Suddenly, Diana banged a metal lever at the right of the machine and the loom shivered to a halt. At either end of the shed, made by the crisscrossing of warp threads, was a narrow wooden trough. From the trough on the left she retrieved the shuttle. The shuttle was wood, pointed and tipped at either end with copper. It was about the shape of a corncob, only a little larger and hollowed out so that it could carry a bobbin or quill of weft thread. With her hands moving so quickly that Lyddie could hardly follow them, Diana popped out a nearly empty quill of thread and thrust in a full one from a wooden box of bobbins near her feet. Then she put her mouth to a small hole near one end of the shuttle and sucked out the end of the weft thread.

“We call it the kiss of death,” she shouted, smiling wryly to soften the words. She pulled out a foot or more of the thread, wound it quickly around one of two iron hooks, and rehung the hooks into the last row of woven cloth. The hooks were attached by a yard or so of leather cord to a bell-shaped iron weight. “You have to keep moving your temple hooks,” Diana said. “Pulls the web down snug as you go.” She pointed to the new inches of woven fabric.

“Now,” said Diana, speaking into Lyddie’s ear, “make sure the shuttle is all the way at the end of the race—always on your right here.” She placed the shuttle snug against the right-hand end of the trough. “We don’t want any flying shuttles. All right, then, we’re ready to go again.” Diana grasped the metal lever, pulled it toward the loom, and jammed it into a slot. The loom shuddered once more to life.

For the first hour or so Lyddie watched, trying mostly to stay out of Diana’s way as she moved among the three machines, two opposite and one adjoining. The older girl refilled the shuttles when they ran low and rehung the temple hooks to keep the web tight. Then, without warning, for no reason that Lyddie could see, Diana slammed off one of the looms.