by Sarah Ellis
Auntie spoke right into my ear so that I could hear her and she told me my job. I am to take the full bobbins off the spindles and replace them with empty ones. This is called doffing. When I was carrying the bobbins in their wooden box to the right place I saw another girl, smaller than me, doing the same job. I smiled but she just looked at the floor in a timid way.
At ten o’clock there was a loud bell. This is when we have a break for a rest and to use the toilet. When they turned off the machines the silence was louder than the sound. I felt as though I had silence clouds around my ears stuffing them up.
I met the other spinning frame operatives. Mrs. Brown is a stern-looking woman with a turned-down mouth. She is a widow and her two sons and one daughter work at the mill. Then there are Mrs. Murphy and Miss Bertha Rose. A smiling woman with dark red hair I guessed to be Mrs. Campbell, even before she told me. “I’ve already heard a lot about you from Murdo,” she said. “You will have discovered that Murdo talks like this machine spins — he never tires!”
The other doffer girl is called Ann. She does not have much to say.
The friendliest and prettiest operative is a young woman, younger than Auntie Janet, named Agnes Bamford. Ann and I are the only girls. The break went very quickly and at the end Mr. Haskin came in. He gave a little speech in a thin voice about working hard. When he turned his back to leave I saw Agnes make a funny face. She saw me seeing her and winked at me.
Another loud bell at noon told us that it was time for dinner. We took our dinner outside to eat. There is a garden next to the mill for the mill workers, and a cricket pitch for the men. It was quiet and it felt good to breathe outside air. Murdo and some other boys who work in the dye house played catch. Three girls from the weave room talked among themselves. I tried to talk to Ann, saying that the wool made me think of snow, but she just said, “No, that’s not right. Snow is cold.” There’s not much you can reply to that.
Agnes came to sit with Auntie and me and she asked all sorts of questions. Where was I from? Where had I been? What had I seen? “I’m just longing to go anywhere,” she said, “anywhere but Carp and Almonte.” I noticed that Auntie Janet wasn’t too friendly to Agnes. Polite enough, but distant. The half hour passed by in a second and my ears were barely unplugged before we went back into the racket.
Then it was the same until six o’clock when another bell rang and that was a very welcome sound. One the walk home Auntie told me that every time she caught sight of me in the day her heart danced. “Almost everyone has family here,” she said, “and it is just grand to have one of my own people here with me.” I could not seem to say this, but I am happy just to be somebody’s people.
Today was much the same except that I met Murdo’s father and all six brothers and sisters, Kathleen, Percy, Archie, Willie, John and baby Bea. Kathleen works in the weave room. They all have some kind of red hair. Mr. Campbell works in the dye house. Uncle James says he must take his children there when they are babies and dip their heads in cochineal. (Cochineal is red.)
One more thing. I forgot to tell you about someone else at the mill. It is Smokey the spinning-room cat. Her job is to catch mice so that they don’t eat our dinners! She is soft and grey and her tongue is very raspy. Agnes said that Mr. Flanagan could fire all the carders and just let Smokey lick the wool into shape.
June 1887
June 1
Dear Papa and Mama,
The day is done and darkness falls from the wings of night. Isn’t this a fine way of saying that it is nighttime? It is poetry. It is from a poem by Mr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
In the spinning room some of the operatives have pieces cut out of newspapers, or hand-written, stuck on to their machines. Auntie told me that they were poems or songs or hymns that the operatives were learning by heart. We are not allowed to bring books to the mill to read, but Mr. Haskin does not mind the paste-ups. The day is full of short periods of time, just long enough to read a line or two, when you are not really doing anything, but you cannot leave the machine.
This day is done poem is pasted up on Agnes’s machine so every time I doff it I try to learn one more line. Here is the first verse:
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night.
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
Longfellow is a good name. I wonder if he was tall? What would it be like if our names described one thing about the way we look? The visiting minister at St. John’s would be Rev. Bigbeard. Murdo would be Mr. Flamehead and I would be Miss Flora Sheepfleecehair. Mr. Haskin would be Mr. Pinchnose.
I have a lot of practice with naming because of naming fairies. Of course eleven is far too old for fairies, especially as I am a mill operative, but nobody knows except you (and Alice.) My main fairies are Moon-Shadow and Sundew, who are beautiful and good, and Bladderwort, who is bad. I wonder if Alice will keep on with her fairies. Harriet and Ellen didn’t have much time for make believe.
I do miss Alice. I try to be friendly with Ann, but she seems a very dull girl. Her father works in the repair shop. He is very silent, with stern eyebrows and he does not seem to pay Ann much mind.
June 2
Dear Papa and Mama,
Last night I had a bad dream of the mill. All the bobbins were filling up faster and faster and then falling off the machine and everything was getting tangled. I tried and tried to replace them, but my legs felt as if they were pushing through deep snow and then all the wool in the air really turned into deep snow and my feet were freezing. Then I woke up and I was so so glad to be back in the world and not in my dream. I told Auntie Janet about the dream and she said that she gets that dream, that every spinner gets that dream, of not being able to keep up. On the way to work she told me and Uncle James a comical story about a man who gets a magic porridge pot and it just keeps bubbling out porridge because he has forgotten the magic words to make it stop, until the porridge is running down the streets. Uncle James started to say all the words he knew for stop, like halt and cease and “Quit, you blessed porridge!” Uncle James is cheery so early in the morning.
Later, when the working day was over and we were all pouring out of the mill and up the road, I felt as though we were a river of magic porridge.
The verse for today was:
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me
That my soul cannot resist.
I think that Long Fellow is a good poet. Sometimes a feeling of sadness comes o’er me too, but not today, which turned out to be a happy one.
It was also a useful day, as I learned how to rescue a turtle. On the way home we saw a large snapping turtle on the road near the river. They are the most odd and ancient-looking creatures, with claws like bears. Uncle said it was likely looking for a nesting site and that it didn’t stand a chance of crossing the road with all the horses and wagons. So he picked it up and carried it. “Use two hands,” he said, “and pick it up from the back, with the tail between your hands. And don’t get in range of those jaws.” I will remember that if I ever decide to help a snapping turtle cross the road, but I probably won’t.
June 3
Dear Papa and Mama,
I think Auntie Janet is the kindest person in the world. Not kind in the way that the Home visitors were kind, but kind and jolly, which is different. This evening we were washing some clothes and she noticed my flour-sack drawers. At the Home we made all our underwear out of feed sacks. Feed sacks are made of good strong stuff and sometimes they are even pretty colours, but sometimes they have words on them and no matter how many times you wash them or how long you leave them in the sun to bleach, the words still show. I ended up with a pair of drawers that said something embarrassing on them.
When Auntie Janet saw them she did not laugh. She just said that So-Big Flour was an unfortunate thing to have printed on your underwear, b
ut luckily nobody sees it. So then I just had to tell her the story about the time I slipped on the ice while going to the store and before I could get my dress pulled down that horrid boy who helps the coal man saw the So-Big Flour words and he mocked me and how I wanted to sink into the earth and disappear. Auntie Janet said that there is nothing more horrid than horrid boys. Then we went on washing for a bit. Then she said, “Of course it could have been worse. It could have said Best Hog Feed.” Then we laughed until we were crying. Auntie Janet said we must stop before we got the washing water salty, but we couldn’t.
After the washing I read out loud from the newspaper. I read serious and dull things and then I read that Mr. Gomersill has put in a Bell telephone and that there are twenty-one subscribers to the telephone exchange in Arnprior. Then I read about a man who married two wives. When the wives found out, they got together and attacked the man with an axe and a broomstick. Uncle James asked Auntie Janet what she would do if she found out that he had another wife and she said she would push him out in the Mississippi in a canoe with no paddle. He said that didn’t sound so bad and then she said that she would do it just above the falls.
June 4
Dear Papa and Mama,
Today was payday and half day. We finish at noon and then we go to the paymaster’s desk. Of course I do not get wages yet because I am still learning, but Auntie Janet said that I had been a great help to her and so she gave me twenty cents and said I could buy whatever I liked. I knew right away what I wanted so I went to the dry goods store. I bought a paper of embroidery needles and then, after much much thinking and choosing, three skeins of embroidery cotton. I picked apple green, rose and forget-me-not blue.
On the way home I was frightened by a one-armed man sitting outside the livery stable with a skinny yellow dog. When I passed by he yelled out, sharp and angry. I just about dropped the shopping. Later Uncle told me that the man’s name is Barney. He lost his arm in an accident at the mill years ago, and after the accident the young woman he was engaged to wouldn’t have him and then he just got more and more bitter and now he doesn’t talk. He just yells. The liveryman gives him a bed and food. Uncle said he’s harmless, but I’m going to walk on the other side of the street just the same.
June 5
Dear Papa and Mama,
A feeling of sadness has come o’er me. I got up early this morning and I decided to have a drink of water from one of the pretty teacups. But as I was taking it down from the shelf I knocked it and the saucer cracked. It is not in pieces, but if you look carefully you can see the crack. Auntie only has two of these cups. They have orange sunflowers on them and a bit of gold on the edge. Now one is spoiled. I did not want to own up to my carelessness so I just put the cup and saucer back on the shelf. When Auntie uses them next will she notice? Will she know that I did it? I am careless and deceitful. I cannot write any more about this.
June 5 (later)
Dear Papa and Mama,
All through church I could not think of anything but the saucer. Every prayer and every reading seemed to be directed right at me. I could not even enjoy the hymns. The ordinary minister was back. His name is Rev. Parfitt. He is young and clean-shaven. The sermon was not as interesting as last week and I could not listen at all. All I could think about was that Auntie and Uncle would be angry and send me back to the Home. When we came out from church it was raining and that seemed a punishment for me as well.
After lunch Uncle James went off somewhere and I just dreaded that Auntie Janet would suggest we have tea from the fancy cups. At the same time I hoped she would suggest it so that we could get it over with. When she finally said did I want a cup of tea I just burst into tears. At the Home I became very good at never crying, but all the kindness here in Almonte has made me weak.
Of course then I told her everything. She looked at the saucer and said that I mustn’t be distressed and that she would show me the magic trick of mending cracked china. She put the saucer in a saucepan of milk and put it on the fire. “We’ll simmer that for a few hours,” she said, “and all will be well.” And it was. You could not even tell it had been cracked. My heart is mended too.
June 6
Dear Papa and Mama,
I’ve got one more verse by heart from Mr. Longfellow:
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
I think this is about big sad and little sad. But I am neither today because I have done well at work. Mr. Haskin gave me an extra job. Sometimes when the carriage moves away from the frame one of the threads breaks. My job is to follow the carriage as it moves back toward the frame, pick up the two ends and twist them together again. This is called piecing. The good thing about this job is that you don’t know when you will have to do it, so it is not as tedious as doffing. The bad thing about it is that you don’t know when you will have to do it, so you have to pay more attention. But I am glad for the extra job. Auntie says I should be proud of myself because I have shown that I am a good worker after only one week.
Ann is even more silent than usual. I think she is put out because of my new job. I don’t know what to do about that.
Your daughter, Flora Rutherford, doffer and piecer
June 7
Dear Papa and Mama,
Smokey has disappeared. All morning I expected to feel her winding around my legs. At the break I asked the weave room ladies if they had seen her, but they hadn’t. She did not appear all day. I have only known Smokey a week, but already I miss her. I have always wanted a cat. Once Ellen McAnally at the Home found a stray kitten, but Matron would not let us keep it. We promised that we would take care of it and give it part of our own food, but she said it would be too much bother. I know it is wrong to hate, but I did hate Matron then.
The other news is from Agnes. She had it from her cousin, who is a spinner at the mill in Sherbrooke. We are to have commissioners at the mill, commissioners from the government. They will ask us questions and then they will write it all up in a big report that the Prime Minister will read.
We wondered what they will ask, and she said they will ask us about our wages and our hours and such.
Agnes says they will talk to everyone and they will write it all down. Mrs. Brown snorted and said, “Talk to the likes of us? That’ll happen the next day after never.” I think Mrs. Brown must be right. They will speak to Mr. Flanagan surely, or perhaps Mr. Haskin, but I don’t think the Prime Minister will want to read about me. I think Mr. Flanagan will have them to tea in the office and we will not see them at all.
Uncle James says that he wishes the commissioners would stop and inspect Bessie Murphy. When I asked why he just rolled his eyes. So, at dinnertime, I asked the weave room trio and they told me the whole story. Bessie Murphy is the room girl in Uncle James’s weave room and she is very mean to Lizzie Bruce. Seems that Lizzie Bruce is the cousin to Mary Bruce and Mary Bruce stole away Bessie Murphy’s beau. So, when Lizzie’s loom has a problem Bessie won’t go untangle the warp for ages and ages and that puts Lizzie behind in her work and makes for bad feeling all through the room. But I don’t think the Prime Minister will want to know about this.
June 8
Dear Papa and Mama,
I am learning a great deal by reading The Almonte Gazette to Uncle James and Auntie Janet. It comes out on Fridays and lasts us all week. Tonight I read about the plans to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. This year she has been the queen for fifty years. She rules over the British Empire, which has 250 million people. In the paper it said that she sets an example to us all, “frowning down anything antagonistic to pure life.” This took us quite a while to understand, even after I sounded out “antagonistic.” I think I finally figured out that she must be something like Mrs. Brown, who frowns down men like Frank Coleman who say rude things to the female operatives. Except that Queen Victoria does this all over the world. Uncle James say
s that that is a lot of frowning. The newspaper also said we are lucky to be living in such a favoured and progressive age.
The Almonte celebration will be on June 21. Great things are planned, such as a parade and sports and concerts. Then came the best news. Right there in the paper it said that Mr. Flanagan will close Almonte Woollen Mill No. 1 for the whole day so that everyone can attend the celebration.
I’ve learned another verse of Mr. Longfellow’s poem:
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
June 9
Dear Papa and Mama,
It is easy to daydream at work. The noise makes you stay inside your own mind. Sometimes I daydream about riding a horse beside a rushing train. Sometimes I daydream about living in a grand house, wearing a beautiful silk gown and spending my day arranging flowers and reading poetry. Sometimes I daydream about being a fairy, who goes around making things better for everybody by magic. I fly with Sundew when she turns sunlight into gold for all the beggars and with Moon-Shadow when she touches down on sick people in the night and makes them well.
All these daydreams have a family in them, a horse-riding family, a rich family, a fairy family.
June 10
Dear Papa and Mama,
Agnes has more to say about the commissioners She says she is going to tell them all our complaints. Then when the Prime Minister reads the report he will make sure that justice is done. She says that she is going to tell the commissioners about getting locked out when we are late and about the time when some man threw a bobbin over the partition between the men’s and women’s water closets and how she is sure it was Frank Coleman and how the partition isn’t high enough anyway.
