CHAPTER III. THE LITTLE MILL-GIRL’S ALMA MATER. The education of a child is an all-around process, and he or she owes only a part of it to school or college training. The child to whom neither college nor school is open must find his whole education in his surroundings, and in the life he is…
Chapter IIChild-Life in the Lowell Cotton-Mills In attempting to describe the life and times of the early mill-girls, it has seemed best for me to write my story in the first person ; not so much because my own experience is of importance, as that it is, in some respects, typical of that of many…
CHAPTER I.LOWELL SIXTY YEARS AGO. “That wonderful city of spindles and looms, And thousands of factory folk.” The life of a people or of a class is best illustrated by its domestic scenes, or by character sketches of the men and women who form a part of it. The historian is a species of mental…
INTRODUCTION. WHENEVER the history of economic conditions in this country shall be written, the author will express his gratitude for all works giving the details of especial epochs and phases of industrial life. Among them he will find no more interesting experience than that attending the entrance of women to the industrial field. The author…
Chapter 20 A bright morning, and everybody and everything in South London singing cheerfully. Elderly birds in cages, cocking one eye and looking up at the sky, on being hung outside windows straightway began an air of which they had nearly forgotten the tune; the people hurrying along the pavements hummed or whistled; shopkeepers chatted…
Chapter 19 It was certainly not inclination that took Mord Em’ly by the ear that evening, and led her slowly but determinedly to Greenwich. Fear was mainly responsible, aided, perhaps, by a reckless spirit of fatalism. The little woman had kissed Henry Barden’s letter a good many times before she had started out—had pinned it…
Chapter 18 Mord Em’ly paid another visit to the registry office, where her name and a shilling had been recorded with some desire to see if the unexpected happened. Her vague hopes were that she might obtain an engagement at some distant dining-rooms, where she could remain in hiding until Wetherell had forgotten her; that…
Chapter 17 The sergeant’s wife declared herself sorry, but her mother was coming the next day, and the spare room had to be at once prepared for that lady’s reception. The sergeant’s wife wished Mord Em’ly could have stayed on, and the infant Highlander was also full of regret, but it could not be helped….
Chapter 16 Mord Em’ly said good-bye to Mitchell’s Dining-Rooms, and Mrs. Mitchell kissed her, cried a good deal, and gave to her ten shillings over and above her wages, a number of ham sandwiches, and a bunch of coral that originally came (Mrs. Mitchell said) from goodness only knew where. Miss Mitchell so far unbent…
Chapter 15 To Mord Em’ly’s great relief, her father did not appear at the cemetery, and as, for some days after this, she heard nothing of him, she persuaded herself that he had disappeared. A letter came from Henry Barden, dated from Brindisi—a brief letter, which announced the arrival there of the P. & O….