This confirmation of the withering blow broke her down. I saw that she was tottering to a fall, and threw my arms round her just in time to prevent it. We laid her on the settee, insensible to everything about her.
As the news of our great bereavement spread, the neighbors crowded in, offering their sympathy and aid. It was very kind of them, but, alas! could do nothing towards lightening its weight. The story of how my dear father came to his untimely end was at length related to us. He had gone out upon the river in a boat from which a seine was being cast, and by accident, no one could tell exactly how, had fallen overboard. Being no swimmer, and the water of icy coldness, he sank immediately, without again coming to the surface. Strong arms were waiting to seize him, upon rising, but the deep had closed over him.
I know not how it was, but the prostration of my poor mother seemed to give me new strength to bear up under this terrible affliction. Oh! that was a sad evening for us, and the birthday to which all had looked forward with so much pleasure as the happiest of my life was to be the saddest. Morning—it was Sunday—brought comparative calmness to my mother. But she was broken down by the awful suddenness of the blow. She wept over the thought that he had died without her being near him,—that there had been no opportunity for parting words,—that she was not able to close his dying eyes. She could have borne it better, if she had been permitted to speak to him, to hear him say farewell, before death shut out the world from his view. Then there was the painful anxiety as to recovering the body. It had sunk in deep water, in the middle of the river, and it was uncertain how far the strong current might have swept it away from the spot where the accident occurred. The neighbors had already begun to search for it with drags, and all through that gloomy Sunday had continued their labor without success; for they were not watermen, and therefore knew little of the proper methods of procedure.
Days passed away in this distressing uncertainty. Our pastor, Mr. Seeley, missing Fred and Jane from Sunday-school, as well as myself from the charge of my class, and learning the cause of our absence, came down to see us. His consolations to my mother, his sympathy, his prayers, revived and strengthened her. Finding that her immediate anxiety was about the recovery of the body, he told her that the bodies of drowned persons were seldom found without a reward being offered for them, and that one must be promised in the present case. This suggestion brought up the question of payment, and for the first time in our affliction it was recollected that my father had always persisted in carrying in his pocket-wallet all the money he had saved, and thus whatever he might have accumulated was with him at the time of his death. Following, nevertheless, the advice of our excellent pastor, a reward of fifty dollars was advertised, and just one week from the fatal day the body was brought to our now desolated home. But the wallet, with its contents, had been abstracted. The little fund my mother had always managed to keep on hand was too small to meet this heavy draft of the reward in addition to that occasioned by the funeral, so that, when that sad ceremony was over, we found ourselves beginning the world that now opened on us incumbered with a debt of fifty dollars.
But though borne down by the weight of our affliction, we were far from being hopelessly discouraged. It is true that my young hopes had been suddenly blasted. The bright pictures of the future which we had painted in our little sitting-room the very morning of the day that our calamity overtook us had all faded from sight, and were remembered only in contrast with the dark shadows that now filled their places. The cup, brimming with joyous anticipations, had been dashed from my lips. My birthday passed in sorrow and gloom. But I roused myself from a torpor which would have been likely to increase by giving way to it, and put on all the energy of which I was capable. I felt, that, while I had griefs for the dead, I had duties to perform to the living. The staff on which we had mainly leaned for support had been taken away, and we were now left to depend exclusively on our own exertions. I saw that the condition of my mother devolved the chief burden on me, and I determined that I would resolutely assume it.
I had Fred immediately apprenticed to an iron-founder in the neighborhood; and thenceforward, by his weekly allowance for board, he became a contributor to the common support. My knowledge of the sewing-machine secured for me a situation in a large establishment, in which more than thirty other girls were employed in making bosoms, wristbands, and collars for shirts; and I gradually recovered from what at first was the bitter disappointment of having no machine of my own.
I have seen it stated in the newspaper, that, when some cotton had been imported into a certain manufacturing town in England, where all the mills had long been closed for want of a supply from this country, the people, who were previously in the greatest distress, went out to meet it as it was approaching the town, and the women wept over the bales, and kissed them, and then sang a hymn of thanksgiving for the welcome importation. It would give them work! It was with a feeling akin to this that I took my position in the great establishment referred to, having also succeeded in obtaining a situation for my sister, whom I instructed in the use of the machine until she became as expert an operator as myself.
The certainty of employment, even at moderate wages, relieved my mind of many domestic cares, while the employment itself was a further relief. It was, moreover, infinitely more agreeable than working for the slop-shops, or even for the most fashionable tailors. Our duties were defined and simple, and there was no unreasonable hurry, and no night-work: we had our evenings to ourselves. As usual with sewing-women, the pay was invariably small. The old formula had been adhered to,—that because the cost of a sewing-woman's board was but trifling, therefore her wages should be graduated to a figure just above it. She was not permitted, as men are, to earn too much. My sister and I were sometimes able to earn eight dollars a week between us, sometimes only six. But this little income was the stay of the family. And it was well enough, so long as we had no sickness to interrupt our work and lessen the moderate sum.
They paid off the girls by gas-light on Saturday evening. As we had a long walk to reach home, the streets through which we passed presented, on that evening, an animated appearance. A vast concourse of work-women, laborers, mechanics, clerks, and others, who had also received their weekly wages, thronged the streets. There were crowds of girls from the binderies, mostly well dressed, and sewing-women carrying great bundles to the tailors, many of them, without doubt uncertain as to whether their work would be accepted, just as we had been in former days. As the evening advanced, the shops of all descriptions for the supply of family-stores were crowded by the wives of workmen thus paid off, and the sewing-girls or their mothers, all purchasing necessaries for the coming week, thus immediately disbursing the vast aggregate paid out on Saturday for wages.
The quickness with which I secured employment on the sewing-machine, because of my having qualified myself to operate it, was a new confirmation of my idea that women are engaged in so few occupations only because they have not been taught. Employers want skilful workers, not novices to whom they are compelled to teach everything. But what was to be the ultimate effect on female labor of the introduction of this machine had been a doubtful question with me until now, I worked so steadily in this establishment, the occupation was so constant, as well as so light, with far more bodily exercise than formerly when sitting in one position over the needle, and the wages were paid so punctually, with no mean attempts to cut us down on the false plea of imperfect work, that I came insensibly to the conclusion that a vast benefit had been conferred on the sex by its introduction. Yet the apprehensions felt by all sewing-women, when the new instrument was first brought out, were perfectly natural. I have read that similar apprehensions were entertained by others on similar occasions. When the lace-machines were first introduced in Nottingham, they were destroyed by riotous mobs of hand-loom weavers, who feared the ruin of their business. But where, fifty years ago, there were but a hundred and forty lace-machines in use in England, there are now thirty-five hundred, while the price of lace has fallen from a hundred shillings the square yard to sixpence. Before this lace-machinery was invented, England manufactured only two million dollars' worth per annum, and in doing so employed only eight thousand-hands; whereas now she produces thirty million dollars' worth annually, and employs a hundred and thirty thousand hands. It has been the same with power-looms, reapers, threshing-machines, and every other contrivance to economize human labor. I am sure that my brother would be thrown out of employment, if there were no steam-engine to operate the foundry where he is at work, and that, if there were no sewing-machines, my sister and myself would be compelled to join the less fortunate army of seamstresses who still labor so unrequitedly for the slop-shops.