Lyddie hesitated, but her sodden clothes and blistered feet reminded her how unsuited she was to continue the journey. She gratefully accepted the mistress’s offer and worked so hard that before the week was out the woman was begging her to forget Lowell and stay on. But Lyddie was not to be persuaded.

She boarded the coach on Thursday in the same dismal rain she’d arrived in. Handing over three of her precious dollars to the driver, she settled herself in the corner of the carriage. There were only two other passengers—a man and a woman who seemed to be married, though they hardly spoke to each other. The woman gave Lyddie’s dress and shawl and strange boots a critical going over with her eyes, then settled again to her knitting, which the bumping of the coach made difficult.

With the muddy roads, it took two days to get to Windsor. They had not even left Vermont. Lyddie often wished she had saved her dollars and walked—rain or no rain. Surely she could have made it just as fast. But at least the disagreeable people left the coach at Windsor. The bed in the inn was infested with bugs, so she felt both filthy and itchy the next morning, and was not happily surprised that the coach, which had seemed overcrowded with three, was now to carry six as far as Lowell.

One of the passengers was a girl about her own age. Lyddie wanted to ask her if she, too, was going for a factory girl, but she had a young man with her who appeared to be her brother, so Lyddie was hesitant to speak. Then, too, she remembered the look the previous female passenger had given her.

The six of them were jammed into the carriage. There was hardly room for any of them to move, yet the rolling and pitching of the coach seemed worse rather than better for the load. Lyddie tried to sit delicately on one hip and then the other—to spread the bruising out if possible. One of the gentlemen lit a large pipe and the odor of it nearly made her retch. Fortunately, another gentleman reminded him sternly that there were ladies present, and the first man reluctantly tapped his pipe against the metal fixings of the door. But the stench had already been added to the air of foul breath and strong body odors. Lyddie longed for a healthy smell of a farmyard. People were so much fouler than critters.

And still, when the others weren’t concentrating on keeping their seats in the swaying coach, they were looking at her—at her clothes especially. At first she was mortified, but the longer they rode, the angrier she became. How rude they were, these so-called gentry.