“Good for you, Al!” she exclaimed, “We’ll make short work of having you in the mill now.”
As I attempt to visualize myself to myself at the time of my “graduation” from the common school, I see a lad, twelve years of age and growing rapidly in stature, with unsettled, brown hair which would neither part nor be smoothed, a front tooth missing, having been knocked out by a stone inadvertently thrown while he was in swimming, a lean, lank, uncouth, awkward lad at the awkward age, with a mental furnishing which permitted him to tell with authority when America was discovered, able to draw a half of an apple on drawing-paper, just in common fractions, able to distinguish between nouns and verbs, and a very good reader of most fearsome dime novels. The law said that I was “fitted” now to leave school and take my place among the world’s workers!
But now that I was ready to enter the mill, with my school-certificate in my possession, Uncle Stanwood raised his scruples again, saying regretfully enough, “Oh, Al mustn’t leave the school. He might never get back again, Millie.” My aunt laughed cynically, and handed two letters to her husband.
“Read them, and see what you think!” she said. Uncle read the two letters, and turned very pale, for they were lawyer’s letters, threatening to strip our house of the furniture and to sue us at law, if we did not bring up the back payments we owed on our clothing and our furniture! “You see, canter,” scoffed aunt, “he’s got to go in. There’s no other help, is there!” Uncle, crushed, said, “No, there isn’t. Would to God there was!” And so the matter was decided.
“In the morning you must take Al to the school-committee and get his mill-papers,” said my aunt, before we went to bed.
“I’ll ask off from work, then,” replied my uncle.
I always enjoyed being in the company of Uncle Stanwood. He was always trying to make me happy when it was in his power to do so. I knew his heart—that despite the weakness of his character, burned with great love for me. He was not, like Aunt Millie, buffeting me about, as if I were a pawn in the way. He had the kind word for me, and the desirable plan. On our walk to the school-committee’s office, in the heart of the city, we grew very confidential when we found ourselves beyond the keen, jealous hearing of Aunt Millie.
“That woman,” he said, “stops me from being a better man, Al. You don’t know, lad, how often I try to tone up, and she always does something to prevent my carrying it out. I suppose it’s partly because she drinks, too, and likes it better than I do. Drink makes quite a difference in people, God knows! It’s the stuff that kept me from being a man. Now that you’re going into the mill, Al, I hope you’ll not be led off to touch it. Whatever you’re tempted to do, don’t drink!” Then he added, “I’m a nice one to be telling you that. You see it every day, and probably will see it every day while your aunt’s with me. I could leave it alone if she weren’t in the house. But now we’ve got to be planning what we are going to do in the office that we’re going to, I suppose. There’s a lie in it for both of us, Al, now that we have our foot in so far. You’ll have to swear with me that you’re the right, legal age, though it’s a deliberate lie. My God, who would ever have thought that I’d come to it. It’s jail if we’re caught, lad, but we won’t be caught. Don’t do anything but answer questions as they’re put. That will keep you from saying too much. Stand on your tip-toes, and talk deep, so that you’ll seem big and old.”
Finally we approached the office of the school-committee, in a dingy, wooden building, on the ground floor. A chipped tin sign was tacked underneath the glass panels of the door, and, sure of the place, we entered. We were in a narrow, carpeted hall, long and darkened, which passed before a high, bank desk, behind which sat a young man mumbling questions to a dark woman, who stood with her right hand held aloft, while a boy stood at her side trying to button his coat as fast as he could, in nervousness. There were several other boys and a few girls, seated with their parents on the settee near the wall. We found a place among them, and watched the solemn proceedings that were taking place before us, as boys and girls were questioned by the young man, vouched for by their parents, and sent off with their mill-certificates.
One by one they left us: tall Portuguese lads, with baggy, pepper-and-salt trousers over their shoe tops, and a shine on their dark cheeks, little girls in gaudy dresses and the babyishness not yet worn off their faces; Irish lads, who, in washing up for this solemn time, had forgotten patches of dirt in their ears and on their necks; an American boy, healthy, strong, and self-confident, going to join the ranks of labor.