“Ah,” drawled Mallet, noticing me, as if for the first time, “who tol’ you for to come here, eh?”
“Because I want to,” I retorted.
“Curley,” he called to the brute, who was grinning at me, “gif heem a chew, eh?”
The brute nodded in glee, and pulled out a black plug of tobacco and handed it me.
“You take a big, big chew!” he commanded. I threw the plug on the floor and stoutly declared, “I won’t.” Both of the companions laughed, and came over to where I sat. Curley pinned me helplessly to the floor, while Mallet stuffed the piece of tobacco in my mouth that he had hastily cut off from the plug. Then Curley took an excruciating grip on one of my fingers so that by a simple pressure it seemed as if the finger would snap.
“You chew, or I brak it,” he glared down on me. I refused, and had to suffer intolerable agony for a minute. Then the brute bent his face close to mine, with his foul mouth over my eyes.
“I spit in your eye if you do not chew,” he announced, as he looked off for a second, and then with his mouth fixed he bent over me, and I had to chew.
In a short time I was deathly sick. This accomplished, the giant gave me up until he got to his feet, then he took me in his arms, as he would have taken a child, and carried me out into the spinning-room for the girls to laugh at.
“Dis man try for to chew plug,” announced Mallet. “Now heem seek. Oh! oh!” Then I was carried to the third hand, a friend of the doffers, and Mallet announced, “You’d best fire dis kid. Heem chew and get seek, boss.” The third hand scowled at me, and said, “Cut it out, kid, if you stay here.”
When I went home at the end of the day, aunt asked me what sort of a day I’d had. “Oh,” I said, “when I know the ropes it will be pretty fair.” I was thinking of the three dollars I should get the second week. I said nothing about the tobacco incident. When I sat down to supper, I could not eat. My aunt remarked, “Don’t let it take your appetite away, Al, lad. It takes strength to work in the mill.”