of my success. “Run -right down to the Jew’s and get a pair of overalls, the blue ones, -and two two-for-a-quarter towels, the rough, Turkish ones. Then come -right home, and get to bed, for you’ll have to get up in good season -to-morrow morning, so’s to be on hand when Zippy calls for you.” - -The next morning I was awakened at half-past five, though it took very -little to awaken me. My aunt was busy with the breakfast when I went -out into the kitchen to wash my face. She turned to me with a kindness -that was unusual, and said, “How many eggs shall I fry, Al? Have as -many as you want this morning, you know.” I said that three would do. - -I came into a place of respect and honor in the family that morning. My -aunt actually waited upon me, and watched me eat with great solicitude. -There was toast for me, and I did not have to wait until uncle was -through before I got my share of it. With no compunction whatever, I -asked for a second piece of cake! - -Then, while the six o’clock mill bell was giving its half-hour warning, -Zippy knocked on the door, while he whistled the chorus of, “Take back -your gold, for gold will never buy me!” Five minutes more were spent in -listening to moral counsels from my aunt and uncle and to many hints -on how to get along with the bosses, and Zippy and I went out on the -street, where we joined that sober procession of mill people, which, -six mornings out of seven, the whole year round, goes on its weary way -towards the multitude of mills in that city. - -Zippy did all he could to make my advent in the mill easy. Before we -had reached the mill gates he had poured forth a volume of sage advice. -Among other counsels, he said, “Now Al, if any guy tells you to go and -grease the nails in the floor, just you point to your eye like this,” -and he nearly jabbed his forefinger into his left eye, “and you say, -‘See any green there?’ Don’t ever go for a left-handed monkey-wrench, -and don’t go to the overseer after a carpet-sweeper; them’s all guys, -and you don’t want to catch yourself made a fool of so easy. If the -boss puts you to sweepin’ wid me, why, I’ll put you on to most of the -dodges they catches a new guy wid, see!” - -When we arrived at the mill gates, Zippy looked at the big tower -clock, and announced, “Al, we’ve got twenty minutes yet before the -mill starts, let’s sit out here. You’ll be right in the swim!” and -he pointed to a line of men and boys sitting on the dirt with their -backs braced against the mill fence. Either side of the gate was -thus lined. Zippy and I found our places near the end of the line, -and I took note of what went on. The air thereabouts was thick with -odors from cigarettes and clay pipes. The boys near me aimed streams -of colored expectoration over their hunched knees until the cinder -walk was wet. Everybody seemed to be borrowing a neighbor’s plug of -tobacco, matches, cigarette papers, or tobacco pouch. Meanwhile, the -other employees trudged by. Some of the men near us would recognize, in -the shawled, bent women, with the tired faces, their wives, struggling -on to a day’s work, and would call, jocosely, “’Ello, Sal, has’t got -’ere? I thowt tha’d forgot to come. Hurry on, girl, tha’s oilin’ t’ -do!” Or the younger boys would note a pretty girl tripping by, and -one would call out, “Ah, there, peachy!” The “peachy” would turn her -coiffured head and make her pink lips say, “You old mutt, put your -rotten tongue in your mouth, and chase yourself around the block three -times!” A woman, who was no better than her reputation came into view, -a woman with paint daubed on her cheeks, and that was the signal for -a full venting of nasty speech which the woman met by a bold glance -and a muttered, filthy curse. Girls, who were admirable in character, -came by, many of them, and had to run the gauntlet, but they had been -running it so long, day in and day out, that their ears perhaps did not -catch the significant and suggestive things that were loudly whispered -as they passed. - -When at last the whistles and the bells announced five minutes before -starting time, the keepers of the gate jumped up, threw away cigarette -stubs, emptied pipes, grumbled foully, took consolation from tobacco -plugs, and went into the mill. - -Zippy led me at a run up three flights of iron-plated stairs, through -a tin-covered door, and into a spinning-room. When we arrived, not a -wheel was stirring. I almost slipped on the greasy floor. Up and down -the length of the room the ring-spinning frames were standing like -orderly companies of soldiers forever on dress parade. Above, the -ceiling was a tangled mass of belts, electric wires, pipes, beams, and -shafting. The room was oppressively heated, and was flavored with a -sort of canker breath. - -As I stood there, interested in my new surroundings, the wheels began -to move, almost silently, save for a slight, raspy creaking in some of -the pulleys. The belts began to tremble and lap, the room was filled -with a low, bee-like hum. A minute later, the wheels were whirling -with such speed that the belts clacked as they turned. The hum was -climbing up the scale slowly, insistently, and one could not avoid -feeling sure that it would reach the topmost note soon. Then the girl -spinners jumped up from the floor where they had been sitting, and went -to their frames. Some pulled the levers, and tried their machines. -Everybody seemed to be shouting and having a last word of gossip. The -second hand stood near the overseer’s desk with his fingers stuck in -his mouth. He whistled, and that was the signal for all the girls to -start their frames. At last the pulleys had attained that top note in -their humming, like a top, and with it were mixed screams, whistles, -loud commands, the rattle of doffer’s trucks, poundings, the clanking -of steel on steel, and the regular day’s work was begun. - -Zippy had gone into the elevator room and changed his clothes. He stood -near me, and I saw his lips move. - -“What?” I shouted at the top of my lungs. - -He laughed, and then warned, “Don’t thunder so. I can hear you if you -speak lower. You’ll get used to hearing soon. Come with me. The boss -says for me to show you where to dress.” - -“To dress!” At last I was to put on overalls and go barefooted! Zippy -led me to the elevator room, a large, quiet place, when the thick door -was shut and there were cheerful windows open, where the cool air came -in. I stripped off my clothes and put on the overalls. I was ready for -work. “The boss wants to see your certificate,” announced Zippy. - -[Illustration: I WAS GIVEN A BROOM, AND THEN I FOUND MYSELF ALONE WITH -MARY] - -The overseer was a Canadian, like the second hand. He had his feet on -the desk, and was engrossed in the _Morning Mercury_ when I reached -him. He turned around with a terrific speed on his swivel chair, -when we came up to him, and enquired, somewhat kindly, “Well?” - -“Please, sir,” I began, “I come to work--to sweep. Jim Coultier told me -to come last night!” - -“Take him to Jim. Don’t bother me,” grumbled the overseer. “Jim will -settle it.” - -Jim did settle it. He took my certificate and gave it to the overseer, -and then told me to follow him to the other end of the mill. In a -cupboard was a great supply of new brooms, waste, and oil cups. He took -out a broom, spread it wide, and gave it to me. - -“Two a week,” he said, “no more.” Then he turned to Zippy, and said, -“Show him whar for to do!” - -Zippy, no doubt bursting with importance with all this supervision, -led me to an open space in the middle of the long room, where, sitting -near some waste boxes, were two girls, barefooted, about my own age. -Zippy led me right up to them, and with a wave of the hand announced, -“Girls, this here’s Al Priddy. This is Mary, and t’other’s Jane. Come -on, girls, it’s time to go around the mill before the boss sees us.” - -But just then the second hand caught us grouped there, and stormed, -angrily, “Get to work!” - -Mary was a very strong girl of thirteen, with a cheery, fat face. She -had been in the mill a half year, and was learning to spin during her -spare time. I noticed that her teeth were yellow, and with a bluntness -that I did not realize I said to her, when she had taken me to show me -how to sweep, “What makes your teeth so yellow, Mary?” - -She laughed, and then said, confidentially, “I chew snuff. I’m learning -from the older girls.” - -“Chew snuff?” - -She nodded, “I’m rubbing, you see,” and we sat down while she showed me -what she meant. She took a strip of old handkerchief from her apron, -and a round box of snuff. She powdered the handkerchief with the snuff, -and then rubbed it vigorously on her teeth. - -“I like it,” she announced. “It’s like you boys when you chew tobacco, -only this is the girl’s way.” - -My work required little skill and was soon mastered. I had to sweep -the loose cotton from the floor and put it in a can. Then there were -open parts of stationary machinery to clean and a little oiling of -non-dangerous parts. This work did not take more than two-thirds of the -ten and a half hours in the work day. The remainder of the time, Zippy, -the girls, and I spent in the elevator room, where the doffers also -came for a rest. - -I had occasion to get very well acquainted with two of the doffers -that first day. Their names were “Mallet” and “Curley,” two French -Canadians. Mallet was a lithe, sallow-faced, black-haired depreciator -of morals, who fed on doughnuts, and spent most of his wages in helping -out his good looks with the aid of the tailor, the boot-maker, and the -barber. He came to the mill dressed in the extreme of fashion, and -always with his upper lip curled, as if he despised every person he -passed--save the good-looking girls. Curley was Mallet’s antithesis -in everything but moral ignorance. He was a towering brute, with a -child’s, yes, less than a child’s, brain. He ran to muscle. He could -outlift the strongest man in the mill without increasing his heartbeat. -His chief diversions were lifting weights, boasting of his deeds with -weights in contests of the past, and the recital of filthy yarns in -which he had been the chief actor. - -That afternoon of my first day in the mill, Mallet and Curley shut -themselves in the elevator room with Zippy and me. - -“Ah,” drawled Mallet, noticing me, as if for the first time, “who tol’ -you for to come here, eh?” - -“Because I want to,” I retorted. - -“Curley,” he called to the brute, who was grinning at me, “gif heem a -chew, eh?” - -The brute nodded in glee, and pulled out a black plug of tobacco and -handed it me. - -“You take a big, big chew!” he commanded. I threw the plug on the floor -and stoutly declared, “I won’t.” Both of the companions laughed, and -came over to where I sat. Curley pinned me helplessly to the floor, -while Mallet stuffed the piece of tobacco in my mouth that he had -hastily cut off from the plug. Then Curley took an excruciating grip -on one of my fingers so that by a simple pressure it seemed as if the -finger would snap. - -“You chew, or I brak it,” he glared down on me. I refused, and had to -suffer intolerable agony for a minute. Then the brute bent his face -close to mine, with his foul mouth over my eyes. - -“I spit in your eye if you do not chew,” he announced, as he looked off -for a second, and then with his mouth fixed he bent over me, and I had -to chew. - -In a short time I was deathly sick. This accomplished, the giant gave -me up until he got to his feet, then he took me in his arms, as he -would have taken a child, and carried me out into the spinning-room for -the girls to laugh at. - -“Dis man try for to chew plug,” announced Mallet. “Now heem seek. Oh! -oh!” Then I was carried to the third hand, a friend of the doffers, and -Mallet announced, “You’d best fire dis kid. Heem chew and get seek, -boss.” The third hand scowled at me, and said, “Cut it out, kid, if you -stay here.” - -When I went home at the end of the day, aunt asked me what sort of a -day I’d had. “Oh,” I said, “when I know the ropes it will be pretty -fair.” I was thinking of the three dollars I should get the second -week. I said nothing about the tobacco incident. When I sat down to -supper, I could not eat. My aunt remarked, “Don’t let it take your -appetite away, Al, lad. It takes strength to work in the mill.” - -“I’m not hungry,” I said, and I was not; for, before my imagination, -there rose up the persecuting figures of Mallet and Curley, and I could -still taste the stinging flavor of the plug. - - - - -_Chapter IX. A Factory Fashion-plate, the Magic Shirt Bosom, and Wise -Counsel on How to Grow Straight_ - - - - -_Chapter IX. A Factory Fashion-plate, the Magic Shirt Bosom, and Wise -Counsel on How to Grow Straight_ - - -The ring-spinning room is generally the center of fashion in a -cotton-mill. The reason may be that the ring-spinners, at least in New -England, are generally vivacious French-Canadian girls. There were some -in the mill where I began work, who possessed an inordinate thirst for -ornament and dress. The ring-spinners had clean surroundings and much -easier work than their sisters in the weave-shed. Their labor was more -genteel than that of their sisters in the carding-room. - -Marie Poisson, who ran frames which I cleaned and oiled, was the -leader of fashion in the room, and well she was fitted for it. She -resembled a sunflower on a dandelion stalk; she was statuesque even -in a working-dress, and when you saw her hands you wondered how she -ever got through the day without gloves. She lived on doughnuts, -frosted cake, cold meats, and pickles, in order that her board bill -might remain small and allow her a good percentage of her wages for -dress. She had huge coiffures in all the latest styles, and when the -little artistic dabs of powder were absent, her face had a lean and -hungry look. Marie was a splendid specimen of compressed humanity: -she must have suffered the tortures of the inquisition, for what tiny -high-heeled shoes she took off and hid in the waste can, near the coat -hooks! How many times a day did I see her pressing her hands to her -waist as if to unbind herself and get a good gulp of air! How stiff -her neck from its daily imprisonment in a high, starched collar! At -that time, a certain dainty, mincing, doubled-up walk was affected -by the fashionable society women of the country, a gait which was -characterized as “The Kangaroo Walk!” The young ladies had to go in -training for this fashion, had to adjust the body and the general -carriage to a letter S mould, before the mincing daintiness could be -shown. Marie was the first in the spinning-room to attain this goal. -Her success inspired even such humble imitators as Mary and Jane to -mould themselves, by daily posturings and prancings, in a wild effort -to attain the same end. - -The inevitable result of so much pride and fashion in the girls was -to make the young men and boys pay strict attention to themselves; -for so the mixing of the sexes tends everywhere, even in a mill. -Probably Mallet, with his excessive vanities, had been produced through -such contact. In any case, such fashion plates as I saw were merely -contrasts which brought out my own insufficiencies. The first sign of -this influence came in my purchase of a ten-cent celluloid rose which -had a perfumed sponge in its heart, which could be filled over and -over again when the scent had evaporated. I had a ten-cent bottle, -large size, of Jockey Club for this purpose, which I also spilled over -my handkerchiefs and clothes, and went to the mill leaving a perfumed -trail behind me. As I could not swagger in such glaring and costly -shirts as Mallet wore, several changes in a week, I bought from a -fakir, one Saturday night, a wonderful shirt bosom, for ten cents! It -permitted the wearer _instantly_ to change the pattern of his shirt -bosom twelve times, ranging all the way from a sober ministerial white, -going through the innocent and inoffensive tints and checks, and at -last reaching the vivid, startling gambler’s stripes and dots! These -marvelous effects were very simply brought about. The Magic Bosom, as -it was called, was a circular piece of stiff pasteboard on either -side of which were pasted six segments of enameled paper, shaped like -letter V’s, just large enough to fit behind the lapels of the vest. -There were six turns of the circle for six patterns on one side, and -then, by merely turning the whole thing around, the other six effects -were possible. The only trouble was, I did not wear a vest in the mill, -and so could only use it to and from the mill, to the theater, where I -changed it during every act, and took care that others should notice -the magic transformation. I wore it to a Sunday-school that I attended -intermittently, and astonished my classmates by six transformations -during the hour’s session! - -Then I began to contrast my own hair with Mallet’s black and orderly -curls. His hair always shone, and the barber kept it from growing down -below the ear! That disturbed me, for neither comb nor brush could part -mine or make it stay down. I was so disturbed over the matter that I -confided in my aunt. She laughed, and said that she had a recipe that -would satisfy me. She sent me down to a butcher shop for a large-sized -marrow bone. Then she had me produce my large-sized bottle of Jockey -Club. After boiling the marrow bone in water for two hours, she made me -extract the marrow. Then I had to put in a certain amount of perfume -and give the whole a good stirring. Aunt next produced a cold-cream -jar, and put the decoction in and let it cool over night. - -In the morning she said, “Now, Al, that’s a jar of the best hair grease -you could buy for money anywhere. It’s an old recipe and will not only -make the hair stay in place but is, at the same time, good for it. It -makes the hair grow, and keeps it in good condition.” True enough it -had a good odor to it, and _was_ smooth like the stuff the barber put -on my head when he cut my hair. I rubbed some on my head that morning, -and not only did I have the satisfaction of seeing my hair shine, like -Mallet’s, but it also stayed parted in the middle! I went to the mill -that morning, with my cap balanced on the back of my head, so that -everybody could see the shine and the parting. But I had not been in -the mill long before the pomade evaporated, my hair sprang loose, and I -was as badly off as before. By bringing the jar into the mill I managed -to remedy that, and got along very well until one of the doffers rubbed -his palm over my head, discovered the grease, sniffed it, and told all -over the room that I was daubing bear’s grease on my hair to keep it -down. - -These items of self-consciousness, so momentous to me at the time, were -some of the signs of adolescence. I was growing very rapidly, and my -whole self was in a whirl of change. Every bone seemed to have sprung -loose, every muscle seemed to be expanding at once, all my strength -seemed to have left my body! My bones were sore and every muscle ached. -An infinite weariness and dizziness took possession of me, day and -night. Sitting or standing I could find no rest. When I bent down, I -suffered undue pain; when I reached for anything, I had to drop my arms -before I had attained the object. I suffered as if jackscrews had been -laid at all angles in my body, and were being turned and turned day and -night without any stop. I could not bend and reach under the frames -to clean them without excruciating pain sweeping over me, and a cold -sweat. If I took hold of a broom, and tried to sweep, I had to drag the -broom wearily after the first few moments. I went home after the day’s -work as tired as if I had been holding up the world all day. And though -I went to bed soon after supper, and slept soundly till the morning, I -awoke as tired as if I had been toiling at a slave’s task every minute -of the night. - -I tried, in no complaining spirit, to describe my feelings to my aunt. -“Why, they’re nothing but growing pains, Al,” she said. “You ought to -feel proud that you’re going to be a tall man. It’ll pass. You must get -all the rest you can by going to bed right after supper. That’ll help!” - -But she never said, as I wanted her to say, “Get off from work while -you’re suffering so, and don’t try to work while you’re in that -condition.” - -During this period, I grew to be supersensitive and self-conscious. -I had a high, shrill voice, of which I was not aware till a doffer -mimicked it one day. It was a small matter to him, but to me it was -tragical. It wore on my imagination all through that day, it haunted me -that night, it intruded itself on my solitude until I inwardly cried -and grew depressed. - -“What’s ailing you, lad?” commented my uncle the next morning. “You -look as if you’d lost your best friend?” But I would not unburden -myself of the load of guilty feeling that was on my shoulders--guilt, -because my voice was high, shrill, and childish! I was afraid to meet -people whom I knew on the street, and when I saw one I knew coming -towards me, I would dash to the opposite side, or, if escape like that -were impossible, I would turn towards a shop-window or pretend to be -interested in a bit of dirt on a curbstone. - -Mark Waterhouse, an old crippled Englishman, who ran the elevator -and with whom I talked often while in the elevator room, seemed to -understand me thoroughly when I told him how I felt. - -“Aye, lad,” he said, “it’s growing tha’ art. Growing swift, too: tall -like a bullrush. It’s bad for thee to be in this ’ot room an’ working. -Tha’ needs fresh hair; lots on’t. Lots o’ fresh hair to get in th’ -blood an’ bone, like.” - -“But aunt won’t let me stay at home,” I said. - -“Aye,” grumbled the old man with a slow nod of his head, “they all say -it. Th’ll do that. It’s the way o’ th’ mill, lad, an’ we’re born to -’t. You con put a plank ower a rose bush while the shoots’r young an’ -growing, and the shoots’ll turn aside, go crook’d, get twisted, but -the bush will grow, lad, spite o’ the plank. This work and bad air’s -the plank on top o’ ye, but yeu’ll grow, spite on’t. Yeu’ll grow, for -God started ye growing an’ ye can’t stop God. But yeu’ll grow bent at’ -shoulders, legs’ll twist, feet’ll turn, knees’ll bend in! Sure’s ye -live, they will. See me, lad,” he said, “the plank was on top o’ me, -too. I went int’ mill at nine, an’ worked ’ard for a babby, I did! -Con I walk straight? See me,” and he went at a pathetic hobble across -the room, one knee turned in, the other foot twisted out of joint. -“That’s t’ way it took me, lad, when I was in your shoes. I’m not t’ -only one, either. Th’ mills full on ’em! Do I freighten ye, lad? Never -mind. Do your best, spite on’t. I tell ye what! Stretch your arms mony -times through t’ day. Oxercise! _Oxercise!_ Stretch thy muscles, thy -legs, an’ get all the chance tha con so tha’ll grow spite on’t. Spite -o’ work, bad air an’ all! Strengthen thasel’, lad. Don’t let twists, -knots, an’ bends coom!” - -This old man’s counsel made a deep impression on me. In terror of -the things he described, and which he himself was, I made up my mind -that I would not let my body get bent, crooked, or distorted, so I -did as he said. I stretched myself to my full height many times a -day. I exercised with weights and broom handles, even though I found -it very painful. I gulped in the fresh air when out of the mill, and -walked with my chest thrust out, a stiff, self-conscious, growing lad, -fighting ever against the impending tragedy of a deformed body. - - - - -_Chapter X. “Peter One-Leg-and-a-Half” and His Optimistic Whistlers_ - - - - -_Chapter X. “Peter One-Leg-and-a-Half” and His Optimistic Whistlers_ - - -By the middle of the following winter, I had entered fully into all -the privileges that were mine by virtue of my labor in the mill. The -background of all my privileges was the spending money my aunt gave me. -She apportioned me money on a basis which kept me constantly at work. -I was given ten cents on every dollar that I brought home. This made -me ambitious for advance. It made me keep at work even when I should -have been at home on a sick bed. It drove “loafing days” out of my mind -entirely, for spending money was the _summum bonum_ of my existence. -The kind of things I craved, the only things I found real pleasure in, -cost money. - -I attended the ten-cent shows in the theater on Saturday afternoons. -I looked forward throughout the week to a glass of hot beef-tea at -the soda fountain. I would smack my lips long in anticipation of -two-for-five cream puffs or a five-cent pork pie. They meant fully as -much to me, then, as did the Horse Show or a Paris gown to the aspiring -daughter of one of the mill stockholders. - -Intermittently, I used to go to the business section of the city alone, -and stop at Cheap John’s, the tobacconist’s, for a treat of second-hand -novels. There was a squat, gaudily decorated Punch standing in front of -Cheap John’s, with a handful of chocolate cigars always extended to the -passers-by. Punch’s jester’s cap, with the bells over his left ear, his -hooked nose and upturned chin, always with a fixed grin on his shiny -face, always seemed a human goblin, saying, “Come in, and have one on -me!” - -The interior of Cheap John’s was like a country fair Midway. There -were weight machines, moving pictures, slot instruments, lung testers, -name-plate makers, guessing machines, card-wheels, pool-tables, -racing bulletins, sport scores, displays of sporting apparatus, of -tobacco specialties, of colored sporting posters, hat-cleaning wheels, -clothes-cleaning tables, shoe-blacking alcoves, and a long counter on -which were heaped rows on rows of highly colored, second-hand Wild -West, Sport, Adventure, and Detective romances: a bundle of them for -ten cents! A bundle of these I would purchase, listen to the men’s -voices that came from the dense clouds of smoke, and then I would race -home, a distance of a mile, to examine more closely the prizes of the -night. - -The next day being Sunday, I had the privilege of staying in bed, of -having my breakfast brought to me, much as if I had been a convalescent -gentleman. My aunt would find me propped up in bed, with the novels -spread over the bed; and in the midst of a detective romance, always -read first, I would be interrupted by some such words as these: “Well, -his royal highness! Will he have bacon and eggs and a hot cup of -cocoa?” I would merely keep on reading, with a suppressed, growled -“Yep!” and after breakfast, though it would be a pleasant day outside, -I would sit there in bed and read until I became satiated with thrills, -disguised scouts, burgled safes, triumphant, last-chapter endings of -“Justice at last!” reunited lovers and pardoning fathers, when I would -dress, have dinner, and go out into a slumberous Sabbath afternoon, to -stand bored on a street corner until dark, when the gangs of the city -moved and planned exciting escapades. - -When my uncle saw me reading the novels, he interposed with, “That’s -cheap stuff, Al, and will never make you any better. You want to read -refining things, the great books. There’s many an exciting one that is -exciting without being cheap. I wish you would let me plan for you.” -I told him that I would--sometime, but I kept on reading Cheap John’s -bargain-counter literature. - -The ten and a half hours in the mill, with its humdrum rattle, its -high-pitched hum, the regularity of its fixtures, the monotonousness of -its routine, bullied my nerves into a tamed, cowed state. Day by day, -day by day, day by day, at the appointed time, in the instructed way, -with the same broom or the same-sized bunch of waste, to do the task! -And there wanted to stir in me a schoolboy’s expression of vitality, -a growing lad’s satisfaction in novelty! But all through the hours of -light, from morning till evening, with the sun arising and departing, I -had to listen to, and keep time with, the humming of wheels! - -Consequently, when my feet felt the outside world at night or on -Saturdays, at the first refreshing feel of the pure air which took that -deep-lodged heat from my white cheeks, I always promised myself some -exciting pleasure ere the day passed, to stimulate my cowed nerves and -make me a boy again. - -[Illustration: “PETER-ONE-LEG-AND-A-HALF” LED US AT NIGHT OVER HIGH -BOARD FENCES] - -So I fell heart and soul into the scheme of a group of other boys -who worked in the mill and lived near me. It was my first membership -in a “gang.” It was presided over by a sturdy young Irishman, -who, because he had lost a leg below the knee, was nicknamed, “Peter -One-Leg-and-a-Half.” Peter worked in the mill, and examined cloth in -the weave room. He thrilled our jaded nerves very successfully. We -had ghost-play at night on the street, when he would spit fire, make -phosphorescent writing on a tenement, lead a line of sheeted figures -soberly in review through the night, and close the performance by -hurling a battery of bad eggs at us, his admiring audience. Peter was -King of the Night. He seemed to have the sight of a cat and the cunning -of a fox. He led us at night over high board fences, on the other side -of which, in the dark, we would almost choke ourselves against tight -clotheslines. He taught us organized play, and, wise gang-leader which -he unconsciously was, he changed our adventures and diversions so often -that no complaints were made, and night time, with Peter in it, became -the thrilling objective during my winter work. - -For a short season, in the winter, the whole gang joined the club, -which was kept for mill-boys and was supported by the corporation -for which I worked. There were work-benches, checker-rooms, a poorly -equipped gymnasium, seemingly always in the possession of the adults, -and every now and then an entertainment occurred, when some imported -entertainer with talent would be invited to come from his or her -aristocratic home--with a group of “slummers,” usually and divert -us. We thought most of them very tame, resented the manual training -department because we thought ten hour’s work sufficient for one day, -and got what pleasure we could from the entertainments. One man told -us, among other things in a memorable address, to “whistle when you’re -happy and whistle when you’re in danger of feeling mad. Whistling gives -courage, like yells at a football game. Whistle, boys, whistle. It’s a -sign that your courage is good!” That point impressed itself on Peter, -too, for when we left the club that night at nine o’clock (to stay on -the streets till ten), he lined us up like soldiers in review, and thus -addressed us, “Company halt all ready, whistle!” We put our fingers -in our mouths and produced a profusion of vibrant whistles, which -indicated that we were the most courageous and happy lads in the world. -Then Peter, stumping ahead, led us militantly up a street, stooping -every now and then under a street lamp to call out, “All the happy ones -whistle, you!” - - - - -_Chapter XI. Esthetic Adventures made possible by a Fifteen-Dollar -Piano_ - - - - -_Chapter XI. Esthetic Adventures made possible by a Fifteen-Dollar -Piano_ - - -It was late in that winter that the trading instinct cropped out in -my uncle and aunt. They decided to open a candy-store in the tenement -where we lived. For this purpose the landlord was persuaded to allow -them to use the bow window for display purposes. The parlor was fitted -with a small counter, a large store lamp, and a various assortment of -sodas, confectionery and pastry. - -That was a prohibition year in city politics, and the tenement thirst -was pronounced to be “something awful!” Desperate men were compelled to -go away on holidays and Saturdays to get what refreshment they could. -The police were on keen watch for illegal selling. They were making -daily raids in different parts of the city. Liquors had been found -in cellars, hidden under the floors, in flasks buried in the bodies -of huge codfish, water-pipes had been cut off from the main pipes -and tapped to barrels of whisky and beer; every trick possible to the -imagination seemed to have been uncovered, yet my aunt undertook to let -some chosen throats in the neighborhood know that she planned to keep a -supply of intoxicants on hand. - -I was asked, at night, to take a pint of whiskey here and there to some -shut-in woman like Old Burnt Jane, a cripple from a fire, who always -let tears fall in the food she was cooking as she said: “Wait, wait, -little boy, dearie. I’ll get my mon-ey when I’ve got this taste of -cheese off; wait like a good little boy!” - -Our customers, who came for a drink at any time, had a secret sign -whereby they could ask for intoxicants without mentioning them by name. -On Sundays, our kitchen would be filled with men and women having their -thirsts quenched. My Aunt Millie rubbed her hands with satisfaction -over the prosperous business she did. - -But one Sunday afternoon there came three plain-clothes men to the -shop. The alarm had been given, and Aunt Millie waited for the raid -with no outward traces of fear. There were some people at the rear -of the house, and they were engaged in a very busy, “manufactured” -conversation about “Charley’s throat trouble” when the officers -came in the back to investigate. If they sniffed the air for traces -of whisky, they only got a superabundance of “mint” and “musk,” -“lozengers” half thrown into the customers’ mouths by Aunt Millie. A -“complete” investigation was made, covering the back-yard, the cellar, -the kitchen, the counter, and the bedrooms, but no illegal wares were -found, and the officers left the shop in chagrin. As they left, my Aunt -Millie bent her fond gaze towards a row of black bottles that stood in -a row in the display window, marked, “Ginger,” “Spruce,” and “Birch.” - -“You dear creatures,” she cried, “what a salvation you are!” Whereat, -she took one to the back room, uncorked it, and poured out a noggin of -whiskey apiece for each of her customers, and the “throat trouble” gave -way to a discussion of, “What tasty stuff it is, this whiskey!” - -Shortly after this, my uncle was discharged for staying out from work -one morning, after a night of intoxication, and he finally secured a -new position in the South End. Rather than have the fuss of going to -his work on the street-cars, he rented a house, and we removed. This -house was a cottage, the first one we had lived in since coming to -America. It stood on a street corner, near a wide square, where the -thousands of cyclists came after supper for road races, “runs,” and a -circle around the neck of land which jutted out into Buzzards Bay. -Ours was the show place of that neighborhood; from the branches of the -rotting cherry tree in the front yard, I could watch the crowds come -and go, without the trouble of going away from the house. Directly -opposite us, buried in a maze of maple branches, with a high-fenced -yard back of it, stood an Orphan’s Home. The street-car line terminated -in front of our door. It was, to me, a very aristocratic neighborhood -indeed. I felt somewhat puffed up about it. There were several saloons -within a few minute’s walk. My aunt regarded that as a feature not to -be despised. She had explained to uncle: “You see we can get it in -cans, and not have to go and sit away from home and all its comforts.” - -This change of residence meant also a change of work for me. I left the -spinning-room, left Curley, Mallet, Mary, Zippy, and the others, and -went into the mule-room to learn back-boying with my uncle. - -The mule-room is generally the most skilled section of a cotton-mill. -Its machinery is more human in its action than is a loom, or a carding -machine, or a ring-spinning frame. There are no women or girls in a -mule-spinning room. Men spin the yarn, and boys attend to the wants of -the machines as back-boys, tubers, and doffers. - -One Saturday afternoon, shortly after we had settled in our new home, -aunt and uncle went cityward, entered a music store, and said, “We want -to look over a piano.” - -The clerk immediately took them in the direction of the high-priced, -latest models. - -“No,” said aunt, “them’s not the ones we want to buy. Mister, you -haven’t got something cheaper, have you?” - -“How cheap?” asked the clerk. - -“Well,” said my aunt, “I shouldn’t care to go very high. Say a -second-hander.” - -The clerk took them to the rear of the store, to a dim corner. Here -he turned on the light, and showed a row of table-pianos. Aunt and -uncle stopped before one of them, a scratched, faded veteran, of -many concert-hall and ballroom experiences. Its keys were yellow, -with black, gaps where some were missing. One of the pedal rods was -broken off, while the other was fastened with thin wire. Uncle, with -professional nonchalance, whirled a creaky stool to the desired height, -sat down, turned back his cuffs, and struck a handful of chords, like -a warhorse in battle again, with a vivid reminiscence of old English -public-house days. There came from the depths of the aged lyre a -tinkling, tinpannish strain of mixed flats. - -“It’s real good,” smiled my aunt. - -“It needs tuning,” commented the clerk. - -“How much is it worth, tuned?” asked my uncle. - -“Fifteen dollars,” announced the clerk. - -“On time, how much?” asked aunt eagerly. “We can only put in three -dollars on this at first,” she said. - -“Fifteen dollars on credit, at your own terms,” said the clerk, after a -brief consultation with the manager in the office. “We need the room, -and will be glad to get it out of the way.” “It’s ours, then,” said my -uncle. “Send it down as soon as you get it tuned,” he directed. - -When they told me about the purchase, uncle announced, “It will keep me -at home, I hope, and away from the saloons. It will be fine to get to -playing again. I miss it so. I must be all out of practise.” - -When the piano did come, and it was established in the front room, I -spent a whole evening in fingering it. There was only one defect about -it,--when uncle played a tune, one of the keys had a fault of sticking, -so that he had to lift it bodily into place, and that somewhat broke in -on the melody he was engaged on. - -“But what can you expect for fifteen dollars,” he commented, -philosophically. “When folks are singing with it, I can skip it, an’ it -won’t be noticed much.” - -The advent of the piano made my days in the mill lighter to bear. -My uncle had proposed to teach me to play on it at night if I would -practise faithfully. He took pains to elaborate the truth that great -musicians, who had come to fame in the earth, had done so only at the -cost of infinite pains in practise. - -“Never mind,” I responded, “I’ll learn, sure enough, and I may give -lessons some day.” So, during work-hours, I was given the scale to -memorize. - -“F,a,c,e, is the name of the spaces,” he taught. “Face, it spells; you -can remember that.” Then he had me memorize the notes on the lines, and -then he let me try it on the piano, a night of joy to me. Day after -day I would plan for these practises, and in three regular lessons, -of two weeks’ duration, I had the joy of grinding out my first real -four-part tune. I had been practising laboriously, with a strict regard -for exact time, the selection he had set before me, when he called from -the kitchen, “Hurry up the tune a bit, Al!” I did, and I was bewildered -to find that the chaotic tangle of notes resolved itself, when played -faster, into the simple, universal melody, “Home, Sweet Home!” - -But I found not enough patience, after being in the mill all day, -to isolate myself every night in the house when there was fresh air -to enjoy outside, so I told uncle that I had better give up taking -lessons. I could not keep them up. I wanted the fresh air more. - -But uncle was loath for me to do that. “I want you to do something else -besides work in the mill,” he remonstrated. About this time, I became -acquainted with Alf Martin, a back-boy, who was playing the piano. -His father worked on the mules next to my uncle. The two men talked -the matter over, and one day Alf told me that the woman he was taking -lessons from, a Miss Flaffer, had said she would give me fifty-cent -lessons for thirty-five cents! My uncle said he would pay half of the -cost, and in spite of my previous abandonment of music, I succumbed to -this scheme, secretly, in my heart, glad of the opportunity of taking -lessons from so fine a lady as Alf told me Miss Flaffer was. - -“When you pay for lessons,” said my uncle, “you’ll think more of them. -I could only take you as far as vamping, and you want to do more than -that.” - -Previous to this, I had gotten as much joy, during the week’s work, -from anticipations of cream puffs, pork pies, and such minor Saturday -joys, but now I had a piano lesson, a real music-lesson, to engage my -mind, and that was a very cheerful week spent behind the mules. Alf -and I spent much time, when we could get away from the eyes of the -bosses, talking over Miss Flaffer, and I came to understand that she -was a fine woman indeed. - -The following Saturday afternoon, then, I took my _Beginner’s Book_, -tied it in a roll and fastened it with twine, and went on the -street-car to a very aristocratic part of the city. It was the part -where, on first landing in America, I had gone on summer days, asking -at the back doors if I might pick the pears that had fallen to the -lawns from the trees. - -Miss Flaffer’s house was a very small cottage, with a small piazza at -its front, and with a narrow lawn, edged by a low fence, running around -it. It was altogether a very pretty place, with its new paint, its neat -windows, and the flowers between the curtains. The front steps had -evidently never been trodden on by foot of man, for why did they shine -so with paint! There was not a scratch on the porch, nor a pencil mark. -I looked at the number, at the engraved door-plate, and found that “S. -T. Flaffer” did reside within. A great, cold perspiration dripped from -me as I put a trembling finger on the push-button. I heard an answering -bell somewhere in the depths of the house, and then wished that I might -run away. It seemed so bold a thing for me, a mill-boy, to be intruding -myself on such aristocratic premises. But I could not move, and then -Miss Flaffer herself opened the door! - -Oh, dream of neatness, sweetness, and womanly kindness! Miss Flaffer -was that to me at the moment. She was a picture, that put away my aunt -and all the tenement women who came into our house for beer-drinking, -put them away from memory entirely. I thought that she would send me -home, and tell me to look tidy before I knocked at her door, or that I -had made a mistake, and that such a woman, with her white hands, could -not be giving thirty-five cent piano lessons to Al Priddy, a mill-boy! - -Oh, how awkward, self-conscious, and afraid I felt as I went across -that threshold and looked on comforts that were luxuries to me! There -was a soft, loose rug on a hardwood, polished floor, on which, at -first, I went on a voyage halfway, when the crumpled rug half tripped -me and I caught desperately at a fragile chair and half wrenched it -from position to stay myself, yet Miss Flaffer did not scold me, -nor did she seem to notice me. Then, as we went through a luxurious -dining-room (where they did nothing but eat meals!), I found myself -bringing my foot down on the train of Miss Flaffer’s dress. Yet, when -the confusion was over, she never made a single reference to it, -though I felt that I ought to ask her if I had torn it. She led me to -a little studio, where, in a curtained alcove, stood a black upright -piano polished like a mirror, and before it a stool, which did not -squeak like ours when turned into position. - -When the preliminary examination was over, and I was seated at the -piano, Miss Flaffer asked me to play “Home, Sweet Home” as I had -learned under my uncle’s instruction. I had been so used to the hard, -mechanical working of uncle’s instrument that I naturally pounded -unduly on Miss Flaffer’s, until she politely and graciously said, -“Please do not raise your fingers so high,” and to that end, she placed -two coppers on my hand, and told me to play the tune without letting -them drop. - -After the tune, and while Miss Flaffer had left the room to get -her notebook, I noted with chagrin that my perspiring fingers had -left marks on the snowy keyboard where they would surely be seen. I -listened, and heard Miss Flaffer rummaging among some books, and then -desperately spat on my coat cuff and rubbed the keyboard vigorously -until I thought that I had obliterated the traces of my fingers. Then -Miss Flaffer returned, and I tried to act unconcernedly by whistling, -under my breath, “After the Ball.” - -By the time the lesson was over, it was raining outside, and Miss -Flaffer said, “I have to go to the corner of the next street, Albert. -(Albert!) I want you to share my umbrella with me so that you will not -get wet.” - -I mumbled, “All right, I don’t care if I do,” and prepared to go. -Before we had left the house I had put on my hat twice and opened and -shut the door once in my extreme excitement. Then we went out, and -there rushed to my mind, from my reading, the startling question, “How -to act when walking on the street with a fine woman, and there is an -umbrella?” I said, when we were on the sidewalk, “Please let me carry -that,” and pointed to the umbrella. “Certainly,” she said, and handed -it to me. Before we had attained the corner, I had managed to poke the -ends of the umbrella ribs down on Miss Flaffer’s hat, and to knock it -somewhat askew. I found, also, that I was shielding myself to such an -extent as to leave Miss Flaffer exposed to the torrents of rain. On -the street corner, she took the umbrella, and, as my car came into -view, she said, “Good-by, Albert. You did very well to-day. Practise -faithfully, and be sure to come next week.” I called, “So long,” and -ran for the car. - -I only took two other lessons from Miss Flaffer. I never had the -manners to send her word that I could no longer afford them. I was -afraid that she would offer to teach me free, and I could not stand -the confinement to the house after a hard day in the mill. But I had -learned something besides piano-playing with her. I had seen fine -manners contrasted against my own uncouth ways. I had seen a dustless -house contrasted against my own ill-kept home. I had been called -Albert! - - - - -_Chapter XII. Machinery and Manhood_ - - - - -_Chapter XII. Machinery and Manhood_ - - -My work in the spinning-room, in comparison with my new work in the -mule-room, had been mere child’s play. At last the terror of the mill -began to blacken my life. The romance, the glamour, and the charm were -gone by this only a daily dull, animal-like submission to hard tasks -had hold of me now. - -Five days of the week, at the outer edge of winter, I never stood out -in the daylight. I was a human mole, going to work while the stars -were out and returning home under the stars. I saw none of the world -by daylight, except the staring walls, high picket-fences, and drab -tenements of that immediate locality. The sun rose and set on the wide -world outside, rose and set five times a week, but I might as well have -been in a grave; there was no exploration abroad. - -The mule-room atmosphere was kept at from eighty-five to ninety degrees -of heat. The hardwood floor burned my bare feet. I had to gasp quick, -short gasps to get air into my lungs at all. My face seemed swathed -in continual fire. The tobacco chewers expectorated on the floor, and -left little pools for me to wade through. Oil and hot grease dripped -down behind the mules, sometimes falling on my scalp or making yellow -splotches on my overalls or feet. Under the excessive heat my body -was like a soft sponge in the fingers of a giant; perspiration oozed -from me until it seemed inevitable that I should melt away at last. To -open a window was a great crime, as the cotton fiber was so sensitive -to wind that it would spoil. (Poor cotton fiber!) When the mill was -working, the air in the mule-room was filled with a swirling, almost -invisible cloud of lint, which settled on floor, machinery, and -employees, as snow falls in winter. I breathed it down my nostrils ten -and a half hours a day; it worked into my hair, and was gulped down my -throat. This lint was laden with dust, dust of every conceivable sort, -and not friendly at all to lungs. - -There are few prison rules more stringent than the rules I worked under -in that mule-room. There are few prisoners watched with sterner guards -than were the bosses who watched and ordered me from this task to that. - -There was a rule against looking out of a window. The cotton mills did -not have opaque glass or whitewashed windows, then. There was a rule -against reading during work-hours. There was a rule preventing us from -talking to one another. There was a rule prohibiting us from leaving -the mill during work-hours. We were not supposed to sit down, even -though we had caught up with our work. We were never supposed to stop -work, even when we could. There was a rule that anyone coming to work -a minute late would lose his work. The outside watchman always closed -the gate the instant the starting whistle sounded, so that anyone -unfortunate enough to be outside had to go around to the office, lose -time, and find a stranger on his job, with the prospect of being out of -work for some time to come. - -For the protection of minors like myself, two notices were posted -in the room, and in every room of the mill. They were rules that -represented what had been done in public agitation for the protection -of such as I: rules which, if carried out, would have taken much of the -danger and the despair from my mill life. They read: - -“The cleaning of machinery while it is in motion is positively -forbidden!” - -“All Minors are hereby prohibited from working during the regular -stopping hours!” - -If I had insisted on keeping the first law, I should not have held my -position in the mule-room more than two days. The mule-spinners were -on piece work, and their wages depended upon their keeping the mules -in motion, consequently the back-boy was _expected_, by a sort of -unwritten understanding, to do all the cleaning he could, either while -the machines were in motion or during the hours when they were stopped, -as during the noon-hour or before the mill started in the morning. If a -back-boy asked for the mules to be stopped while he did the cleaning, -he was laughed at, and told to go to a very hot place along with his -“nerve.” I should have been deemed incapable had I demanded that the -machinery be stopped for me. The spinner would have merely said, “Wait -till dinner time!” - -Not choosing to work during the stopping hour, I should merely have -been asked to quit work, for the spinner could have made it impossible -for me to retain my position. - -[Illustration: THE SPINNERS WOULD NOT STOP THEIR MULES WHILE I CLEANED -THE WHEELS] - -So I just adapted myself to conditions as they were, and broke the -rules without compunction. I had to clean fallers, which, like teeth, -chopped down on one’s hand, unless great speed and precautions were -used. I stuck a hand-brush into swift-turning pulleys, and brushed -the cotton off; I dodged past the mules and the iron posts they met, -just in time to avoid being crushed. Alfred Skinner, a close friend of -mine, had his body pinned and crushed badly. I also tried to clean -the small wheels which ran on tracks while they were in motion, and, -in doing so, I had to crawl under the frame and follow the carriage as -it went slowly forward, and dodge back rapidly as the carriage came -back on the jump. In cleaning these wheels, the cotton waste would -lump, and in the mad scramble not to have the wheels run over it to -lift the carriage and do great damage to the threads, I would risk -my life and fingers to extract the waste in time. One day the wheel -nipped off the end of my little finger, though that was nothing at -all in comparison to what occurred to some of my back-boy friends in -other mills. Jimmy Hendricks to-day is a dwarfed cripple from such an -accident. Hern Hanscom has two fingers missing, Earl Rogers had his -back broken horribly. Yet the notices always were posted, the company -was never liable, and the back-boy had no one but himself to blame; yet -he could not be a back-boy without taking the risk, which shows how -much humanity there can be in law. - -Legally I worked ten and a half hours, though actually the hours were -very much longer. The machinery I could not clean while in motion, and -which the spinner would not stop for me during work-hours, I had to -leave until noon or early morning. Then, too, the spinner I worked -for paid me to take over some of his work that could be done during -the stopping hours, so that there was a premium on those valuable -hours, and I got very little time out of doors or at rest. There were -generally from three to four days in the week when I worked thirteen -and thirteen hours and a half a day, in order to catch up with the -amount of work that I had to do to retain my position. - -In all, at this time I had five men over me who had the right to boss -me. They were: two spinners, the overseer, second hand, and third hand. -One of the spinners was a kindly man, very considerate of my strength -and time, while the other was the most drunken and violent-tempered man -in the room. He held his position only by virtue of having married the -overseer’s sister. He was a stunted, bow-legged man, always in need of -a shave. He wagged a profane tongue on the slightest provocation, and -tied to me the most abusive epithets indecency ever conjured with. He -always came to work on Monday mornings with a severe headache, a sullen -mood, and filled himself with Jamaica ginger, which, on account of its -percentage of alcohol, served him the same palatable, stimulating, and -satisfying functions of whisky without making him unfit to walk up and -down his alley between his dangerous mules. - -By having to be in the mill when the machinery was stopped, I was -forced to listen to the spinners as they held their lewd, immoral, -and degenerate conversation. It was rarely that a decent subject was -touched upon; there seemed to be few men there willing to exclude -profligacy from the rote. This was because “Fatty” Dunding, a rounded -knot of fat, with a little twisted brain and a black mouth, was the -autocrat of the circle, and, withal, a man who delighted to talk -openly of his amours and his dirty deeds. As there were no women or -girls in the room, significant words and suggestive allusions were -shouted back and forth over the mules, whisperings, not too low for a -skulking, fascinated boy, hidden behind a wastebox, to drink in, were -in order during the noon-hour. The brothel, the raid of a brothel, the -selling of votes, and references to women, formed the burden of these -conferences. Occasionally some spinner would “Hush” out loud, there -would be a warning hand held up, but only occasionally. - -God had not endowed me with any finer feelings than most of the lads -I worked with, but outside the mill I put myself in closer touch with -refining things than some of them: reading, occasional attendance -on a Sunday-school and a mission, and in me there was always a -never-to-be-downed ambition to get an education. That is why those -conversations I was forced to hear were like mud streaks daubed with a -calloused finger across a clear conscience. It was like hearkening to -the licking of a pig in a sty after God in His purity has said sweet -things. I felt every fine emotion toward womankind, and toward manhood, -brutalized, impiously assaulted. I felt part of the guilt of it because -I was linked in work with it all. That mule-room and its associations -became repugnant. My spirit said, “I will not stand it.” My will said, -“You’ll have to. What else can you do?” - -That became the question which held the center of the state in my -rebellion against the mill. “What else could I do?” - -I wanted an education. I wanted to take my place among men who did more -than run machines. I wanted to “make something of myself.” - -The arousement of this ambitious spirit in me was curiously linked -with the reading of a great number of five-cent novels which had to do -with the “Adventures” of Frank Merriwell. This young hero was a manly -man, who lived an ideal moral life among a group of unprincipled, -unpopular, and even villainous students at Yale College. Frank had that -Midas touch by which every character he touched, no matter how sodden, -immediately became changed to pure gold. Frank himself was an intense -success in everything he did or undertook. He preached temperance, -purity of speech, decency, fairness, and honor. He had both feet on the -topmost principle in the moral code. True, with romantic prodigality -he did everything under any given conditions with epic success. If he -went to a track-meet as a spectator, and the pole vaulter suddenly had -a twisted tendon, Frank could pull off his coat, take the pole and at -the first try, smash all existing records. A Shakesperian actor would -be suddenly taken ill, and Frank would leap from a box, look up the -stage manager, dress, and take the rôle so successfully that everybody -would be amazed at his art. It was the same with all branches of sport, -or study, of social adventure--he did everything in championship form. -But back of it all were good habits, fair speech, heroic chivalry, and -Christian manliness, and the reading of it did me good, aroused my -romantic interest in college, made me eager to live as clean a life as -Frank amidst such profligacy as I had to meet. That reading spoiled me -ever after for the mill, even if there had been nothing else to spoil -me. I, too, a poor mill lad, with little chance for getting money, with -so sober a background as was against my life, wanted to make my mark -in the world as the great figures in history had done. I immediately -made a special study of the literature of ambition. I took the Success -Magazine, read the first part of Beecher’s biography, where he made a -tablecloth of an old coat, and fought through adverse circumstances. -I fellowshipped with Lincoln as he sprawled on the hearth and made -charcoal figures on the shovel. I felt that there must be something -beyond the mill for me. But the question always came, “What else can -you do?” - -And the question had great, tragic force, too. I had not strength -enough to make a success in the mule-room. I had an impoverished -supply of muscle. My companions could outlift me, outwork me, and the -strenuous, unhealthy work was weakening me. The long hours without -fresh air made me faint and dizzy. One of the back-boys, himself a -sturdy fellow, in fun, poked my chest, and when I gave back with pain, -he laughed, and sneered “Chicken-breasted!” That humiliated me, and I -might have been found thereafter gasping in the vitiated air, enthused -by the hope that I could increase my chest expansion a few inches; -and I also took small weights and worked them up and down with the -intention of thickening my muscles! - -“What else can you do?” That haunted me. It would not be long before I -should have to give in: to tell my overseer that I had not strength -enough to do the work. Yet, as if Fate had obsessed me with the idea, I -could not bring myself to think that the world was open to exploration; -that there were easier tasks. I was curiously under the power of the -fatalistic, caste thought, that _once a mill-boy, always a mill-boy_. -I could not conceive there was any other chance in another direction. -That was part of the terror of the mill in those days. - -So that dream, “to make something of myself,” with a college appended, -only made my days in the mill harder to bear. When the sun is warm, and -you, yourself are shut in a chilly room, the feeling is intensified -tragedy. - -But day after day I had to face the thousands of bobbins I had in -charge and keep them moving. Thousands of things turning, turning, -turning, emptying, emptying, emptying, and requiring quick fingers to -keep moving. A fight with a machine is the most cunning torture man can -face--when the odds are in favor of the machine. There are no mistaken -calculations, no chances with a machine except a break now and then of -no great consequence. A machine never tires, is never hungry, has no -heart to make it suffer. It never sleeps, and has no ears to listen -to that appeal for “mercy,” which is sent to it. A machine is like -Fate. It is Fate, itself. On, on, on, on it clicks, relentlessly, -insistently, to the end, in the set time, in the set way! It neither -goes one grain too fast or too slow. Once started, it must go on, -and on, and on, to the end of the task. Such was the machine against -which I wrestled--in vain. It was feeding Cerebus, with its insatiable -appetite. The frames were ever hungry; there was always a task ahead, -yes, a dozen tasks ahead, even after I had worked, exerted myself to -the uttermost. I never had the consolation of knowing that I had done -my work. _The machine always won._ - -I did take a rest. I had to steal it, just as a slave would. I had to -let the machine go on, and on, and on without me sometimes, while I -took a rest and let the tasks multiply. That meant double effort after -I got up, getting in the mill a little earlier on the morrow, a shorter -time for dinner at noon. The tasks had to be done in the end, but I -took some rest. I hid from the eyes of the overseer, the second hand, -the third hand, and the spinners, behind waste boxes and posts, and -had spare minutes with a book I had brought in and hidden under some -cotton, or with dreaming about “making something of myself, some day.” -If I let myself dream beyond the minute, a vile oath would seek me out, -and I would hear my Jamaica-ginger-drinking-spinner sneering, “You -filthy----! Get that oiling done!” - - - - -_Chapter XIII. How my Aunt and Uncle Entertained the Spinners_ - - - - -_Chapter XIII. How my Aunt and Uncle Entertained the Spinners_ - - -Meantime there was poor consolation in my home. Aunt and uncle were -drinking every night. Aunt, with the advantage over my uncle, was -drinking much during the day. - -When our dinners came, carried by a neighbor’s boy, they were generally -cold, cheerless combinations of canned tongue, store bread lavishly -spread with butter, jelly roll, and a bottle of cold soda water, either -strawberry or ginger flavor! We knew what that sort of dinner meant. -Aunt Millie was drunk at home, too much intoxicated to make a warm -dinner. We had to work through the afternoon, knowing that when we -arrived home at night we should find her either at a saloon, in a back -room at a neighbor’s, or at home, helpless, incoherent. - -“Oh, Al,” sighed my uncle, “I don’t see what we’re coming to. What’s -the use of you and me slaving here and she taking on so? Do you wonder, -lad, that it’s hard for me to keep a pledge? It just drives me mad. -Here we have to go on through the day, working ourselves to death, only -to have the money go in that way! It’s torture, and always sets me off -into drink, too!” - -When we arrived home on such nights, uncle would have stored up an -afternoon of wrath, and, on entering the house, would unload it on -aunt. She would work herself into an hysterical paroxysm, screaming, -shrieking, pawing, and frothing at the mouth, so that uncle would -suddenly leave her to me and go off for the night to a saloon. - -In the morning, when both were sober, would occur the real -disheartening quarrel, when aunt would tell uncle he lied if he said -she had been drunk; the words would get more and more heated until, in -an unbearable fit of rage, insults would be exchanged and lead up to -a struggle, a bloody struggle, that sometimes was on the threshold of -murder. - -That day there would be no dinner for us at all, and I would have to -run out to the gates and buy something like an apple-roll or a pie. At -night we would find aunt sitting down, perfectly sober, but silent, and -with no supper ready. - -“Get it yourself, you old fiend,” she would announce. Uncle would -leave the house and get his meal in an eating-house, while aunt would -make me a supper and scold me while I ate it, for she always considered -me as one of her secret enemies, and linked my name with my uncle’s in -almost every quarrel. - -But there were few quarrels of long standing between my foster parents. -They were generally patched up with a drink or two. Then the wheel -would turn again and produce exactly the same conditions as before. - -One day, uncle, in a noble-minded effort to get away from temptation, -told us that he had decided to board in another place, where he could -live in peace. But aunt visited all the boarding-houses that she knew, -finally found her husband in one at the North End, and scolded him -so unmercifully, and unloaded so much weight of family history, that -he came back to the South End with her on the car, took a pail, and -brought back a quart of beer, and things went on as before. - -After we had established our piano, and when uncle had become well -acquainted with the spinners, he proposed to invite some of them with -their wives for a “house-warming.” - -The event occurred on a Saturday night. “Fatty” Dunding came, and -brought an unknown woman with him, whom he tickled under the chin in -play quite often, and told her that she was a “stunner in that new -piece of hair, even better looking than in t’other lighter shade!” Tom -Fellows, a tall man with a poetic face, brought his wife and child, -a baby of seven months. There was a bass-voiced spinner named Marvin -present, and he brought a roll of music with him. - -“What hast’ got in, Stanny?” asked “Fatty.” “Summat to warm cockles o’ -t’ ’eart?” - -Uncle told him that there was half a barrel of beer in the cellar: that -there were several bottles of port wine in the pantry, and that there -was a taste of whiskey and a few softer drinks on hand. - -By eight o’clock the program began to shape itself. Marvin undid his -roll, at the first request, placed before my uncle a copy of “White -Wings,” and asked, as the Hadfield bassoes had in the former days in -the parlors of the “Linnet’s Nest,” and the “Blue Sign,” “Can t’ play -it?” - -And uncle responded, “Hum it o’er!” Marvin bent down his head as if in -the act of telling a secret, hummed it over for a few bars, when uncle, -after fingering with his chords, struck the pitch, and began to vamp -gloriously. - -“Wait till I play t’ introduction,” he said, and he hunched back, and -confidently “introduced” the air to the satisfaction of all. Marvin -sang “White Wings,” and after he had dampened his pipe with a noggin -of whiskey, he asked uncle if he knew “I am a Friar of Orders Grey?” - -Uncle said, again, “Hum it o’er.” When the introduction had been given, -Marvin began a tumbling performance on the low notes that won great -applause. - -“Tha’ went so low, lad, that we couldna’ ’ear thee, eh, folks?” grinned -“Fatty.” - -“Hear, hear! Hen-core, hen-core!” shouted the audience, but Marvin said -that he’d better rest. Singing low tickled his whistle unduly. - -But uncle knew “Sally In Our Alley,” which Tom Fellows sang with a lift -of his light brows at the high notes, and a crinkling of his chin as he -bent his head to get the low ones. Tom had almost a feminine voice; a -romantic chord ran through all his singing, so that he was at his best -in an original song of his, which he had written shortly before and was -having the bandmaster set to four-part music for the piano. “Hum it,” -said uncle. And Tom went through the usual process until uncle had the -key, the time, and the chords. Tom’s song, which was later published at -his own expense, began: - - “Bright was the day, - Bells ringing gay, - When to church I brought my Sue. - I felt so proud - ’Mongst all the crowd”-- - -and Uncle Stanwood considerably increased his reputation for -improvisation when at the end of the verse, where Tom lingered lovingly -on the sentiment to the extent of four full rests, he introduced a set -of trills! - -With this part of the program over, the company retired to the -cellar, where there was a boarded floor, a man with a concertina, and -a half-barrel of beer. There followed a square dance and some more -singing, but the beer was the chief enjoyment. - -It was not long before drink had inflamed the peculiarities of temper -of our guests. “Fatty” let loose his oaths and his foul speech, while -Uncle Stanwood nearly got into a fight with him over it, but was -prevented by Tom Fellows falling against him, in a drunken lurch, -thereby diverting the issue. My aunt’s tongue had a sting to it, and -she was in a corner telling Mrs. Fellows that she, Mrs. Fellows, was -not married to Tom, or else she would have her marriage certificate -framed in the house, or, at least, could show it in the photograph -album! Marvin was roaring “Rule Britannia,” with the energy and -incoherency of a bull. I told “Fatty” that he had better go home or -else I would send for the police, and when he aimed his fist at my -head, I merely dodged and he fell with a crash to the floor and went -off into a piggish snoring. Tom Fellows took his drunken leave, -forgetting his wife, who was just then calling my aunt a series of -uncomplimentary names. In some sort of way, our guests left us in the -early morning. Then I saw that aunt and uncle were safely to sleep -where they chanced to have stumbled, turned out the lamps, locked the -door, and went to bed. - -The next morning the Sabbath sun lighted up a sickening memento of -the house-warming. Glasses were scattered about with odorous dregs of -liquor in them. Chairs were overturned, and there were big splotches on -the tablecloth in the kitchen, where port wine had been spilled. There -was a lamp still burning, which I had overlooked, and it was sending -out a sickly, oily fume. The house was like a barroom, with bottles -scattered about the kitchen, clothes that had been left, and my foster -parents yet in a drunken sleep where I had left them! - -When Monday morning came, uncle was unfit to go to work. He told Aunt -Millie so, and she immediately scolded him and worked herself in so -violent a rage that the matter ended by uncle picking up some of his -clothes and saying, “This is the last you’ll see of me, Dame! I’m going -to some other place where I’ll be away from it. Al, there, can keep you -on his four dollars a week--if he wants! I’m done!” - -“And how about the debts, you--coward!” cried aunt. “I’ll send the -police after you, mind!” - -“Let debts go to the dogs,” said my uncle. “You’ll always manage to -have the beer-wagon call!” And then he left the house. - -He did not come to work that morning, and when the overseer asked me -where he was, I said that uncle had left home and would not be back, so -a spare man was put on uncle’s mules. - -That day, opened with such gloom, was one of thick shadows for me. The -outlook was certainly disheartening. Why should I have to stand it all? -It was my wages that were making some of this squalor possible. It was -my money that helped purchase the beer. Then the old question obtruded -itself: “What other thing can you do? You’ll have to stay in the mill!” - -I lost my heart then. I saw no way out from the mill, yet I knew that -in the end, and that not long removed, the mill would overpower me -and set me off on one side, a helpless, physical wreck. It was just a -matter of a year or two, and that waiting line of out-of-works, which -always came into the mule-room in the morning, would move up one, as -the head boy was given my place. - -Late in that afternoon, with the hands on the clock going slower than -ever, and the bitterness of my life full before me, I began to think -of suicide. I imagined that it would be the easiest and safest exit -from it all. It would end the misery, the pain, the distraction, and -the impending uselessness of my body for work! It was so easy, too. -I took up a three-pound weight, and put it on a pile of bobbins high -above my head. I balanced it on the edge where the merest touch would -allow it to crash to the floor. Then I experimented with it, allowing -it to fall to see how much force there was to it. I speculated as to -whether it would kill me instantly or not. It was a great temptation. -It just meant a touch of the finger, a closing of the eyes, a holding -of the breath, and it would be over! I tried to imagine how sorry -and repentant my aunt and uncle would feel. It might make them stop -drinking. It was worth doing, then. But suddenly there loomed up the -fact that there are two sides to a grave, and the thought of God, a -judgment, and an eternity dazed me. I was afraid. I put the weight -back, and thought: “Well, I guess I’ll have to do the best I can, but -it’s hard!” - - - - -_Chapter XIV. Bad Deeds in a Union for Good Works_ - - - - -_Chapter XIV. Bad Deeds in a Union for Good Works_ - - -After he had been away from home two weeks, uncle sent us a letter from -a Rhode Island mill-town, informing us that he had the malaria, bad. -Would one of us come and bring him home? There was a postscript which -read: “Be sure and come for me either on a Monday, Wednesday, or a -Friday. They are the alternate days when I don’t have the shivers.” - -The day he came home he and aunt patched up peace over a pailful of -beer, and there the matter ended, save that echoes of it would be heard -at the next wrangle. Uncle took his place in one of the long lines -of unemployed that wait for work at the end of the mill alleys. The -expenses of the household were dependent upon the four dollars and a -half I was earning at the time. - -Then came the oppressive hot days of summer, with their drawn-out days -with sun and cheerful huckleberry fields in their glory, a summer day -which I could not enjoy because I was shut out from it by the mill -windows, and it was against the rules to look out of them. Some of the -fellows left their work in the summer, and loafed like plutocrats, -having the whole day and three meals to themselves. But if I had loafed -I should have had neither money nor peace. My aunt would have made a -loafing day so miserable for me that I should have been glad to be away -from her scolding. Neither would she have fed me, and, all in all, I -should have been the loser. - -But the evenings were long and cool after the mill closed for the -night. From half-past six to ten offered me many enticements, chief -among which was the privilege of roaming the streets with the Point -Roaders, a gang of mill-boys, into which I was admitted after I had -kicked the shins of “Yellow Belly,” the leader. I was naturally drawn -to make friends with Jakey McCarty, a merry fellow of deep designs, -who would put a string around my neck while pretending to plan a walk -somewhere, or have his finger in my pocket, poking for cigarette money, -while talking about the peggy game he had last played. - -In the winter we had a very lonesome time of it, as a gang. All we -could do that was exciting included standing on a drug-store corner, -where we splashed the icy waters of a drinking trough in one another’s -faces, or attended, en masse, an indoor bicycle race at the “Rink,” -then in its glory. But we kept very close to the drinking trough, as -money was not very plentiful. - -I grew tired of mere loafing, and I finally persuaded Jakey McCarty, -who liked reading, to go with me and visit the public library at -least once a week, when we secured books, and while there also rooted -among the back numbers of illustrated magazines and comic papers -and made a night of it. But the gang resented this weekly excursion -and separation, and various members reproached us with the stigma, -“Libree-struck!” which, I always supposed, carried with it the same -significance as “sun struck,” _i.e._, crazy over books. - -In the following spring, though, the gang put up a parallel bar in -an empty lot, and spent the early evenings in athletic diversions. -When darkness came on, there were usually Wild West hold-ups, Indian -dances, and cattle round-ups, in imitation of the features we read in -the five-cent novels we bought and exchanged among ourselves. Then, -with the putting on of long trousers, the gang became more active, and -roamed at night over a broader area than before. Two of the gang even -left us because they were “love-struck.” - -At the end of the following winter the catalogue of the various -activities of the gang would read like a chapter from the Hunnish -Invasion. There were Saturday night excursions up to the center of -the city, which led us through Water street, through the Jewish and -the Portuguese sections. As we passed by a grocery store, with tin -advertising signs projecting from its doorway, we would line up, and -each lad would leap in the air and snap his fist against the sign, -producing a loud clatter and leaving it vibrating at great speed. -Before the clerks had appeared on the scene we had passed on, and mixed -with the Saturday night throng of shoppers. Our next stop was before -a Jewish butcher shop, in front of which, on a projecting hook, hung -a cow’s heart and liver. Forming another line, the gang would leap -again and catch that a resounding slap with the palm. Then one of the -fellows poked his head in the shop door, and called, “Say, daddy, we’ll -give yer five cents if you’ll let us take three more slaps!” On the -next block, we came across a venerable Israelite, long-bearded and -somnolent, watching for custom before his one-windowed clothing shop. -Jakey leaped forward, gave a vigorous tug on the venerable’s beard, and -we broke into a run, with a shrieking, horrified group of Jews in mad -pursuit. - -[Illustration: HE PLUCKED THE VENERABLE BEARD OF A SOMNOLENT HEBREW] - -Our objective in this series of adventures had been the Union for -Good Works, a benevolent institution, with splendid rooms, to which we -went for our shower-bath; cost, five cents! - -After we had taken our baths, and while we were busy with nine-pins, -Jakey stood at an opposite end of the room, and plastered the frescoed -walls of the Union for Good Works with the pasty contents of a silver -package of cream cheese, to which he had helped himself at the stall of -a large public market. That same night, when we arrived at the South -End and were disbanding, Jakey set on view before our astonished eyes a -five-pound pail of lard, a cap, and several plugs of tobacco, which he -carried home and presented to his mother, saying that he had been to an -auction! - -Such are only a few of the adventures in which we indulged after a -depressing day of it in the mill. One Fourth of July night we roamed -over the city, through the aristocratic section, and in a wild, -fanatical, mob-spirit, entirely without a thought as to the criminal -lengths of our action, leaped over low fences, went through gates and -ran on lawns, tramping down flower-beds, crushing down shrubs, and -snatching out of their sockets the small American flags with which the -houses were decorated. - -The only religious declaration the gang made came in the winter, when, -on dull Sunday afternoons, merely for the walk it offered and the -entertainments to which it gave us the entrée, we joined the classes in -the Mission. I enjoyed sitting near the aristocratic, finely dressed -young woman who instructed me as to the mighty strength of Samson, the -musical and shepherding abilities of David, the martial significance -of Joshua, and the sterling qualities of St. Paul. Most truly was my -interest centered in the jeweled rings my teacher wore, or in the -dainty scent that was wafted from her lace handkerchief when she gave -one of those cute little feminine coughs! How far away, after all, -was she from a knowledge of our lives and the conditions under which -we lived! She aimed well, but whatever she intended, in her secret -heart, went very, very wide of the mark. She had no moral thrills to -treat us to, nor did she ever couch her appeal in so definite a way as -to disturb our sins one bit. Perhaps she did not think we needed such -strong medicine. Maybe she classed us as “Poor, suffering mill-boys!” -and let that suffice. We needed someone to shake us by the shoulders, -and tell us that we were cowards, afraid to make men of ourselves. -We needed a strong, manly fellow, just then, to tell us, in plain -speech, about the sins we were following. We needed, more truly than -all else, a man’s Man, a high, convincing Character, a Spiritual -Ideal, The Christ, pointed out to us. But this was not done, and we -left the Mission with derision in our hearts for things we ought to -have respected. Some of the fellows lighted their cigarettes with the -Sunday-school papers they had been presented with. - -Many of the Monday evenings in winter were gala nights, when we marched -to the Armory and watched the militia drill. On our return home, we -walked through the streets with soldierly precision, wheeling, halting, -presenting arms, and making skilful formations when “Yellow Belly” -ordered. - -In September, the rules were posted in the mill that all minors who -could not read and write must attend public evening school, unless -prevented by physical incapacity. Four of us, “Yellow Belly,” Jakey, -Dutchy Hermann, and myself, had a consultation, and decided that we -would take advantage of the evening school and improve our minds. But -the remainder of the gang, with no other intention than to break up the -school, went also, and though there was a special officer on guard, and -a masculine principal walking on rubber soles through the halls and -opening classroom doors unexpectedly, they had their fling. - -An evening school in a mill city is a splendid commentary on ambition. -There one finds ambition at its best. After a day’s work of ten -and a half hours, tired, tired, tired with the long day of heat and -burden-bearing, lungs choking for inhalations of fresh, cool air, faces -flushed with the dry heat of the room, ears still dulled by the roar -and clank of machines, brains numbed by hours and hours of routine--yet -there they are, men grown, some of them with moustaches, growing lads -of fifteen, and sixteen, girls and women, all of many nationalities, -spending a couple of the precious hours of their freedom scratching on -papers, counting, musing over dry stuff, all because they want to atone -for past intellectual neglect. I was there because I wanted to push -past fractions and elementary history, and go on towards the higher -things. I was entirely willing to forego priceless hours for two nights -a week to get more of a knowledge of the rudiments from which I had -been taken by the mill. - -I had a seat quite back in the room, because I had intimations that -some of the gang were going to “cut up,” and that a back seat would put -me out of the danger zone of shooting peas, clay bullets, and other -inventions. The man directly in front of me, with a first reader in his -hand, was a tall Portuguese, the father of a family of children. - -As soon as the starting gong had clanged through the halls, the -gang began its operations. Dutchy, in spite of his avowed intention -of seriously entering the school, pretended that he could not recite -the alphabet. “Bunny,” a young Englishman, tried to pass himself off -as a Swede and ignorant of English entirely. While the teachers were -busy with the details of organization, the air was filled with riot, -the special policeman was called in, and I along with the gang was -threatened with arrest. Notwithstanding that such careful watch was -maintained, the two weeks of night-school that I attended were filled -with such disturbances that I grew discouraged and abandoned the -project. - -Whenever a circus or a fête, like the semi-centennial of the city, was -advertised, the gang always planned to attend, in spite of the fact -that the mills would not shut down. Six of us, in one room, by keeping -away at noon, could cripple the mule-room so seriously that it could -not run, and the spinners would get an afternoon off. Sometimes a group -of spinners would hint to us to stay out that they might have a chance. -That was my first experience in a form of labor-unionism. - -Some of the men we worked under in the mill had a club-room, where they -played table games, drank beer when the saloons were legally closed, -and had Saturday night smokers, which my uncle attended, and where he -was generally called upon to “vamp” on the piano. - -The gang used to haunt this club, and, when there was a concert on, -would climb up and look in the windows. Finally we decided that we -ought to have a club-room of our own. We sought out and rented a shanty -which had served as a tiny shop, we pasted pictures of actresses, prize -fighters, and bicycle champions around the walls, had a small card -table covered with magazines and newspapers, and initiated ourselves -into the “club.” - -The evenings of the first week we occupied, mainly, in sitting in -front of the club, tilted back in chairs, and shouting to other mill -lads, as they passed, in reply to their cynical salutations of “Gee, -what style!” or, “Aw, blow off!” with a swaggering, “Ah, there, Jimmy. -Come in and have a game!” Each member of the club kept from work a -day, the better to taste the joys of club life to the full. About the -fourth week, after we had held forth in a tempestuous whirl of boxing -bouts, card matches, smoking bouts, and sensational novel-reading, the -landlord repented of his bargain, locked us out, and declared to our -remonstrance committee that he could no longer rent us the shanty, -because we had become a “set of meddlin’ ne’er-do-wells!” - -So we went back to the drug-store corner, with its drinking trough, -where we could have been found huddled, miserable, like animals who -have so much liberty and do not know how intelligently to use it. For -we knew that after the night, came the morning, and with the morning -another round in the mill, a fight with a machine, a ten hours’ -dwelling in heated, spiceless, unexciting monotony, and a thought like -that made us want to linger as long as we dared on that drug-store -corner. - - - - -_Chapter XV. The College Graduate Scrubber Refreshes my Ambitions_ - - - - -_Chapter XV. The College Graduate Scrubber Refreshes my Ambitions_ - - -At sixteen years of age, after three years in a mill-room, and with -the unsocial atmosphere of my home to discourage me, I had grown to -discount that old ambition of mine, to “make something of myself.” -My body had been beaten into a terrifying weakness and lassitude by -the rigors of the mill. My esthetic sense of things had been rudely, -violently assaulted by profanity, immorality, and vile indecencies. -I had come to that fatalistic belief, which animates so many in the -mill, that the social bars are set up, and are set up forever. I should -always have to be in the mill. I should never get out of it! - -Recurrently would pop up the old thought of self-destruction. There -was some consolation in it too. I used to feel as if a great weight -rested on my bent back: that it would weigh me down, as Christian’s -sin had weighed him down, only mine was not the weight of sin, but the -burden of social injustice. I seemed to be carrying the burden on a -road that sloped upward, higher and higher, a road dark and haunted -with chilly mists, growing darker, covering it. There was nothing but -a climbing, a struggling ahead, nothing to walk into but gloom! What -was the use of turning a finger to change it? I was branded from the -first for the mill. You could turn back my scalp and find that my brain -was a mill. You could turn back my brain, and find that my thoughts -were a mill. I could never get out--away from the far-reaching touch -of it. The pleasantest thing I enjoyed--an excursion to Cuttyhunk on a -steamer, or a holiday at the ball game--had to be backgrounded against -the mill. After everything, excursion, holiday, Sunday rest, a night of -freedom on the street, an _enjoyable illness_ of a day, a half day’s -shut-down--the _Mill_! The _Mill_! - -What difference did it make that I took question-and-answer grammar to -the mill, and hid myself every now and then, to get it in my mind, or -hurried my dinner that I might read it? After all, the mill, the toil, -and the weakness. What difference did it make if I read good books, on -my uncle’s recommendation? After I had gone through romance, there was -the muddy prose of my life in the mill and at home! - -Just then Fate, who served me so ungenerously as I thought, worked -one more mortal into her wheel, brought one more from dreams and high -purposes into the ring with me. He was a stout, pudgy-faced, lazy man -of thirty, who came in to mop the floor, oil some of the pulleys, and -keep some of the spare alleys cleaned. - -But he was a college graduate! He was the first college graduate I had -ever had the honor to work near. The overseers, our superintendent, -were not graduates of a college. I was thrilled! That man, working at -the end of my alley, scrubbing suds into the floor with a soggy broom, -mopping them dry, pushing his pail of hot water before him, carrying a -shaft pole or mopping along with a pail of grease in his hands--that -man was a _COLLEGE GRADUATE_! All the dreams that I had indulged -relative to classic halls, ivy-covered walls, the college fence, a -dormitory, football field--all those dreams centered around that -lumpish head, for the Scrubber had been to college! He represented to -me the unattainable, the Mount Olympus top of ambitious effort. Suds, -pail, soggy mop, grease pail, and lazy fat were transformed before me, -for _HE HAD BEEN TO COLLEGE_! - -What college had he graduated from? I do not know to this day. How had -he stood in college? Another shrug of the shoulders must suffice. _WHY_ -was _HE_ in _THE MILL_? I never paused in my hero adoration to ask -that. Sufficient for me that he had been to college! - -One day I made so bold as to address this personage. I went up shyly -to him, one day, and said, “Could I make something of myself if I went -to college?” He leaned on his mop, his light brows lifted, his cheeks -puffed out like as if a frog were blowing itself up, then he said in -a thick, dawdling voice, “You could either come out a thick head or -a genius. It depends!” Then I made my great confession, “I’d like to -go to college--if I only had the brains--and the money,” I confided. -Then he seemed to be trying to swallow his tongue, while he thought of -something germane to the conversation in hand. - -Then he replied, “It does take brains to get through college!” and then -turned to his work. I was not to be put off. I touched his overall -brace, and asked, “Do you think that I might beg my way into college -some day? Of course I wouldn’t be able to graduate with a title, like a -regular student, but do you think they’d let me study there and try to -make something of myself, sir?” The deference in my address must have -brought him to attention with a little beyond his habitual speed, for -he turned to me suddenly, and said, “Of course they will, you crazy -kid!” - -I left him then, left him with a new outlook into the future, for had I -not been told by a REAL college graduate that I could get to college! -Every former dream hitherto chained down broke loose at that, and I -felt myself with a set of made-over ambitions. The seal, the signature, -had been placed on officially. I could do it if I tried. I could get -out of the mill; away from it. I could get an education that would give -me a place outside it! - -After that I began to fit myself for college! It was a fitting, though, -of a poor sort. I did not know how to go about it. There seemed to be -none in my circle overeager to tell me how to go about the matter. It -was blind leading all the way. - -I thought, first of all, that if I could get hold of some books of my -own, my very own, that would be the first step toward an intellectual -career. I had read the lives of several scholars, and their libraries -were always mentioned. I thereupon resolved that I would own some books -of my own. - -The next stage in an intellectual career, was the reading of _DRY_ -books. I resolved that the books I purchased should be dry, likewise. - -So after that I found real diversion in visiting the Salvation Army -salvage rooms, where they had old books for which they asked five and -ten cents apiece. The rooms were so laden with old clothes and all -sorts of salvage that I had to root long and deep often to bring the -books to light. I also went among the many second-hand shops and made -the same sort of eager search. - -After a few months of adventuring I had my own library of dry books. -Their dryness will be evident from the check-list which follows. - -I was especially delighted with my discovery, among a lot of old -trousers in a second-hand shop, of a board-cover copy of “Watts on the -Mind.” Its fine print, copious foot-notes, its mysterious references, -as “Seq.,” “i.e.,” “Aris. Book IV., ff.,” put the stamp upon it as -being a very scholarly book indeed. I looked it through, and not -finding any conversation in it, judged that it was not too light. -Its analytical chapter headings, and its birthmark, “182--,” fully -persuaded me that I might get educated from that sort of a book! - -In the salvage rooms, where I obtained most of my treasures, I obtained -a black, cloth-bound book, with mottled damp pages and with a mouldy -flavor to it, entitled, “Scriptural Doctrine,” which I knew was a -dry book, because it was a religious book printed in the 40’s. It -undertook to summarize all the great and fearsome doctrines from the -Fall to the Recovery by massing every appropriate passage of scripture -under them, and concluding, with loyalty to the major premises, -with stout assertions that they were all true because they were. -I also found, in the same place and on the same day, a well-worn, -pencil-marked, dog-eared copy of “A History of the Ancient World,” -filled with quaint wood-cuts of ruined walls, soldiers in battle, with -steel spears and bare feet. It was covered with a crumpled piece of -paper bag, and there were only two leaves missing two-thirds of the -way in the book, cutting the history of the Greeks right in two. I -knew that that would be a scholar’s book on the face of it. Scholars -always read about old nations and destroyed cities, and that book was -filled with such records. I was pleased with it. I also picked up, -in the salvage rooms, a three-volume edition of “The Cottage Bible,” -two volumes of which were without covers, and one of them had most of -the leaves stained as if it had been in a fire somewhere. It was an -edition printed somewhere near the beginning of the nineteenth century. -I bought that, first, because it was a three-volume edition on one -subject; it was ponderous. Scholars always had such books. I also -bought it because it had so many notes in it. Half of each page was -covered with them in fine print. To me, that was the highest type of -intellectual book. - -I later added to the collection--a thrilling find--a well-bound copy of -a civil trial, in Boston, with every word stenographically recorded, -and interesting to me because Paul Revere was one of the witnesses, -the ORIGINAL Paul Revere that you read of in the school books and see -advertised on coffee and cigars! I wondered how such a valuable work -had ever passed the book collectors who paid thousands for such prizes! -I bought it in much trembling, lest the second-hand shopkeeper should -be aware of the book’s real value and not let me have it for ten cents! -Perhaps there might be an old document hidden in its yellow leaves! It -was with such high, romantic feelings that I made the purchase, and -hurried from the shop as swiftly as I could. - -The book-buying, once established, kept with me persistently, and -crowded out for a time the more material pleasures of pork pies, cream -puffs, and hot beef teas. I turned nearly all my spending money into -books. One Saturday afternoon, for the first time, I went into a large -city bookstore where they always had at the door a barrel of whale-ship -wood for fireplaces. I scouted through the shop for bargains, and -besides sundry purchases of penny reproductions of famous paintings, I -secured Sarah K. Bolton’s “Poor Boys who became Famous,” marked down to -fifty cents. - -My next purchases at the bookstore were a manilla-covered copy of -Guizot’s “History of France,” “Life of Calvin,” a fifty-cent copy -of the Koran which I purchased because it was an oriental book like -the “Arabian Nights,” and on account of the thrilling legends and -superstitions with which Sale has filled a copious Addenda. I also -bought a fifteen-cent copy of Spurgeon’s “Plow Talks,” and a ten-cent -pamphlet of “Anecdotes for Ministers,” because I reasoned that -ministers always had good stories in their sermons--_ergo_, why not get -a source-book for myself, and be equal with the ministers? - -Week by week my stock of books grew, each volume probably wondering why -it ever became mixed in such strange company. I bought no fiction, now. -That was left behind with dime novels and “Boy’s Books!” I was aiming -for _REAL_ scholarship now, and I might fit myself for college. I had a -great longing now to align my tastes with those that I imagined would -be the tastes of real scholars. From “Poor Boys who became Famous” I -learned that some of the heroes therein depicted had the habit of -reading any massive work they laid their fingers on, of borrowing -_GOOD_ books, almost without regard to the subject. Good reading seemed -to be the standard, and to that standard I tried to conform. I went -into the shop of an Englishman who sold things at auction, and, among -his shelves, I found a calfskin-bound “Cruden’s Concordance of the -Bible,” which, I found on examination, contained the “Memoirs” of the -author. That must be good reading, I judged. Any man who could compile -such a mass of references must be dry enough to be a scholar. So I -paid twenty-five cents for the book immediately. The same evening I -also secured two volumes of Hume’s “History of England,” printed, so -the Roman numerals told me, after I had laboriously sought out their -meaning, before the end of the eighteenth century, and with the long -“s” and very peculiar type. One of the volumes had a cover missing. -Though the history did not begin until the later kings, I had the -satisfaction of knowing that at least I had a Good history on my list. - -Of a technical and necessary nature, I had two well-worn, and very -old, arithmetics which I bought for two cents, and Binney’s “Compend -of Theology,” which gave a simple and dogmatic summary of Protestant -doctrine from the standpoint of Methodism. To complete my scholarly -equipment, I knew that I ought to keep a journal of my doings, as every -biography that I read mentioned one. So I bought a small pocket diary -for that year. My library was complete. - -In my reading of biography, I noted that a scholar or a student had -his books in cases and that he had a study. I resolved to display my -books in a study, likewise. The only available place in the house was -a large front room, which my aunt kept closed because there was no -furniture for it. The floors were carpetless and lined with tacks left -by the last occupant in tearing up the carpet. The wall-paper was dim -with dust, and the windows had the shutters drawn because there were no -curtains for them. During the day the light filtered dismally through -the blinds. - -I asked my aunt if I might use that to study in, and she said that “it -wasn’t any fret of hers.” I could. So I placed a bedroom chair, and -secured a small, second-hand writing-desk, and placed them in the room. -I used the white mantel-shelf for my books. I placed them lovingly on -end, and according to color, and they seemed magnificent to me--my -first library! I would stand before them, in proud contemplation, and -whisper to myself, “My own books!” - -I have read that in the midst of the rough ocean there are quiet, calm -places where a storm-driven ship may ride at peaceful anchor. That -dingy room, with its pathetic row of dingy, obsolete books, its bedroom -chair and small desk, with the accumulated dust on the bare floor, was -such a place for me. - -My first duty after supper was to insert a comment in my diary. -Many times I would leave the table with aunt and uncle in violent -controversy, with one or another of them intoxicated and helpless, -and the line would be, in significant red ink, “Dark To-day!” It was -“Dark To-day,” and “Dark To-day” for weeks and months. There were -few occasions to ever write, “Had a good day, to-day” which, being -interpreted, always meant, “Aunt and uncle are not drinking now and are -living together without rows!” For I always condensed my diary record, -for I thought, “It might be read--some day. Who knows? You’d better not -be too definite!” - -I ceased to go out at night now, for I was determined “to make -something of myself,” now that I had read “Poor Boys who became -Famous.” What they had done, I might do. They had gone through -hardships. I could go through mine, if only I was not so weak in body. - -One night my aunt severely arraigned me for something I had not said. -She heaped her significant phrases on my head, taunted me, and aroused -in me the murderer’s passion. I immediately ran to my “study,” closed -the door, and received consolation from “Poor Boys who became Famous” -by finding that they had attained fame through patience. I resolved to -bear with fortitude the things that were set in my way. - -It was a very elaborate, systematic, and commendable system of -self-improvement that I laid out for myself, chiefly at the suggestion -of a writer in “Success Magazine,” which I was reading with avidity. -“A few minutes a day, on a street-car, at a spare moment, indulged in -some good book, have been sufficient to broadly train many men who -otherwise would _NEVER_ have reached the pinnacle of fame,” it read, -and, acting on that hint, I resolved to get at least a few minutes a -day with my own great books. I would not be narrow, but would read in -them all every evening! I would read law, theology, history, biography, -and study grammar and arithmetic! - -So my procedure would be this: After my entry in the diary, I would -read a page from “The Life of Calvin,” then one of the romantic -legends from the appendix to the Koran, always, of course, after I had -dutifully read one of the chapters on “The Ant,” “Al Hejr,” “Thunder,” -“The Troops,” “The Genii” or an equally exciting title like the -“Cleaving Asunder,” the context of which, however, was generally very -dull and undramatic. After the Koran I would pass to “The History of -The Ancient World” and try to memorize a list of the islands of the -Grecian group before the power of Hellas waned. By this time, though, -I was usually unfit to proceed, save as I went into the kitchen and -sprinkled water on my burning forehead; dizzy spells and weakness of -the eyes would seize hold of me, and I would have to pause in utter -dejection and think how grand it must be to be in college where one did -not have to work ten and a half hours in a vitiated atmosphere, doing -hard labor, before one sat down to study. Sometimes I would say: “No -wonder college people get ahead so well--they have the chance. What’s -the use of trying?” And at that dangerous moment of doubt, “Poor Boys -who became Famous” would loom so large that I would renew my ambitions, -and sit down once more to finish my study. - -The grammar and the arithmetic I studied in the mill during any minute -that I could snatch from my work. I needed help on those subjects, -and I could ask questions of the College Graduate Scrubber. Sometimes -I would vary the order, and read the theological definitions from -“Cruden’s Concordance,” or the scriptural proofs of great doctrines -in “The Biblical Theology,” with a page or two from the law trial in -which “Paul Revere” had a part. - -Whenever I managed to get in a good night of study without suffering in -doing it, I would try to astonish the College Graduate Scrubber with a -parade of what I had memorized. I would get him at a moment when he was -especially indulgent with his time and say: - -“Did you ever read in the Koran about that legend of Abraham, when he -saw the stars for the first time and thought about there being one -God?” And the Scrubber would look at me in astonishment and confess, -“I never read that book. What is it?” “Why, didn’t you have it to read -in college?” I would ask in amaze. “It’s the Turk’s Bible, and has the -word ‘God’ in it the most times you ever saw!” - -“They don’t read that in college,” he would answer. One day, when I -was asking him to name over the islands of Greece, with their ancient -names--to memorize which I had been working for some time--he lifted -up his mop, made a dab at my bare legs, and stormed, “Sonny, you’re -too fresh. Get away from here.” Seeing that he did not seem especially -sympathetic towards my ambitious effort to be “learned,” I let him -alone, consoling myself with the thought, “Well, how can you expect a -college graduate to bother with you? Mind your own affairs, and some -day you might get to college.” - -The gang noticed my defection that winter and asked me what was wrong. - -“I’m trying to educate myself,” I said. “Yellow Belly” sniffed, and -called contemptuously: “Say, fellows! he’s got the book-bats, Priddy -has.” - -“Well,” I contended, “you fellows can hang around this drug-store -corner from now till doomsday, if you want. I want to learn enough to -get out of the mill. Besides, it’s none of your business what I do, -anyway!” and with that fling I had to run off to escape the stones that -were hurled at me. - - - - -_Chapter XVI. How the Superintendent Shut Us out from Eden_ - - - - -_Chapter XVI. How the Superintendent Shut Us out from Eden_ - - -The numerous quarrels in which my foster parents indulged, and during -which my aunt was not averse to proclaiming loudly from the open -windows insulting comments on her neighbors, finally brought a lawyer’s -letter to the house in which we were living, summarily ordering us -to remove ourselves from the neighborhood. Aunt flew into a passion -when the letter was read, and had all manner of sharp criticism for -“neighbors who don’t tend to their own faults.” Uncle bowed his head -for shame, while I went to my study, shut the door, and prayed through -tears that God would, in some way, give me a good home like many -another boy, and that He might make aunt and uncle more respectable. - -Under the shock of this notice my uncle gave up his work, and said that -he was determined to make a new start in some other place. - -“I’m going to see, Millie,” he said, “if I can’t get somewhere to -work, in God’s world, where there aren’t saloons to tempt us. I’ll send -for you as soon as I find a place like that.” - -Word soon came from him telling me to give up my work; that he had -secured a place in a Connecticut cotton-mill. His letter also stated -that we should live in a quiet little village where there were no -saloons permitted by the corporation, and that our home would be in a -little brick cottage with a flower bed and lawn inside the front gate! - -“What a god-send this will prove,” said Aunt Millie, “to get away from -the saloons. Maybe Stanwood’ll keep sober now. Let us hope so!” - -So at seventeen years of age I went with my aunt and uncle to the -village, a strange, quiet place after the rumble and confusion of the -city. It was well into spring when we arrived, and we found the village -beautiful with restful green grass and the fruit-tree blossoms. - -As soon as we arrived my uncle took us to the corporation -boarding-house, a dismal brick structure, like a mill, with a yellow -verandah on its face. “We’ll have to put up here till the furniture -comes,” announced uncle. - -The next morning I took my overalls with me and began work in the -mule-room. It was a pleasant place when contrasted with the places -I had worked in in the city. The overseer did not urge us on so -strenuously. There was not that terrible line of unemployed in the -alley every morning, waiting to take our places. - -I was given a place with my uncle, and, when I had my work in hand, -that first day, he would call me into the mule alley and chat with me -about our new prospects. - -“We’ll begin all over, Al, and see if we can’t do better by you. Maybe -we’ll be able to send you to school, if we can get some money laid by. -This is our chance. We’re away from drink. The corporation owns the -village and won’t allow a saloon in it. Now I can straighten up and -be a man at last, something I’ve shamefully missed being the last few -years, lad!” - -Those first few days of our life in the village, uncle’s face seemed to -lose some of its former sad tenseness. - -“Wait till the furniture gets here, lad,” he said, repeatedly. “Then -we’ll settle down to be somebody, as we used to be.” - -Then the day that a postal came from the freight office saying that -the furniture had arrived, the superintendent of the mill called my -uncle away from his mules for a long consultation. Then he came back in -company, with my uncle, and mentioned to me that he would like to see -and speak with me in the elevator room. I had only time to note that -uncle’s face was that of a man who has just seen a tragedy. It was -bloodless, and aged, as if he had lost hope. - -What could all this mean? A mill superintendent did not usually consult -with his hands except on very grave matters. - -I found the superintendent waiting for me, with a very sober face. We -had strict privacy. When he had shut the door, he said: “Al Priddy, -I want to ask you what will seem, at first, a very impertinent and -delicate question. You must give me a frank answer, even though it is -very hard.” - -“Yes, sir,” I said, wondering what it was to be. - -“Al,” he said, sternly, like a judge, “is your aunt a regular -drinker--of intoxicants?” - -So that was the question! I gasped, choked, and with my eyes on the -floor, confessed, “She is, sir.” - -“Well,” said the superintendent, “I am very sorry for you, my boy! I am -sorry that you have to suffer because of other people. We cannot allow -women who drink to live in our houses. We will not allow it if we know -about it.” - -“But my aunt won’t drink here,” I said. “She said so, and there aren’t -any saloons, sir. That is the reason we came out this way!” - -“Your aunt has been seen drunk in the village already!” announced the -superintendent. “What do you think about that?” - -The bottom went out of the fairy world we had hoped to live in, with -that news. I could only stand there, dazed, shocked, wild with the -sense of our loss. - -“You cannot have the house I promised,” said the superintendent. “I -have told your uncle that. The furniture is not unloaded yet, and it -must return. We will cover the expenses. We cannot permit the other -women to suffer because of your aunt. She obtained liquor in some way -and I shall look into it. You must go back. You cannot have any of our -rents.” - -“But, sir,” I pleaded, “won’t you give us a chance. My uncle wants to -do well, and we will try and see that my aunt keeps straight too. When -we get settled, she’ll change. It’s our only chance. If we go back to -the city it will be as bad as before, and that was bad enough. Give us -one more chance!” - -“But your aunt has managed to get drunk already, after having been in -town only a few days. What will it be later?” - -“Oh, sir,” I went on, desperate at the chance that was slipping from -us, “you are a member of the church and believe in forgiving as Christ -did. Won’t you give us a chance to straighten out? It might take time, -but it means so much to aunt and uncle and--and me!” - -“I shall have to refuse,” said the superintendent finally. “I have to -think of the welfare of more families than one. Go back to your work -now, and talk things over with your uncle. I will see him again.” - -I went back to my uncle and found him doing his work in a dreamy, -discouraged way. The miserable hours of the morning wore on, and by -noon there was no change in the unfortunate and gloomy situation in -which we found ourselves. - -When we had had dinner at the boarding-house, uncle went to his room -and informed Aunt Millie of what had transpired. Then he upbraided her, -scolded her, and called her all manner of brutal names, because he was -crazed with shame. My aunt did not cry out, but merely hurried from the -room and did not return while we were there. - -In the afternoon the superintendent came and had a conference with -uncle, the upshot of which was that uncle persuaded him to allow us to -retain our work if we could find a house to rent that was not owned -by the corporation. The overseer, consulted, said that there was a -tenement of three rooms on the outskirts of the village which we might -get, and with this prospect, uncle and I found the tragedy of our -situation decreasing. - -“We’ll go right after supper and look up that place,” agreed Uncle -Stanwood. “We might be lucky enough to get it, Al.” - -We did not find Aunt Millie at the boarding-house when we arrived, so -we ate our meal together, wondering where she could be and fretting -about her. But after supper we took an electric car that went past -the tenement we were thinking of examining. The car was crowded with -mill-workers going to the city for the evening. Uncle and I had to -stand on the rear platform. - -The village had been left, and the car was humming along a level -stretch of state highway bordered with cheerful fields, when our ears -were startled by screams, and when uncle and I looked, as did the other -passengers, we beheld a woman wildly fleeing through the field toward -the river. She was screaming and waving her hands wildly in the air. - -“My God!” shouted uncle, “it’s Millie!” He shouted to the conductor, -“Stop, quick, I’ll look after her!” and when the car slowed down we -both leaped to earth and ran, a race of death, after the crazed woman. - -We caught her almost near the brink of the river, and found it -difficult to keep her from running forward to hurl herself in it. She -was bent on suicide. But finally we calmed her, and found that she had -been drinking whisky, which always so affected her, that the prospect -of having to return to the city, the thought of having shamed us, had -made her determine on suicide. - -She did up her hair, straightened her clothes, and we three went -further down the road, as far as the house we were seeking, examined -the three rooms, and were fortunate enough to rent them. I came away -with a light heart, for we would not have to leave the village after -all. - - - - -_Chapter XVII. I Founded the Priddy Historical Club_ - - - - -_Chapter XVII. I Founded the Priddy Historical Club_ - - -One of the important items we had overlooked in securing the tenement -at the border of the village was a saloon which stood next door to it! -A saloon, too, that was the common resort of the village, because it -stood outside the town lines! “Never mind, lad,” said my uncle, “we’ll -struggle on in spite of it, you see. If only your aunt didn’t have it -under her nose all day! It’ll be hard for her!” But there it was and -matters could not be changed. - -The first few weeks passed and found my aunt and uncle solidly -entrenched behind strong temperance resolutions. - -With this in mind, I began to enjoy my new situation. I made the -acquaintance of a cloth designer, a young Englishman who loved books -and talked familiarly and intelligently about ambition. He stimulated -me to “make something of myself,” when I unfolded my ambition toward -that goal. We had long walks at night and on Sundays, and I learned -for the first time the joys of sympathetic friendship. - -I became a regular attendant at the village church. Indeed, my whole -life seemed washed of its grimy contact among the peace and simplicity -of village life. To go from week to week and not see cheapness and -vulgarity in the profusion I had been face to face with in the city, -was dream-like and delightful. Now I seemed to be on the way toward the -finer things of life. - -I responded to my opportunity in a very definite and practical way. -I founded _an historical society_! In my reading, I had picked up -during a holiday in the city a history of the region, a history whose -background was the romantic one of Indian lore and fascinating to me. I -spoke enthusiastically to the cloth designer about it; he and I secured -the interest of three or four other youths, and we resolved thereupon -to establish an historical society, with regular, stated meetings, and -lectures, real lectures! - -The work in the mill with such a definite thing in mind as an -historical society became less and less irksome. For the first time, -I could master my duties and enjoy pleasant surroundings. I found -humane conditions for the first time, and was better in mind and body -because of them. In the mill we talked over the society, and resolved, -finally, to call it the Priddy Historical Club. It was formally voted, -too, that I should go into the city, seek out the author of the -ponderous history we had read, and ask him if he would not come out and -lecture to us and start the club. - -To see a real, live author and talk to him! What a task for me! How I -was growing in the finer things. If only the College Graduate Scrubber -could know that! It was a vast task, loaded with honor, and truly -symbolical of my new intellectual attainments. So I dressed myself in -my best clothes, put on a celluloid collar, and went into the city. - -The author was a grey-bearded man, who was also librarian of the -city library. I found him in his private office, where he listened -graciously to the plans of the Priddy Historical Club. He consented to -come out and address us, and also said that he would typewrite a course -of historical research for our use! - -The author met us, one evening, in a room of the church. He told -us fascinating tales of early settlers, and left in our possession -typewritten sheets filled with a well-planned and complete course of -study. That was the first and only meeting of the club. The fellows -lost interest at the formidableness of the program, the cloth designer -had too much work to bother reading on so large a scale, and I--I had -other things of great moment to bother about. - -In the middle of summer, a farmer across the way asked me to work for -him, and though the wages were much smaller than I earned in the mill, -and my aunt at first was loath to have me accept, I began work on the -farm. My uncle was greatly pleased with this arrangement. - -“Thank God, you have a chance to get some color in your cheeks,” he -said, and aunt laughed. “It would be a good sight to have him put a few -pounds of flesh on his bones, wouldn’t it?” - -At last I was out of the mill, out in the fresh air all day! I -stretched my arms, ran, leaped, and worked with great delight. I felt -better, stronger, more inspired than ever to get ahead. But when I went -home, after the day’s work, I was so sleepy through exposure that I -could no longer study. “Never mind,” I thought; “if I only get a strong -body out of it, it will be all right.” - -So I milked cows, delivered milk to a village three miles distant, and -worked about the place, all with hearty good will. Every day I would -look in a glass to see if my cheeks were puffing out or getting ruddy. - -On Sunday I attended the village church and worshiped near the -superintendent of the mill. I shared the farmer’s pew, and though the -beat of air and sun on my eyes made me very sleepy when in a room, -and though the minister must have wondered why I winked so laboriously -during the service, as I tried to keep awake, I always brought to mind -the pleasant places into which I had been led, and joined with the -minister in a sincere prayer to the God who was leading me. - -But one night I went home, and, as I neared the house, I heard -hysterical screams and ran as fast as I could, knowing full well what -I should see. My aunt was squirming on the floor, her hair undone, -and her hat entangled in it. She had on her best dress. Her face was -convulsive with hate, with intense insanity. She was shrieking: “Oh, -he’s killing me, killing me! Help! Murder!” I ran to her, caught the -sickening odor of whisky from her lips and on examination found that -there was a gash on her cheek. Then I stood up and looked around. -Uncle, breathing heavily, sat at the other end of the table, before an -untasted supper. His face was very stern and troubled. - -“What have you done?” I shouted. “You’ve been hitting her, you coward!” - -“I had to--to protect myself,” he muttered. Then he showed me his face. -The blood was dropping down when he took his handkerchief from it, and -there was a gash in his temple. - -“She threw a saucer square at me,” he explained, in a low voice. “She -had a table knife, and she’s stronger than I am, so I just had to smash -her with that,” and he pointed to a stick of wood. “It saved her from -murder, Al. I’m going away. It will maybe bring her round. If I stayed, -she’d raise all sorts of rows and maybe get me to drinking again. She’s -been out to that rum shop. I found her, when I got home, dressed as she -is, trying to warm a can of soup in the frying-pan. She tried to say -she hadn’t been drinking, and then we had the row, lad. Get her to bed, -if you can. Get her out of the way, because when she sees me she’s sure -to begin it all over. I can’t stop here, can I?” - -“No, get away,” I said; “we’ve had rows enough. Send us some, money -when you get work, and it’ll be all right. Come and see us, if you get -a good place. We might move away from here.” - -He packed his bundle, and went to the city on the next trolley-car, and -left me alone to fight the matter through. I was earning four and a -half dollars a week, and knew that we would have to fight hard if uncle -did not send us any money. After I had placed my aunt in bed and left -her to manage as best she could, knowing that her sobs would die down -and a deep sleep ensue, I went out on the front step and sat down to -think matters over. - -“Now everybody in the village, the designer, and all your fine friends -will know that your aunt drinks,” I thought. “What’s the use trying to -be somebody and have these miserable things in the way!” How were we to -get through the winter? It seemed inevitable that I should have to go -back to the mill. The mill was bound to get me, in the long run. It was -only playing with me in letting me out in the sun, the fresh air, and -the fields for a while. The mill owned me. I would have to go back! - -We tried to live through the winter, without getting word from my -uncle, on the money I earned. Occasionally aunt would take some liquor, -but she seemed to realize at last that she must not indulge overmuch. -One day, growing desperate, I said to her, “If I catch you drinking -on my money, now, I’ll leave home, you see! I’ll earn money to buy -food, but I won’t earn it for no saloon-keeper, mark my words!” I -was only then beginning to see the light in which my own, personal -rights to freedom stood. My aunt scolded me for awhile at such unheard -of rebellion and such masterly impudence, but she took notice of my -earnestness and knew that I would keep my word. - -Finally the struggle became too much for us. We saw that we could not -starve longer on the little wage I was earning, so we made plans to -return to the city where the mills were plenty and where I might earn -more money. My aunt was only too eager to get away from a place where -it was impossible to hide one’s actions. - -A card came from my uncle announcing that he had returned to New -Bedford already, and asking us to come and join him. - -“Yes,” smiled my aunt, “I’ll bet he’s thinking of his stomach. He -finds, when he’s away, that it isn’t every lodging-house keeper that -can cook potato pies and things as tasty as his own wife. That’s what -he’s homesick for, I’ll bet. Write him that we’ll be on hand. He means -all right, but I’ll guarantee he’s half starved.” - -I eagerly accepted the privilege of running ahead to New Bedford to -rent a tenement. I said to myself, “Yes, and I’ll get one so far away -from saloons that the temptation will not be under their noses, anyway!” - -That was almost an impossible thing. The rents were excessively high -in such paradises. I had to compromise by renting a downstairs house -on what seemed to be a respectable street. The nearest saloon was five -blocks away. - - - - -_Chapter XVIII. A Venture into Art_ - - - - -_Chapter XVIII. A Venture into Art_ - - -Once more we took up life in New Bedford, with the thunder of many -mills in our ears, and the short year’s sojourn in the Connecticut -village so dim a memory that it was almost out of mind immediately -under the press of sterner, more disquieting things. - -All the foulness of life seemed to be raked up at my feet since I had -been in finer, sweeter air. I went back for a few nights to the Point -Road Gang. It was composed of the same fellows save that a few of them -had gone away from home, one to prison for larceny, another to an -insane asylum through excessive cigarette indulgence, and those who -were left had obtained some very wise notions from life. - -Jakey was one of those who had gone away from home. One night he joined -his old comrades. “Now, fellows,” he said, with somewhat of a swagger, -“what’s the matter with being sports, eh?” “We are sporty,” announced -Bunny. - -“Ah, git off the earth, you!” derided Jakey. “Where’s the booze?” - -“Uh, we ain’t skeered of that!” retorted Bunny, “are we, fellows?” - -To show that they were not afraid of a drink, some of the gang fished -up some pennies from their pockets and made a pot of fifteen cents. - -“Get a can, somebody,” announced Jakey. “I’ll get the growler for you, -with foam on it too.” - -A large pail was procured, and Jakey carried it into one of the -saloons. We waited for his return, a huddled group standing in a vacant -lot where we should not be seen. This was to be the gang’s first -official venture into inebriety. When Jakey returned with the can, -it was passed around. We stood in a circle, the better to watch one -another. There were ten in the circle. Only three of us did not take a -drink, for which we were not only duly laughed at, but Jakey heaped all -manner of filthy abuse on our heads. But we did not drink. - -[Illustration: THE GANG BEGAN TO HOLD “SURPRISE PARTIES” FOR THE GIRLS -IN THE MILL] - -The gang, under the worldly-wise Jakey’s direction, began, also, to -hold “surprise parties” for the girls in the mill. These parties were -arranged for Saturday nights. They were extremely shady functions, -being mainly an excuse for beer-drinking, kitchen dancing, and general -wild sport. The whole affair was based on a birthday, a wedding, an -engagement, or a christening. About twenty-five picked couples were -usually invited. - -After the presentation speech, dancing took place on the boards of the -cellar. Then refreshments were passed, and the boys and girls freely -indulged. By midnight the party usually attained the proportions of a -revel, threaded with obscenity, vulgarity, fights, and wild singing. - -The gang had drawn away from the things I cared for. I had now to live -my own life, get my own amusements, and make new companionships. - -I was working in the mule-room again and this time I was advanced -to the post of “doffer.” I had to strip the spindles of the cops of -yarn and put new tubes on them for another set of cops. But this work -involved the carrying of boxes of yarn on my shoulders, the lifting of -a heavy truck, and often unusual speed to keep the mules in my section -running. The farm work did not appear to have strengthened me very -decidedly. I had to stagger under my loads the same as ever. I wondered -how long I should last at that sort of work, for if I could not do that -work the overseer would never promote me to a spinner, where I could -earn a skilled worker’s wage. I was now near my nineteenth birthday, -and I had to be thinking about my future. I wanted to do a man’s work -now, in a man’s way, for a man’s wage. I learned with alarm, too, that -I was getting past the age when young men enter college, and there I -was, without even a _common school education_! Once more the gloom of -the mill settled down on me. The old despair gripped me. - -I did find companionship in my ambitions, now that I had left the -gang. Pat Carroll, an Irishman, wanted to go to college also. He was -far past me in the amount of schooling he had enjoyed, for by patient -application to night-school in the winter, he had entered upon High -School studies. There was Harry Lea, an Englishman, who was even -further advanced than was Pat Carroll. Harry liked big words, and had -tongue-tiring sentences of them, which created rare fun whenever he -cared to sputter them for us. Harry had a very original mind, did not -care much for society, and lived quite a thoughtful life. - -These two aided me with knotty problems in arithmetic and grammar. But -it was not often that I had time to spend with them now that my work -was more strenuous and wearing than before. - -Harry was attending a private evening school and invited me to the -annual graduation. I asked him if there would be any “style” to it, -thereby meaning fancy dress and well-educated, society people. - -“Oh,” said Harry, “there will be men in evening dress, swallow tails, -you know, and some women who talk nice. If they talk to you, just talk -up the weather. Society people are always doing that!” - -The graduation was held in one of the lecture halls of the Y. M. C. A. -I sat in my place, watching with rapt eyes the speakers, the fluent -speakers who had such an education! The principal was a college man. -Him I watched with veritable worship. He had reached the goal I craved -so eagerly, so vainly to reach. I wondered at the time if he felt -bigger than other people because he had a college degree! When the -program neared its end, a young man was announced to read an essay, the -principal stating that the young man had been _studying English but -five months_, and saying it so emphatically that I thought the reader -must be a green Swede, so I marvelled greatly when the fluent diction -sounded on my ears, for I did not hear a single sound with a Swedish -accent to it! - -One Monday morning there was a notice posted in the mill to the effect -that an evening school of design would be opened in the Textile -School. I inquired about it, and found that I could learn all sorts -of artistic designing--wall-paper, book, and cloth, free of tuition. -“Here’s my chance,” I thought. “I can learn a trade that will pay well, -get me out of the mill, and not be too much of a tax on what little -strength the mill has left me.” So I went joyously “up city,” and -entered the splendid building used as a Textile College. I enrolled at -the office and was assigned to a classroom. - -I went to my task joyfully with dreams of future success, for I liked -drawing. Had I not traced newspaper pictures ever since I was a small -boy? Were not the white-painted walls of the mills I had worked in -decorated with cow-boys, rustic pictures, and Indian’s heads, drawn by -my pencil? - -Three nights a week I walked back and forth to the Textile School, -tired, but ambitious to make the most of my great opportunity. Week by -week I went through various lessons until I began to design wall-papers -with water-color and to make book-cover designs on which I prided -myself, and on which my teacher complimented me. - -Then my eyes began to weaken under the glare of the lights, and the -long strain they had been under during the day, through staring at -cotton threads and the fatigue of long hours under the mill lights. -My conventionalized leaves and flowers, my water-lily book designs, -my tracings for Scotch plaids--all grew hazy, jumpy, distorted, and -my brush fell from a weary clutch. In dismal submission I had to give -up that ambition. The mill was bound to have me. What was the use of -fighting against it? - -But now that the direction had been indicated by the Textile School, -I thought that I might learn to draw in my spare time, and outside -regular classrooms, for just then a Correspondence School agent came to -me and offered me instruction in that line at a very reasonable rate. -I enrolled myself, and thought that with the choice of my hours of -study I could readily learn the art of designing. But a few evenings -at elementary scribbling and a few dollars for advance lessons took -away my courage. The whole thing seemed a blind leading. I cut off the -lessons and gave up in utter despair. - -Then, one night, as I was on my way from work, I was met near our -house by a young lad who ran up to me, stopped abruptly, almost poked -his finger in my eye as he called, derisively: “Aw, yer aunt’s been -arrested fer being drunk! She was lugged off in a hurry-up! Aw, yer -aunt’s got jugged! Shame on yer! shame on yer!” - -I ran home at that, incredulous, but found the house deserted. Then I -knew that it was true. I lay on the bed and cried my eyes sore in great -misery, with the bottom gone out of the world. - -My uncle had been called to investigate the matter. He came home and -said that nothing could be done until morning, so we sat up to the -table and made out as best we could with a supper. - -The next morning I went to uncle’s overseer with a note to the effect -that he would be unable to be at work that morning. The mill-boys, who -had passed the news around, met me and in indelicate haste referred to -my misfortune, saying, “Goin’ to the trial, Priddy,” and, “What did yer -have to eat last night, Priddy--tripe on a skewer?” I worked apart that -day, as if interdicted from decent society. My aunt’s shame was mine, -perhaps in a greater measure. - -On my return home that night I found my foster parents awaiting me with -smiles on their faces. - -“Al,” said my aunt, in tears, “I want you to forgive me. I’ve turned -over a new leaf. Both of us have. Uncle and I have been to the city -mission and have taken the pledge. The judge wasn’t hard on me. He sent -us there. We’ve put you to shame often enough and are sorry for it. -You’re to have a better home, and we’ll get along famously after this. -Maybe it’s all been for the best, lad; don’t cry.” And from the new, -inspiring light in her eyes I could tell that she meant every word, and -I thanked God in my heart for the experience that had made such words -possible--strange words on my aunt’s lips. - - - - -_Chapter XIX. A Reduction in Wages, Cart-tail Oratory, a Big Strike, -and the Joys and Sufferings thereof_ - - - - -_Chapter XIX. A Reduction in Wages, Cart-tail Oratory, a big Strike, -and the Joys and Sufferings thereof_ - - -In January of that year forty thousand mill operatives went on strike. -I belonged to the union and had a voice in the preparations for the -strike. The manufacturers wanted to reduce our wages ten per cent. Word -was passed around the mule-room that there was to be a stubborn fight, -and that every union member ought to be on hand at the next regular -meeting, when a vote was to be taken which would be our answer to the -officials. - -Our union headquarters were then in a long, narrow room in one of the -business blocks, lighted by smoky oil lamps. The room was crowded when -the meeting was called to order. The men were allowed to declare their -feelings in speeches. - -“Th’ miserly manufacturers,” growled Hal Linwood, a bow-legged -Socialist, “they never knows when they are well off, they dunno. Little -enough we gets now, and worse off we’ll be if they slices our wages at -the rate they would go. It ain’t just, and never will be just till we -div--” - -“Order!” shouted the chairman. “This here isn’t no Socialist meeting. -What the man said at first is all right, though.” - -“Hear! hear!” roared the crowd. - -Linwood represented the prevailing opinion, and when the vote was taken -we declared in favor of a strike by a large majority. Messengers were -coming in from the other meetings, and we saw that a general strike -would be effected. - -The situation was serious, though, for we were in the heart of winter, -the most inconvenient time for a strike. - -I looked forward to it without any scruples, for it meant a chance for -me to rest. I had been given no vacations either in winter or summer, -and I felt that one was certainly due me. - -I experienced a guilty feeling when I passed the silent mills the next -Monday morning. I felt as if I were breaking some great, authoritative -law. It was the same feeling I always experienced when I stayed away -from work, even for a day. I always avoided passing the mill for fear -the overseer would run out and drag me in to work. - -During the early stages of the strike we were constantly in our strike -headquarters, getting news and appointing committees. Collectors were -sent out to other cities to take up contributions. Mass-meetings were -held in the city hall, and we were addressed by Mr. Gompers and other -labor leaders. Even in the public parks incendiary meetings were -common, and wild-eyed orators called us to resistance--from the tail -end of a cart. - -The position of collector was eagerly sought, for to most of the men it -offered a higher wage than could be earned in the mill. It also meant -travel, dinners, and a good percentage of the collections. When I told -my uncle that a man named Chad was earning more money as a collector -than he could earn as a spinner, I was angrily told to mind my own -business. - -In fact, the conduct of the strike, as I looked on it from behind the -scenes, was simply a political enterprise. Our leader kept urging us -to resist. He himself was not working in the mill, but was getting his -money from our dues. Several of our meetings were no more than drinking -bouts. The strike manager, who conducted our part in it, elected his -closest friends to important offices which offered good remuneration. - -I have been to football games when the home team knew that it was -beaten at the start, and yet the captain has pounded his men and said: -“Come on, boys, we’ve got them whipped.” That sort of artificial -courage was supplied us by our leaders. Perhaps it was necessary; for -the most of us were hungry, our clothes were worn, and the fire at -home had to be kept low. The grocers would not give us credit, and the -winter was cold. But the leaders grinned at us, pounded the gavel on -the table, and shouted: “This is a fight for right, men. We’ve got the -right end of the stick. Keep together and we’ll come out all right!” - -At one of the meetings, picketing committees were appointed, with -specific instructions to do all in their power to prevent “scabs” from -going into the mills. We boys were invited to special meetings, where -we were treated to tobacco by the men and lectured on the ethics of the -“scabbing system.” - -“Just think, lads, here are those that would step in and take your -work. Think of it! That’s just what they’d do! Take the bread right out -of your mouths, and when the strike is done, you wouldn’t have no work -at all to go to. It’s criminal, and you mustn’t let it pass. Fight, -and fight hard. A ‘scab’s’ not human. Don’t be afraid to fight him by -fair means or foul. And then, too, the manufacturers have the police -and the judges and the governor on their side, because they are moneyed -men! They will try to drive us off the streets so that we can’t show -how strong we are. Look out for the ‘scabs’!” - -His words came true, in part. The state police were called, several -strikers were arrested, and given the full penalty for disorderly -conduct and assault. We were not allowed to congregate on the street -corners. The police followed every crowd. - -These precautions intensified the anger of the strikers. Strike -headquarters, in which we could meet and pass the day in social ways, -were opened in vacant stores. Here we came in the morning and stayed -through the day, playing cards, checkers, and talking over the strike. - -In regard to newspapers, there was a prevailing opinion among us that -the Boston _Journal_ alone favored our side, so we bought it to the -exclusion of all other dailies. Against the Boston _Transcript_ there -was a general antipathy. I liked to read it, but my uncle spoke against -it. - -“I don’t want anybody under my roof reading the paper that is owned -hand and foot by our enemies,” he argued, and I saw that I had given -him great offense. - -The Boston papers sent their official photographers to take our -pictures. I posed, along with several of my friends, before our -headquarters, and had the pleasure of seeing the picture in the paper -under some such caption as “A group of striking back-boys.” - -I did not suffer during the strike. I had a splendid time of it. While -the snow was on the ground I obtained a position as a sweeper in one of -the theaters, and I spent nearly every day for a while at matinées and -evening performances. The strike went on into the early part of May, -and, when the snow had gone, I went out with a little wagon--picked -coal and gathered junk. Through these activities I really earned more -spending money than I ever received for working in the mill. I rather -enjoyed the situation, and could not understand at the time how people -could say they wanted it to end. - -Before it did end, the state police withdrew, and we went on guard once -more at the mill gates on watch for “strike-breakers.” - -We boys made exciting work of this, encouraged by our elders. I recall -one little man and his wife, who did not believe in unions or strikes. -They did have a greed for money, and they had plenty of it invested in -tenements. They had no children to support. They were, however, among -the first to try to break the strike in our mill. Popular antipathy -broke with direful menace upon their heads. Every night a horde of -neighbors--men, women, boys, and girls--escorted them home from their -work, and followed them back to the mill gates every morning. The women -among us were the most violent. “Big Emily,” a brawny woman, once -brought her fist down on the little man’s head with this malediction: -“Curse ye! ye robber o’ hones’ men’s food! Curse ye! and may ye come -to want, thief!” The poor man had to take the insult, for the flicker -of an eye meant a mobbing. His wife was tripped by boys and mud was -plastered on her face. The pettiest and the meanest annoyances were -devised and ruthlessly carried into effect, while the strike-breaking -couple marched with the set of their faces toward home. - -Even the walls of their house could not protect them from the menace of -the mob. One of the strikers rented the lower floor of their house, and -one night, when we had followed them to the gate, he invited us into -the basement, produced an accordion, and started a merry dance, which -lasted well into the night. - -The return of the swallows brought an end to the strike. We boys -resolved to vote against a return, for the May days promised joyous -outdoor life. But the men and women were broken in spirit and heavily -in debt, and a return was voted. We had fought four long months and -lost. - - - - -_Chapter XX. My Steam Cooker goes wrong. I go to Newport for Enlistment -on a Training-ship_ - - - - -_Chapter XX. My Steam Cooker goes wrong. I go to Newport for Enlistment -on a Training-ship_ - - -I returned to the mill with the feelings of an escaped convict who has -been returned to his cell after a day of freedom. My uncle found that -he had been put on the black-list, and consequently would not be able -to obtain work in any mill in the city. I was allowed to take up a -new position as “doffer.” This meant an advance in wages, but I knew -that I was not physically equal to it. There was nothing for me to do, -however, but accept, for there was a waiting line at the lower end of -the room and the overseer was not a man who offered things twice. - -The mill was getting more and more beyond me. It had taken my strength -and I was incapable of a man’s work, as a man’s work went in the -mule-room. I resolved, then, to break my aunt’s domination, leave the -mill, and earn my own way with the first thing that offered itself -outside the mill. - -About this time I read of a young fellow who earned large profits by -selling steam cookers. I wrote to the firm, borrowed five dollars, -and obtained a sample and a territory. This cooker consisted of five -compartments which fitted in each other like a nest of boxes. The -sample was on such a small scale that great care had to be exercised in -a demonstration of it. I practised faithfully on it for a few evenings, -tried to sell one to my aunt, and then resolved to take a day’s holiday -and attempt a few sales. One cooker would yield a good day’s pay. I -resolved to abide by instructions and persevere. - -So I started out one afternoon, full of hope, assured that the cooker -would sell on sight and that my way out of the mill had come. I did -not then think that personal appearance had everything to do with -successful salesmanship. I did not stop to think that a tall, bony, -red-eyed youth, with a front tooth missing and wearing trousers which -bagged at the knees, whose coat-sleeves were just high enough to show -that he had never worn a pair of cuffs in his life--I did not stop -to think that he would invite laughter and ridicule on his head. I -faced the situation seriously and earnestly, and I expected the same -consideration from the world. - -I walked cheerfully to a wealthy portion of the town, in a district -where I was certain they would like to see my wonderful steam cooker. -In great, gulping patience I waited for an answer to my ring before a -very aristocratic house. I arranged my “patter” and determined that -everything should go on smoothly so far as my talent was concerned. - -The lady of the house appeared and I stated my business. She did not -invite me into her house. I exposed my wonderful machine, pulled it -apart, explained how she could cook cabbages, puddings, and meats at -one and the same time. I expatiated on the superiority of steam-cooked -foods, and implied that she could not intelligently keep house and -maintain a reputation as a cook unless she used the steam cooker. -She bore my “patter” with great patience, and must have smiled at my -cockney dialect, of which I was blissfully ignorant. - -I had reached that part of the demonstration where the several sections -had to be fitted into each other, and had put the first two sections -in place and told what foods could be cooked in them, when I came to -grief at the third section. It stuck, and in spite of the beads of -perspiration which rolled down my face and a vain attempt to keep up -the “patter,” I could not unfasten it until I had turned the wonderful -cooker upside down, a proceeding which would have emptied the beans and -puddings in practical use. The woman was very kindly, and she dismissed -me with cordial words. But I went down those steps chagrined and fully -persuaded that I must stay in the mill. - -My uncle was now earning his living by keeping another store. He and my -aunt were spending the profits in a next-door saloon. My home life had -not improved. - -Then I remembered the novels I had read; some of them, an “Army and -Navy Series,” had told of apprentice life in the navy. I knew that -Newport was the recruiting station, and I resolved to enlist. - -When I proposed the matter to my aunt, she agreed to let me go. The -following morning I obtained a day’s holiday and went on the electric -cars to the noted seaport town. - -This trip abroad, with its opportunities to see that there were people -who did other things besides work in the mill, and with its freedom and -sunshine, made me more desperate than ever to leave the mill. I was -like the Pilgrim in the first chapter of Bunyan’s allegory, running -from the City of Destruction, fingers in ears, calling “Life, Life!” - -I walked around Newport cliffs and touched the gateways of the palaces -which front the famous walk. I reveled in the shimmer of the sea and -the fragrance of shrubs and flowers. This was life and the world! I -must get out in it; take my place daily in it, and live the life of a -Man. God made the sun and the fragrant air; he made the flowers and -created health. That was due me, because it was not my sin, but that of -my elders, which had shut me out of it through my boyhood. These were -some of the thoughts uppermost in my mind. I walked the narrow streets -and broad avenues--places which I had read of and had never hoped to -see. If I had to return to the mill, I could say that I had seen so -much of the outside world, at least! - -After I had watched the departure of some torpedo-boats in the -direction of a gray-fronted fort across the bay, I hurried in the -direction of the naval college to see if Uncle Sam would give me the -chance to leave the mill which others had denied. - -I passed a training-ship with its housed deck. I walked along past -drill grounds and barracks and entered a quiet office. With a beating -heart I announced to the attendant that I had come to offer myself for -enlistment in the training-school. He led me into a large, dim room to -a group of uniformed officers. They asked me a few questions, tested me -with bits of colored wool, and then I was commanded to disrobe. - -The remainder of the examination must have been exceedingly -perfunctory, for the scales registered only one hundred and eighteen -pounds and I stood five feet eleven inches in my bare feet. That was -enough to exclude me, but they went on with the tests, examining my -teeth (the front one was missing), pounding my chest, and testing the -beat of my heart. No comments were made, and after I had dressed again -I was sent to an anteroom and told to wait their decision. - -For a few long minutes I sat in the silent room wondering what would -be the decision. I was optimistic enough to plan what I would do if I -should enter the navy. I should--here the attendant came, offered me a -tiny card, and without a word bowed me to the door. I knew then that I -had been refused. I walked through the yard in a daze. When I reached -the city, I took heart to read the card they had given me. I recall -that it read thus simply: “REFUSED. Defective teeth. Cardia--” Uncle -Sam did not want to give me a chance! - - - - -_Chapter XXI. The Ichabod of Mule-rooms, some Drastic Musing, College -at my Finger-tips, the Mill People wait to let me pass, and I am Waved -into the World by a Blind Woman_ - - - - -_Chapter XXI. The Ichabod of Mule-rooms, some Drastic Musing, College -at my Finger-tips, the Mill People wait to let me pass, and I am Waved -into the World by a Blind Woman_ - - -On my return from Newport I went to work in one of the oldest mills -in the city. The “mules” were in a gloomy basement--a crowded, dim, -and very dirty place to work in. It was the Ichabod of mule-rooms, -with every trace of glory gone. The machinery was obsolete and had -to be helped along with monkey-wrenches, new parts, and constant, -nerve-wearing wearing watchfulness. The alleys were so narrow that the -back-boys had to edge in between the frames; and expanded chest often -meant a destructive rubbing on bobbins and a breaking of threads. It -always seemed to me that this room was reserved by the corporation to -work off its veteran spinners and its unreliable ones, its veteran -machinery, and its bad-tempered, ineffective bosses. This mule-room -was the byword among the spinners at that end of the city. A man hung -his head when he had to tell another that he was working in it; for -it generally was his testimony to his fellows that he was in the last -ditch. Spinners graduated from that room into scrubbing or oiling. - -The personnel of this room was always changing; but its prevailing -character remained the same: a dull-eyed, drunken set of men, a -loafing, vicious set of young fellows who worked a week and loafed -three. - -I chose to work in that place because it was my first opportunity for -an advance from doffing to “joiner.” A “joiner” is one who shares with -another the operation of a pair of mules--a semi-spinner. The pay is -divided, and the work is portioned off between the two. I had been -working toward this position for six years and a half, and now it had -come, even in that miserable room, I was eager to see how I should -manage. - -But, oh, the mockery and vanity of all efforts, even my wild ones, to -master one of those machines! The lurching, halting, snapping things -could not be mastered. Threads snapped faster than I could fasten -them. One tie and two breaks, two ties and three breaks, along the -row of glistening spindles, until there were so many broken threads -that I had to stop the mule to catch up. And every stop meant the -stoppage of wages, and the longer a thread stayed broken, the less I -was earning; and on top of that, the bosses swore at us for stopping -at all. I should have stopped work then and there--it would have been -the sensible thing to do--but I was no loafer, and I was trying to make -good in this new work--the end of a long desire. The other “joiners” -and spinners did not try to keep at it. They gave up the work as soon -as they discovered how useless it was to try to make a decent wage -from the worn-out machines. Only myself and a few poor men who were -there because they could not get any better place stayed on and fought -the one-sided fight. Every time the machinery broke--and breaks were -constant--the machinist grumbled, and took his own time in coming with -his wrenches. - -The physical and mental reaction of all this upon me was most woeful. -My muscles grew numb under the excessive pressure on them, so much -so that I often stood still when the threads were snapping about me -and looked on them as if I had never seen a broken thread before. -Or I would suddenly stop in my wild dashes this way and that in the -mending of threads and look dazedly about, feel a stifling half-sob -coming to my throat, and my lips would tremble under the misery and -hopelessness of it all. My only consolation, and very poor, too, lay in -the clock. At six o’clock it would all end for a few hours at least, -and I could get out of it all. But when you watch the clock under those -circumstances, an hour becomes two, and one day two days. So the labor -was, after all, a wild frenzy, a race and a stab and a sob for ten and -a half hours! I can never think of it as anything more. - -Some of my work-fellows in that room were sent to jail for assault, -petty thieving, and drunkenness. I used to think about them, in the -jail, doing light work under healthy conditions, even though they were -paying penalties for lawlessness, but I, who had done no crime, had to -have ten hours and a half of that despairing contest with a machine. -How much better to be sewing overalls or making brooms in a jail! I had -to stay in the house at night in order to be thoroughly rested for the -next day’s work. I had no liberty. - -And, added to all this, there was the constant depressive contact -with unsympathetic and foul-mouthed desecrators of ambition. Those -who knew me in that room were aware that I was trying to avoid every -degenerative and impure act. Some of them passed word around also that -I was attending such and such a church! They came to the end of the -mule, when the boss chanced not to be around, and, in a huddled group, -stood at my elbows, where I had work to do, and put on their dirty lips -the foulest vocabulary that ever stained foul air. - -Then one day there came a flash which clearly lighted up everything. -“Why are you going through this wild, unequal labor in this dull room -day by day! Why? Do you absolutely have to do it? Are others keeping at -it, as you? Why, why, why?” each one bigger than its fellow, made me -meet every fact squarely. “To what end all this?” - -My labor was helping to buy beer at home! I was giving up all my wage -to my aunt, and getting back a little spending money. I had fifteen -cents in the bank at the time. I did not _have_ to overstrain myself as -I was doing. I _had_ the privilege of giving up my work at any moment -I chose. I was no slave to such conditions. No man could drive me to -such tasks. Giving up the work only meant a scolding from my aunt and -a little going about among other mills to find another, and perhaps -better, position. This was a new thought to me--that I could leave my -work when I wanted; that I might be given work too hard for me. - -Previously I had worked on the supposition that whatever was given me -_ought_ to be done at all costs; that the _mill_ was the measure of a -man, and not _man_ the measure of the mill. I had always looked upon -my work as a test of my moral capacity; that any refusal to work, even -when it was harder than I could bear, was a denial of my moral rights. -But now the worm of conscience was boring through me. Why should I, -at twenty years of age, not be entitled to what I earned, to spend on -my education, instead of its being spent on my aunt’s appetite for -intoxicants? - -Then, too, why should I have to work with people who had no moral or -mental sympathy with me? Was five dollars and seventy-five cents, my -pay for the first week in that gloomy room, worth it? Assuredly not. - -But, then, what could I do outside of the mill? I had done nothing else -but work in the mill and spend a little time on a farm. If I left the -mill at so late a time, left all the technical knowledge I had gathered -while I had been going through it, should I be doing the best thing for -my future? There seemed nothing in the future from the mill, for, as I -have shown, I had not the strength to cope with more difficult tasks -than those that then faced me. Probably if I got out of doors, in some -open-air work, I should gain strength and be able to make progress in -some other line of work. But I had been trying for that, and nothing -had come. What then? - -Then the greatest light of all came--flooded me. _Leave the mill at any -cost!_ Stop right where I was; quibble no more, offend all, risk all, -but _get away from the mill_! It was all so simple after all! Why had -I not worked it out before? _Leave home! Have all I earned to save for -my education!_ That was my emancipation proclamation, and I started to -follow it. - -First of all, I went to the overseer in that dingy room and told -him frankly that the work he had given me to do was too hard for -me. I could not keep it up. I also told him I did not care to leave -just then, but, if he had any easier work in the room--doffing, -for instance--I should like to continue. He did not receive this -declaration with any expression of reproach, as I had expected, but -said simply: “You go to work back-boying on those first three mules. -You’ll make as much money by it as at anything in here.” - -This first break made, how easily all others followed, as if they had -been waiting around all the time! It was just at this time that I met -a young fellow who had come back to the city to spend his vacation from -study at a university in the Middle West. To him I told all my thoughts -concerning getting away from the mill. I said: “I wonder if I went out -where you go to college, and worked at something for a time, just to be -away from mills, whether in time I might not have money enough on hand -to be able to start on _my_ way towards an education?” - -“How much do you think you would have to save?” he asked, smilingly. - -“Why--why, hundreds of dollars, isn’t it?” - -“Do you think so, Al?” - -“Why, certainly.” - -“And how long would you work to save up?” - -“Oh,” I replied, “that depends upon what I get to do and how much I -could put by.” - -“Suppose, Al, that you could go right out and start right in with -school at the university--it has a preparatory course--and work your -way along, what would you say?” - -“You mean, jump right in now, this year?” - -He nodded. - -“But it’s all I can do to board and clothe myself by working hard in -the mill. I couldn’t by any means work hard enough to pay for going -through a school.” - -“How much would you be willing to--oh, Al, you’re all wrong about the -cost. I tell you, old fellow, you can get through a year at my place on -a hundred dollars: board, tuition--” - -“What’s that?” - -“Teaching and room and heat. All the rest of your expenses won’t amount -to over fifty dollars, if you’re careful.” - -I gazed on him, open-mouthed, for I thought he was laughing at me. - -“Say--you aren’t kidding me, are you? All that is straight--about being -so--so cheap?” - -“Why, yes, it’s all true enough. I think you can manage it too, Al. -I’ll do my best to speak a word for you. Get ready to go in three -weeks, no matter how much money you have. I think you’ll be able to get -some outside work to do at the university, to work your way through and -meet expenses.” - -“Well,” I said, “I sha’n’t be sorry even if I don’t get a chance at -the school for a while, you know. If I could only get something to do -_near_ there, my chance might come later. I shouldn’t be any worse off -than I am here. I can earn my living at something, don’t you think so?” - -“Why, yes, I do; but I think you will have a chance at the school -without having to wait.” - -“Oh, I can hardly believe that,” I exclaimed for sheer joy. - -“But you can make all your plans for it, just the same,” said my friend -with confidence. - -This new outlook set every strong emotion shouting in me. The world was -not dressed in so gray a garb as I had thought. I went home and told my -aunt about my new plan. She said: - -“You’ve never asked _me_ if you could go!” - -“Well, no,” I said, “I haven’t; and I don’t think I need to. I mean to -set out for myself, at any rate. It’s about time now that I was doing -something for myself, don’t you think so?” - -“I think you’re an impudent puppy, that’s what!” indignantly cried my -aunt. - -I told Pat and Harry, and they could hardly believe their own ears; but -they urged me to take the chance, for they thought it was a “chance.” - -My work--all work in the mill--had suddenly taken on a temporary aspect -now, a means to a great end and not an end in itself. I could look on -it now and feel that I had mastered it at last. The throbbing, jubilant -shout of the victor was on my lips now. I saw past those lint-laden -rooms, the creaking, whirling pulleys, and the clacking belts; past -them, and everything that the mill meant to me; to a very pleasant new -life ahead; one whose ground was holy and on which it was the privilege -of but few to walk. I think there must have been a complete effacement -of all the lines that had marked my face. For once, I felt sure of -myself; sure that all the lines of leading were to mass into one sure -road toward a better thing. - -My mind was not on my work for the following three weeks. I went about -with a dream in my eyes. I know I whistled much and began to lose all -respect for those machines which had driven me, in times past, like a -chained slave. I even found myself having much pity for all the other -men and boys in the mill. I went among them with hesitation, as if I -had a secret which, if told, would make them feel like doing what I was -about to do. - -I had found out from a ticket agency in the city that my fare to the -Middle West would cost approximately seventeen dollars. I knew that -in two weeks, with the week’s wage that the mill always kept back and -with the seven dollars my Uncle Stanwood had promised to let me have, -that I should have my railway fare and incidental expenses, anyway. So -there, in the ticket agency, I had the clerk take me, with his pencil, -over the route I should later take in the cars. It was a wonderful -itinerary. I was to see the mountains of New England, the lakes of the -border, and to plunge into a new part of the country! It would take -me three days. How I stared at the prospect of so much traveling! I -obtained time-tables with maps containing the route over the different -railways I should ride on during that journey away from the mill. Three -days from the cotton mills! That was a thought to make a fellow dance -all day without rest. - -One day I lay sprawled out at full length in an alley behind a box, -so that the overseer might not see me, when Micky Darrett peeped over -my shoulders at the maps I had spread out on which I had traced and -retraced my great journey with a pencil. - -“What yer’ doin’, Priddy?” said Micky. “Oh,” I announced with studied -nonchalance, “just planning out the road I shall take in two weeks. I’m -going to college, you know.” - -“Oh,” laughed Micky, “quit yer kiddin’ like that! _What_ are you doin’, -really?” - -“Just what I said, Micky. I mean it.” - -“Gee!” gasped the little Irishman; “yer a sporty bluffer, Priddy!” - -“But ’tis true, though,” I insisted. - -“What yer givin’?” growled Micky. “It’s only swells goes ter college.” - -“That’s what you think, Micky, but it’s God’s truth that I go in two -weeks and try to make a start.” - -“Gee!” he gasped; “I allus thought you was poor. You must have got a -lot of money saved, all right, all right!” - -“That’s where you’re wrong, Micky. I shall have about three weeks’ -wages and what my uncle gives me--seven dollars--if he gives it to me -at all. That’s all I’ve got to start on.” - -“Don’t stuff that down me, Priddy!” cried Micky, in great disgust, for -he hated to be made sport of. “You can’t bluff yer uncle.” - -But nevertheless he published all over the room what I had told him, -and thereafter I answered many questions about myself and my plans, and -had to spend much energy in rebutting the prevalent suspicion that I -was “bluffing the room.” - -Then came my last Saturday in the mill--the last day I have ever spent -in the mill. I did my work with a great conscience that day. I don’t -believe the second hand had to look twice to see if I had done my -sweeping well. The spinners had become very friendly, as if my ambition -had won respect from them, and even the overseer came to me just before -I left the room, took me by the hand, and said: “I wish you the very -best of luck, Priddy. Keep to it!” - -On Monday morning, at six o’clock, I sat in the train. I had drawn -thirteen dollars from the mill, received seven dollars from my uncle, -said good-by to my old friends, and paid fifteen dollars and sixty-five -cents for a ticket. Aunt Millie, in tears, had kissed me, and had hoped -that “I’d do well, very well!” Uncle Stanwood had carried my hand-bag -for me to the electric car and had given me good counsel out of his -full heart. Now I sat listening to the mill bells and whistles giving -their first warning to the workers. “You’ll never call for me again, I -hope!” I said to myself as I listened. Then the train started, and I -glued my face to the window-pane to catch a last glimpse of the city -where for seven years I had been trying to get ahead of machinery -and had failed. The train went slowly over the grade crossings. I -saw the mill crowds at every street, held back by the gates, waiting -deferentially while I, who had been one of them last week, was whirled -along towards an education. I saw them as I had walked with them--women -in shawls and looking always tired, men in rough clothes and with dirty -clay pipes prodded in their mouths, and girls in working aprons, and -boys, just as I had been, in overalls and under-shirts. And I was going -away from it all, in spite of everything! - -One of my friends was an old woman, stone blind. When I had given her -my farewell, she had said: “Al, I’ll be at the crossing in front of my -house when the train goes by on Monday morning. Look for me. I’ll wave -my handkerchief when the train passes, lad, and you’ll know by that -sign that I’m sending you off to make something of yourself!” - -We came to the outskirts of the city; the mill crowds had been left, -and at last a lonely crossing came, the one for which I had been -looking. I had the window open. The train was gathering speed, but I -saw the black-garbed blind woman, supported by her daughter, standing -near the gates, her eyes fixed ahead, and her handkerchief fluttering, -fluttering, as we plunged into the country. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH THE MILL *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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