"Oh, did you see me then? Did I see you? What is your name? Ah, are we up there already?"
"You can ask questions, can't you? Yes, I saw you. My name is Mary Reese. If you saw me, you certainly didn't notice me, and I'm always mighty glad when folks don't turn for a second stare at my poor shoulders."
"Mary, nobody would, surely," cried Amy, and flung her arm protectingly across the deformity of her new friend.
"You dear, to think you'd do that when you know me so little. Well, there's many a body touches my hump 'for luck,' but I can't remember when anybody did for—love. I'm not going to forget it, either. Even a homely little hunchback has her own power among these people. There, we're here. This is our 'jenny.' I'm so glad we are to work on the same machine. There'll be another girl on your side till you learn; then she'll be taken off and we'll be alone. I'll like that. Shall you?"
"I—think—so," responded Amy, absently, her attention now engrossed by the excitement about her. Girls were hurrying to take their places before the long frames filled with reels, on which fine woollen threads were being wound by the revolutions of the machinery overhead. These reels whirled round so rapidly that Amy could not follow their motion, and the buzz-buzz, as of a thousand bees humming, filled her ears and confused the instructions of the girl who was to give her her first lesson in winding and "tending."
Across the great frame Mary nodded encouragingly, but it is safe to say that Amy had never felt so incompetent and foolish as she did while she was striving to understand what was expected of her.
"No, no, no; you must be quicker. See, this spool is full. This is how. 'Doffer,' here!"
The lad who had created the ripple of admiration on his passage to this room, now approached. His motions were exact and incredibly swift. It was his duty to remove full spools and replace them by empty ones, and he did this duty for sixteen spinning frames. Seeing the "new hand's" astonishment at his deftness he became reckless and, intending an unusually dexterous movement, miscalculated his reach, and the result was a momentary tangle among the whirling spindles.
"Stupid, see what you're at!" cried Amy's instructor, as by a swift movement of her foot she brought the rapidly circling frame to a standstill. "Now, you've done it!"