Read Online The Adventures of Allegra Fullerton by Robert J. Begiebing - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert J. Begiebing
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say, at the least, that I have never seen a family more pleased at the likeness of one of its members.
I ALSO RECALLED frequently others along my way who by example had encouraged me to continue with my new life. All during that time in Worcester, after leaving the Dudleys, Tom and I kept our congenial rooms, from which we would set out for one- or two-day jaunts among the mill villages of the river valley. There were longer journeys as well to the north, particularly to Lowell, where Tom knew one or two people in the textile trade.
âThere are miles of girls in those factories!â he promised me. âThough they put the prettiest inside the rows, nearest the windows.â
I had always thought of these girls as the very type of a Fate I wished to avoid at any cost, like the equally dreadful Fates of farm labor, penury, or a marriage of pecuniary convenience. Tom took me into these mills on one occasion. The miles of girls astonished me too. And they were surprisingly healthy in appearance, despite their laboring twelve or more hours a day indoors, where they also tended their indoor plants, many of which had been trained to shade sun at the windows. But what I recall most clearly is the weight of sound pressing upon me like water upon one who sinks to the bottom of a lake.
The air itself completed the sensation of submersionâthe stifling scent of copperas, the haze of dust and lint, the taint of perspiration. I became dizzy in this maze of relentless motion and blare of daylight: the great cylinders overhead, the ponderous swinging bars and swift-turning wheels, the whirring spindles of colored thread. The urgent, thunderous monotony of the machines prevailed over every sight, breath, heartbeat, and thought.
F ROM WORCESTER SOUTH to Rhode Island and north to Lowell, we found among these myriads our share of young women for sittings. Indeed, by September of that year Tom and I had all the work we could manage. We might have stayed on indefinitely but for the willfulness of others, yet during many weeks we were happy in our work and life. I found particular pleasure in making the acquaintance of some of these young women. There were three who impressed me especially and whose stories I gathered in conversation as they sat. Each struck me as a lesson on the singularity of persons within the seemingly undistinguished herds of factory hands and shop girls in New England. But more than this, certain of these young women, I began to understand, were not merely bond-slaves to manufacturers and machines, but tokens of a hard-won mental or pecuniary liberty.
The most interesting of these was one Caroline Parrie. Her appearance was no more ordinary than her mind, and Tom found her very winning. Her face, if not pretty in the fribbling or catchpenny way, was nonetheless appealing, a graceful expression of her natural dignity and character. Her mind was extraordinarily quick, her whole presence strongly affecting. Her clothes were plain but tended toward those deep greens and subtle reds that set off her own color and demeanor perfectly. At both sittings Tom made certain he appeared at some point.
She paid for a careful likeness, one with depth and shading, to serve as a memento for her mother and sisters back home in Reston, Vermont, where Miss Parrie had herself been a schoolteacher who provided much of the support for her sisters and young brother after the death of their father. She had established more recently, however, a regimen of laboring in the mills from fall through spring and teaching school near Reston in the summer.
She either spoke or read five languages and spent most of her few off-hours in reading or composing essays and little poems, many of which may be found in Offerings of Labor , a booklet published twice yearly by mill girls. Our mutual interest in books and her great curiosity about the craft of painting opened our conversations, though at times she was quite beyond me. I found that she had
I ALSO RECALLED frequently others along my way who by example had encouraged me to continue with my new life. All during that time in Worcester, after leaving the Dudleys, Tom and I kept our congenial rooms, from which we would set out for one- or two-day jaunts among the mill villages of the river valley. There were longer journeys as well to the north, particularly to Lowell, where Tom knew one or two people in the textile trade.
âThere are miles of girls in those factories!â he promised me. âThough they put the prettiest inside the rows, nearest the windows.â
I had always thought of these girls as the very type of a Fate I wished to avoid at any cost, like the equally dreadful Fates of farm labor, penury, or a marriage of pecuniary convenience. Tom took me into these mills on one occasion. The miles of girls astonished me too. And they were surprisingly healthy in appearance, despite their laboring twelve or more hours a day indoors, where they also tended their indoor plants, many of which had been trained to shade sun at the windows. But what I recall most clearly is the weight of sound pressing upon me like water upon one who sinks to the bottom of a lake.
The air itself completed the sensation of submersionâthe stifling scent of copperas, the haze of dust and lint, the taint of perspiration. I became dizzy in this maze of relentless motion and blare of daylight: the great cylinders overhead, the ponderous swinging bars and swift-turning wheels, the whirring spindles of colored thread. The urgent, thunderous monotony of the machines prevailed over every sight, breath, heartbeat, and thought.
F ROM WORCESTER SOUTH to Rhode Island and north to Lowell, we found among these myriads our share of young women for sittings. Indeed, by September of that year Tom and I had all the work we could manage. We might have stayed on indefinitely but for the willfulness of others, yet during many weeks we were happy in our work and life. I found particular pleasure in making the acquaintance of some of these young women. There were three who impressed me especially and whose stories I gathered in conversation as they sat. Each struck me as a lesson on the singularity of persons within the seemingly undistinguished herds of factory hands and shop girls in New England. But more than this, certain of these young women, I began to understand, were not merely bond-slaves to manufacturers and machines, but tokens of a hard-won mental or pecuniary liberty.
The most interesting of these was one Caroline Parrie. Her appearance was no more ordinary than her mind, and Tom found her very winning. Her face, if not pretty in the fribbling or catchpenny way, was nonetheless appealing, a graceful expression of her natural dignity and character. Her mind was extraordinarily quick, her whole presence strongly affecting. Her clothes were plain but tended toward those deep greens and subtle reds that set off her own color and demeanor perfectly. At both sittings Tom made certain he appeared at some point.
She paid for a careful likeness, one with depth and shading, to serve as a memento for her mother and sisters back home in Reston, Vermont, where Miss Parrie had herself been a schoolteacher who provided much of the support for her sisters and young brother after the death of their father. She had established more recently, however, a regimen of laboring in the mills from fall through spring and teaching school near Reston in the summer.
She either spoke or read five languages and spent most of her few off-hours in reading or composing essays and little poems, many of which may be found in Offerings of Labor , a booklet published twice yearly by mill girls. Our mutual interest in books and her great curiosity about the craft of painting opened our conversations, though at times she was quite beyond me. I found that she had
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