Spindle

by Shonna Slayton

  “Briar, is that really you?” Wheeler called out.

  “Yes, but let me concentrate!” Riding under the scrutiny of the pack of boys made her nervous. She rode farther than she needed to so they couldn’t watch as she took a wide turn. She rode back to the boardinghouse without mishap and without giving the boys another glance.

  Her legs were shaking as she got off, but she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “Who’s next?” she asked. Riding a bicycle was one of the most exhilarating things she’d ever done.

  Once Lizbeth was off, wiggling down the road, Briar searched the sidewalks for Wheeler. Now she had just the excuse to talk to him and find out about his move to Burlington. Only, he had disappeared. She’d have thought he’d want to tease her about the bicycle, as it was something they’d discussed before.

  “We ought to form a wheel women’s club,” Mary said.

  “Why?” Mim said. “We’ve only got one to share amongst the lot of us.” She brushed her hands like she was brushing off the dirt of the whole affair and marched back inside.

  Mim might not be able to see it, but Briar and the small cluster of mill girls eager to try the bicycle saw potential in those two wheels.

  While Briar watched the next girl ride off down the street, she imagined how the same conversation she had with Wheeler would have gone with Henry: “Briar, is that really you?” Henry would have called. She would have looked over at his grinning face.

  “What are you doing here?” she would have said before snapping her attention back to the road, wobbling under the distraction. “Go away, Henry Prince. I need to concentrate.”

  “Oh, do I distract you?” he would have asked with a wink.

  She’d be able to feel his grin without even checking to confirm it, and would set her lips in a line, trying to ignore him. If only she could ignore him now. Henry had gone and left the valley; he should leave her thoughts as well. But she kept finding him there. She touched the letter in her pocket, wishing she knew where he was so she could send a reply. Henry. Are you well? How long before you send another?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Had it been a regular spindle, Briar wouldn’t have felt the need to keep it a secret. But the beauty of it and the manner in which she acquired it made her want to protect it. She was nervous leaving it unattended.

  For the past few nights under Mim’s careful eye, Briar had sat on her bed, sewing delicate blue and yellow stitches into the tiny pleats of a little girl’s dress to make a pretty pattern. It was Briar’s first smocking job that Mim had shared with her, and they both needed it to be perfect.

  With the spindle under the bed, she felt like a bird sitting on an egg, keeping predators at bay. She didn’t know how long she could go on like this. She was beginning to feel anxious and nervous all the time, afraid someone would take the spindle while she was gone. Just as she was anxious and nervous all the time at work, teaching Sadie and feeling pressured by the overseer to increase her production. Not to mention each day brought her closer and closer to her birthday and Nanny’s deadline for Briar to have a home for the children.

  Something had to give, soon.

  The house bell rang, interrupting Briar’s thoughts.

  “Meeting time! Come on down!” called Miss Olive.

  Ethel stood, pulling Briar with her. “This talk will be good for you. You’re a single woman who’s taken on the role of provider for your family, yet the law limits you.”

  Mim harrumphed. “You overstate. Briar is doing a fine job with the little ones. She doesn’t need your lectures.”

  “You need the lecture, too, Mim. Maybe you’ll have your eyes opened.”

  “You have your strategy and I have mine. I’m going to find a husband who is rich enough so I don’t have to work anymore.” Mim took a step closer to Ethel.

  “And if you marry a drunkard? What recourse have you?” Ethel closed the gap between the two, raising her voice so that the others passing the room stopped and stared.

  “I shan’t marry a drunkard,” Mim said, eyes flashing. “Why would I do that?”

  “No woman sets out to marry a drunkard,” Lizbeth said quietly from the hallway. It was well known in the house that Lizbeth’s father garnished her wages to feed his habit while her mother struggled to keep food in the house for all the siblings Lizbeth left behind.

  That small declaration took the fight right out of Ethel and Mim. “No, I guess she doesn’t,” Mim said. “I’ll work on your reform clothes while you ladies are at the meeting.”

  Briar followed Ethel to the parlor. “She might try to put lace on your bloomers,” Briar warned, attempting to reconcile. She did hate to see them being contentious with each other.

  “Ha! She might.” Ethel laughed as they found seats. “But if anyone can figure out how to sew my trousers without turning my figure into a man’s, it’s Mim. If she does a good job, she’ll have extra work for as long as she needs it. So many of us are keen on having the proper clothing for exercise but aren’t sure about the pattern.”

  “She only relented because she saw the bloomers in a magazine. If it’s not in Godey’s or Good Housekeeping, she’ll have none of it.”

  The two shared a laugh while waiting for everyone to get settled.

  The woman who had come to speak to them that night was Mrs. Sarah Tuttle. Briar didn’t know what she expected, a larger-than-life figure perhaps, but Mrs. Tuttle was average in every way: brown hair, brown eyes, average height. Her clothing didn’t call attention to herself, either. And she was married! The way the newspapers reported on suffragettes you’d think they were all single, angry, man-hating women.

  Mrs. Tuttle continued to defy Briar’s expectations when she began speaking. Her voice was strong and clear, and she spoke with conviction. No wonder Ethel liked to come to these meetings.

  “Thank you, mill women, for having me speak to you. What a wonderful effect has been caused by you operatives coming together en masse to live and work and educate yourselves. Much has changed since those early days, but we have much left to do. No one suspected back when Mr. Lowell built his first mill over in Massachusetts and invited rural farm girls to move to his boardinghouses that women’s lives would never be the same. For the first time, those industrious farm girls got paid for their work.”

  Applause broke out across the room.

  “They could take their paychecks, send some money home, put some in savings, and spend a little on themselves. They gained independence. They gained choices.”

  More cheering.

  “These weren’t silly or rebellious girls. They loved their families, but they wanted more opportunities. Many a girl put her brother through school with her earnings, and then as educational institutions opened up for women, she could go on to put herself through school, too.”

  Briar joined in the applause.

  “Even though we were getting paid, it was still less than what the men were getting paid. And then, management wanted us to work faster, and for less money. What was once freeing for women became shackles. You all know the song:

  Oh! isn’t it a pity, such a pretty girl as I-

  Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die?

  Oh! I cannot be a slave,

  I will not be a slave,

  For I’m so fond of liberty

  That I cannot be a slave.”

  By the end of the song, the entire room had joined in; they all knew the words. They knew how those mills under Mr. Lowell had been better places to work than they were now. How he didn’t want his mills to be like those in England that Charles Dickens wrote sad tales about.

  In fact, the first mill girls were proud when Mr. Dickens came to visit and pronounced them well dressed, healthy in appearance, well mannered, and none in need of rescuing from the mill. If Mr. Lowell hadn’t died so young, conditions may have stayed the same across all the mills, but they would never know.

  “Thank those operatives before you for their efforts in bringing in the ten-h
our workday. If it were not for them, you would still be standing at your machines toiling until dark.”

  Murmurs spread around the room. Briar’s feet were sore enough after ten hours of standing.

  “We’ve seen what can be done if we band together. We ladies possess a stronger power when we work together, and we need your help in attaining a voice for women everywhere. Already, we have school suffrage for women in twenty states, but not Vermont. School suffrage allows women to vote in school-board decisions that affect their children.

  “Let’s make Vermont next. Know what you are fighting for. You must be educated. Search out a subject and ponder it. Believe you have something to say and a right to say it. Have an opinion, ladies, and express it winsomely.”

  She pulled out a well-worn notebook and turned to a bookmarked page. “Listen to how Elizabeth Cady Stanton speaks to the assemblies on our behalf:

  ‘To throw obstacles in the way of a complete education is like putting out the eyes; to deny the rights of property, like cutting off the hands. To deny political equality is to rob the ostracized of all self-respect.’

  “Mrs. Stanton gives them facts to touch the intellect, and then illustrates with examples to touch their hearts. She tells them of a girl of sixteen thrown on the world to support herself, like many of you.”

  Mrs. Tuttle caught Briar’s eye. “You who must maintain your spotless integrity but with so many temptations and trials to pull you down you feel like you are swimming upstream when all you want to do is rest a moment. You long to drift with the current, but you risk losing all you have gained only because you are weary of the struggle.”

  Mrs. Tuttle paused. She shook her head slowly, allowing the operatives time to imagine a girl giving up and giving in to the baser ways of surviving when you are young and alone.

  “‘She knows the bitter solitude of self.’”

  Briar felt a tightening in her gut. She was that girl of sixteen trying to support herself. And it was hard. She worked tirelessly to keep a home for her little sister and the boys. They were blessed to have Nanny to shelter them for as long as she was willing. The old woman shared what little charity she had for the sake of the children. If only Nanny could hold on a few more years.

  Nanny never asked for more than Briar offered to pay, which never did seem enough, but somehow, with the food baskets from the Prince family, they were surviving. Briar’s solitude wasn’t bitter, but it was burdensome.

  She glanced at Ethel, who was leaning into the speech, nodding along with every point Mrs. Tuttle made. Ethel never talked much about herself, never told her story. But she sure was drinking in all that Mrs. Tuttle was saying.

  Likely every girl in the boardinghouse knew what it was to feel alone. All together, yet still alone. They should help carry one another’s burdens more. Briar smiled when Ethel looked her way. Yes, Briar resolved to be ready to help her fellow mill girl when the opportunity presented itself. They needed each other.

  “We are told to stay in our sphere, the home. But what if a woman can’t stay in the home—either through widowhood, or an abusive husband, or no husband at all?” Mrs. Tuttle put her hand on her hip. “If the woman’s place is in a good home, where are all the good husbands?”

  She paused to allow for laughter from all the single women. It was a question the mill girls batted around in their parlor on a nightly basis.

  “Your sphere goes beyond the home to include whatever work you are able to do. At the Chicago World’s Fair last year, Lucy Stone, God rest her soul, pointed out that ‘the tools belonged to those who could use them; that the possession of a power presupposed a right to its use.’ Use your God-given tools, ladies. As she would say, ‘Make the world better.’”

  Mrs. Tuttle smiled demurely as she received a standing ovation.

  “Well? Isn’t she marvelous?” Ethel leaned over and grasped Briar’s hand. “Tell me all your thoughts.”

  Briar took a deep breath to take time to compose herself. “She described my situation almost exactly.” Her voice cracked. “I feel like I’m constantly trying to swim upstream but getting nowhere.”

  Ethel squeezed her hand. “You are getting further than you think you are. Next, you’ll have to come to a temperance meeting. We’re making real progress bringing the issue of drunkenness to light. We’ll be marching through town Saturday night, which you would miss, but you can help with the signs. And then we need to make the white ribbons for the WCTU rally.”

  Briar turned to the door, about to excuse herself. “Thank you for inviting me, Ethel. I do mean it, but I’m going to turn in early tonight.” The lecture had given her much to think about, and she wanted to be alone to think through her next steps.

  “I know it’s overwhelming to take in all at once. I’ll come up with you.” Ethel started to follow Briar out of the room.

  “No, no. You stay and talk with Mrs. Tuttle.”

  Ethel looked relieved, like she had really wanted to stay. “Is there anything you’d like me to ask her?”

  Briar shook her head. “No, I already know what I need to do.”

  Ethel’s eyebrows shot up. “You do? Oh, Briar, I’m so glad. I hoped she would inspire you in the right direction.”

  Ethel couldn’t possibly know what Briar was planning, but Mrs. Tuttle had given her the push she needed to take a risk, to use the tools she had, even if that wasn’t exactly what the lecture was about.

  Tomorrow she would do a quick spindle swap, and if it didn’t change anything, a quick swap back. She could do it all in one shift, if the overseer got distracted enough. At least then she would know, and if it didn’t work, she could move on to another plan. She didn’t want to become the girl who stopped fighting and allowed the current to sweep her away.

  All she had to do was get to the spinning room tomorrow morning before the overseer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The room was still dark when Briar woke. Ethel was facing away from her, but Briar noted the steady rise and fall of her shoulder as she slept. With as little movement to the bed as possible, Briar slipped out. She quickly changed into her work clothes, forgoing washing.

  As she tied her apron, there was a familiar bump of the small book against her thigh, the one that reminded her she never completed her education. She pulled the book out of her pocket and slid it under her pillow. Maybe one day she’d finish reading it; mark a new chapter in her life by finishing the old.

  After checking and rechecking that the girls were all asleep—Sadie snoring, and Mim with her pillow over her ears—Briar knelt down to retrieve the spindle from under the bed. She slid out the box, cringing as wood scraped against wood. She paused. Listened. Then opened the box.

  There was just enough light to see the spindle against the silk cloth. With only a slight hesitation, Briar reached in with an old cloth handkerchief and scooped up the spindle, silk and all.

  She quickly wrapped everything securely, pausing only to lament that she still hadn’t gotten a good look at it, or even touched it yet. Her fingers were itching to glide over the roses. The shaft was long and stuck out of her pocket, but wrapped in her handkerchief people might think she had hastily jabbed the cloth into her apron.

  Now, even if the girls woke early, she was ready. She buttoned up her boots, and still no one woke. She allowed herself a small smile as she gently opened the door and stepped out. At the click of the doorknob, the first mill bell of the day began to clang. Drat. She rested her forehead on the doorframe. She wasn’t as early as she’d hoped.

  Standing tall, she took a step and bumped smack into Miss Olive. “Oh! Excuse me,” Briar said. A stir of guilt pricked her conscience. Why was she feeling guilty? She’d done nothing wrong. The peddler gave her the spindle.

  Miss Olive’s brow furrowed and she sniffed in the air.

  “Is everything okay?” Briar asked as the bedroom doors flew open. Girls streamed out, racing one another to the outside privies, and jostling Briar and Miss Olive in the process.
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  “Yes, oh, yes. I was merely tracking down an unusual scent.” She breathed again, a look of confusion crossing her face. “Seem to have lost it now amongst all the handcreams and other concoctions up here.” She waved her hand. “No bother, it was probably my nose playing tricks on me. Something I haven’t smelled in years.” She sniffed once more at Briar before heading back downstairs.

  By this time, Mim had opened their bedroom door and stood in the open space. “What was that about? I didn’t think Miss Olive ever came up here until we were gone, and she was collecting our laundry.”

  Ethel stumbled out next, yawning wide. “You’re up early,” she said to Briar. “Or am I late?” She dashed back into the room and banged out drawers in her hurry to dress.

  Mim laughed. “Ha! Haven’t seen that one ruffled in a while. I’ve got to fix my hair yet. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  Briar didn’t wait for her room-mates. She skittered to the kitchen to find Miss Olive. The boardinghouse keeper was up to her elbows in dough as she kneaded the daily bread.

  “May I borrow a tool from the box?” Briar asked.

  “Yes,” Miss Olive answered distractedly. “Make sure you return it tonight.”

  Leaving Miss Olive sniffing the air again, Briar opened the utility closet and located a wrench. Hopefully it would do the job. She stopped by the dining room on the way out to grab a flapjack and was on her way.

  Alone at last, Briar stepped outside, self-consciously trying to hide the spindle end, and now a wrench poking out the top of her apron pocket. Had the season been winter, the morning darkness would have helped, but this early sunrise exposed all.

  “Morning,” another mill girl called in passing. Briar nodded back and then waved at another friendly mill girl.

  When Briar reached the mill, the gates were open, but only a few people were going inside the yard. Most waited for the bell to call them there, which was what Briar was counting on. She needed to be alone with her spinning frame.