“I’m obliged to you for everything,” Lyddie said.

Diana shook her head. “They need to know. They’ll worry.”

The roommates were already getting into bed. “You’re late,” Amelia said.

“I come as soon as the bell rung—”

“Oh, you’re not really late,” said Betsy. “Amelia just doesn’t approve of where you’ve been.”

“It was Diana Goss, wasn’t it?” Amelia asked.

“Yes.”

“And?” Lyddie was taking off her bonnet, then her shawl. And what? What did Amelia mean? Amelia answered her own question. “Did she try to make you join?”

Lyddie folded her shawl, still uncomprehending.

“She means,” said Betsy, “did she tie you up and torture you until you promised to join the Female Labor Reform Association?”

“Oh, Betsy,” said Prudence.

“She never mentioned such,” Lyddie said. She made her way around Amelia and Prudence’s bed and trunks to the side of the bed that she shared with Betsy. She sat on the edge and began to take off her shoes and stockings.

“Then what were you doing all that time?”

Betsy slammed her book shut. “What affair is it of yours, Amelia?”

“It’s all right,” Lyddie said. She had no desire to get her roommates stirred up over nothing. “She just give me paper to write to my family to tell them where I was.”

“Oh Lyddie,” Prudence said. “How thoughtless of us. We never offered.”

“No matter,” Lyddie said. “I done it now.”

“She’s devious,” Amelia muttered. “You have to watch her. Believe me, Lyddie. I’m only thinking of your own good.”

Betsy snorted, reached over, and blew out the candle as the final curfew bell began to clang.

10

Oliver

The four-thirty bell clanged the house awake. From every direction, Lyddie could hear the shrill voices of girls calling to one another, even singing. Someone on another floor was imitating a rooster. From the other side of the bed Betsy groaned and turned over, but Lyddie was up, dressing quickly in the dark as she had always done in the windowless attic of the inn.

Her stomach rumbled, but she ignored it. There would be no breakfast until seven, and that was two and a half hours away. By five the girls had crowded through the main gate, jostled their way up the outside staircase on the far end of the mill, cleaned their machines, and stood waiting for the workday to begin.

“Not too tired this morning?” Diana asked by way of greeting.

Lyddie shook her head. Her feet were sore, but she’d felt tireder after a day behind the plow.

“Good. Today will be something more strenuous, I fear. We’ll work all three looms together, all right? Until you feel quite sure of everything.”