“So you’re going to be a wage-earner, like your uncle, are you?” laughed my aunt, when I returned with the news of my success. “Run right down to the Jew’s and get a pair of overalls, the blue ones, and two two-for-a-quarter towels, the rough, Turkish ones. Then come right home, and get to bed, for you’ll have to get up in good season to-morrow morning, so’s to be on hand when Zippy calls for you.”
The next morning I was awakened at half-past five, though it took very little to awaken me. My aunt was busy with the breakfast when I went out into the kitchen to wash my face. She turned to me with a kindness that was unusual, and said, “How many eggs shall I fry, Al? Have as many as you want this morning, you know.” I said that three would do.
I came into a place of respect and honor in the family that morning. My aunt actually waited upon me, and watched me eat with great solicitude. There was toast for me, and I did not have to wait until uncle was through before I got my share of it. With no compunction whatever, I asked for a second piece of cake!
Then, while the six o’clock mill bell was giving its half-hour warning, Zippy knocked on the door, while he whistled the chorus of, “Take back your gold, for gold will never buy me!” Five minutes more were spent in listening to moral counsels from my aunt and uncle and to many hints on how to get along with the bosses, and Zippy and I went out on the street, where we joined that sober procession of mill people, which, six mornings out of seven, the whole year round, goes on its weary way towards the multitude of mills in that city.
Zippy did all he could to make my advent in the mill easy. Before we had reached the mill gates he had poured forth a volume of sage advice. Among other counsels, he said, “Now Al, if any guy tells you to go and grease the nails in the floor, just you point to your eye like this,” and he nearly jabbed his forefinger into his left eye, “and you say, ‘See any green there?’ Don’t ever go for a left-handed monkey-wrench, and don’t go to the overseer after a carpet-sweeper; them’s all guys, and you don’t want to catch yourself made a fool of so easy. If the boss puts you to sweepin’ wid me, why, I’ll put you on to most of the dodges they catches a new guy wid, see!”
When we arrived at the mill gates, Zippy looked at the big tower clock, and announced, “Al, we’ve got twenty minutes yet before the mill starts, let’s sit out here. You’ll be right in the swim!” and he pointed to a line of men and boys sitting on the dirt with their backs braced against the mill fence. Either side of the gate was thus lined. Zippy and I found our places near the end of the line, and I took note of what went on. The air thereabouts was thick with odors from cigarettes and clay pipes. The boys near me aimed streams of colored expectoration over their hunched knees until the cinder walk was wet. Everybody seemed to be borrowing a neighbor’s plug of tobacco, matches, cigarette papers, or tobacco pouch. Meanwhile, the other employees trudged by. Some of the men near us would recognize, in the shawled, bent women, with the tired faces, their wives, struggling on to a day’s work, and would call, jocosely, “’Ello, Sal, has’t got ’ere? I thowt tha’d forgot to come. Hurry on, girl, tha’s oilin’ t’ do!” Or the younger boys would note a pretty girl tripping by, and one would call out, “Ah, there, peachy!” The “peachy” would turn her coiffured head and make her pink lips say, “You old mutt, put your rotten tongue in your mouth, and chase yourself around the block three times!” A woman, who was no better than her reputation came into view, a woman with paint daubed on her cheeks, and that was the signal for a full venting of nasty speech which the woman met by a bold glance and a muttered, filthy curse. Girls, who were admirable in character, came by, many of them, and had to run the gauntlet, but they had been running it so long, day in and day out, that their ears perhaps did not catch the significant and suggestive things that were loudly whispered as they passed.
When at last the whistles and the bells announced five minutes before starting time, the keepers of the gate jumped up, threw away cigarette stubs, emptied pipes, grumbled foully, took consolation from tobacco plugs, and went into the mill.
Zippy led me at a run up three flights of iron-plated stairs, through a tin-covered door, and into a spinning-room. When we arrived, not a wheel was stirring. I almost slipped on the greasy floor. Up and down the length of the room the ring-spinning frames were standing like orderly companies of soldiers forever on dress parade. Above, the ceiling was a tangled mass of belts, electric wires, pipes, beams, and shafting. The room was oppressively heated, and was flavored with a sort of canker breath.
As I stood there, interested in my new surroundings, the wheels began to move, almost silently, save for a slight, raspy creaking in some of the pulleys. The belts began to tremble and lap, the room was filled with a low, bee-like hum. A minute later, the wheels were whirling with such speed that the belts clacked as they turned. The hum was climbing up the scale slowly, insistently, and one could not avoid feeling sure that it would reach the topmost note soon. Then the girl spinners jumped up from the floor where they had been sitting, and went to their frames. Some pulled the levers, and tried their machines. Everybody seemed to be shouting and having a last word of gossip. The second hand stood near the overseer’s desk with his fingers stuck in his mouth. He whistled, and that was the signal for all the girls to start their frames. At last the pulleys had attained that top note in their humming, like a top, and with it were mixed screams, whistles, loud commands, the rattle of doffer’s trucks, poundings, the clanking of steel on steel, and the regular day’s work was begun.
Zippy had gone into the elevator room and changed his clothes. He stood near me, and I saw his lips move.