“I mean it’s … it’s unladylike and … and against the Scriptures.” Amelia’s voice was shaking as she spoke.

“Against the Bible to fight injustice? Oh, come now, Amelia. I think you’ve got the wrong book at that church of yours.”

Lyddie looked from one angry face to the other. She cared nothing for being a lady or being religious. She was making far more money than she ever had at home in Vermont or was ever likely to. Why couldn’t people just live and let live?

The clang of the curfew bell quieted the argument but not Lyddie’s anxiety.

13

Speed Up

Lyddie could not keep the silly song out of her head. It clacked and whistled along with the machinery.

Oh! I cannot be a slave,

I will not be a slave …

She wasn’t a slave. She was a free woman of the state of Vermont, earning her own way in the world. Whatever Diana, or even Betsy, might think, she, Lyddie, was far less a slave than most any girl she knew of. They mustn’t spoil it for her with their petitions and turnouts. They mustn’t meddle with the system and bring it all clanging down to ruin.

She liked Diana, really she did, yet she found herself avoiding her friend as though radicalism were something catching, like diptheria. She knew Mr. Marsden was beginning to keep track of the girls who stopped by Diana’s looms. She could see him watching and taking mental note.

When Diana came her way, Lyddie could feel herself stiffening up. And when Diana invited her to one of the Tuesday night meetings, Lyddie said “No!” so fiercely that she scared herself. Diana didn’t ask again. It ain’t about you, Lyddie wanted to say. It’s me. I just want to go home. Please understand, Diana, it ain’t about you.

The ten-hour people were putting out a weekly newspaper, The Voice of Industry. Lyddie tried to keep her eyes from straying toward the copies of the weekly, which were thrown with seeming carelessness on the parlor table. Then one night after supper she and Amelia came upstairs to find Betsy chortling over the paper in their bedroom.

“Here!” she said, holding it out to Lyddie. “Read this! Those plucky women are going after the legislature now!”

Lyddie recoiled as though someone had offered her the hot end of a poker.

“Oh Lyddie,” Betsy said. “Don’t be afraid to read something you might not agree with.”

“Leave Lyddie alone, Betsy. You’ll only get her into trouble.”

“Never fret, Amelia. Our Lyddie loves money too much to risk trouble.”