"Indeed, yes. The mills are constantly turning out great quantities and, fortunately, the market is free. We dispose of them as fast as we can finish. We could sell more if we could manufacture more. But this is not what has brought you here, I fancy. Tell me your errand, please. I have much to get through with before closing."
The return to his business manner again chilled Amy's enthusiasm, but she thought of her father and what she hoped to do for him, and needed no other aid to her courage.
"I've come to ask a place in the mill. I want to work and get paid."
"Certainly. If you work, you will be paid. What makes you want to do it? Does your father know?"
"He has consented. I think he understands, though he didn't seem to care greatly, either way. I must do it, sir, or something. It was the only thing I knew about."
"You know nothing about that, really. The girls here are from an altogether different class than that to which you belong. You would not find it pleasant."
"That wouldn't matter. And aren't we all Americans? Equal?"
"Theoretically. How much do you suppose you could earn?"
"I don't know. Whatever my work was worth."
"That, at the beginning, would be not more than two dollars a week, and probably less. It would be fatiguing, constant standing in attending to your 'jenny.' I really think that you would better abandon the idea at once. Try to think of something nearer what you have known."