Then it was my turn. Uncle stood up before that perfunctory young man and began to answer questions, pinching me every now and then in warning to remember what he had said. I braced up, as well as I could, muttering to myself, “Thirteen on the twentieth of November, going on fourteen, sir!” lest, when the time came, I should make a guilty slip. My school-certificate was produced, the books were consulted, and that part of the matter ended. The clerk then looked me over for an instant, asked me a few questions which I cannot now recall, and then turned to uncle. Slowly, with hand raised to God, my uncle swore that I was “thirteen last November.” In about five minutes the examination was completed. In that time there had been a hurried scratching of a pen, a flourish or two, the pressure of a blotter and a reaching out of uncle Stanwood’s hand. The last barrier between me and the mill was down! The law had sanctioned my fitness for a life of labor. Henceforth neither physician could debar me, nor clergyman nor teacher nor parent! No one seemed to have doubted my uncle’s word, nor to have set a moral plumb-line against me. It had been a mere matter of question and answer, writing and signing. The law had perfunctorily passed me, and that was enough!
So we passed out of that office, my uncle grimly clutching the piece of paper for which he had perjured himself—the paper which was my warrant, consigning me to years of battling beyond my strength, to years of depression, morbidity, and over-tired strain, years to be passed in the center of depravity and de-socializing doctrine. But that was a memorable and glad moment for me, for to-morrow, maybe, I should carry my own dinner pail, and wear overalls, and work for wages!
Chapter VIII. The Keepers of
the Mill Gate, Snuff Rubbing,
and the Play of a Brute
Chapter VIII. The Keepers of
the Mill Gate, Snuff Rubbing,
and the Play of a Brute
“THE first question that we have to settle,” commented my aunt, when we returned home with the mill-certificate, “is, what is Al going to work at in the mill?”
“It might be well to let him go into the weave-shed and learn to weave,” said my uncle; “after he’s learned, he might be able to run some looms and earn more than he could in any other part of the mill.”
“Meanwhile, he don’t draw any money while he’s learning, and it takes some months, don’t it?”
“Yes.”
Then I interrupted, “I’d like the weave room, Aunt Millie. I want to draw as big a wage as I can.”
“You shut your yap!” she retorted, angrily. “You haven’t any finger in this, mind. I say that he must get to work at something right away, that will bring in immediate wages.”