A great blob of ink fell from the pen right at her name. She blotted it, but the black spread up into the body of the letter. She tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter—that Charlie would not be bothered, but she was too bothered by it herself. She’d meant the letter to show him how well she was doing—how she was learning and studying as well as working, but the black stain ruined it. She destroyed the page and could not seem to start another.

*  *  *

No matter how fast the machines speeded up, Lyddie was somehow able to keep pace. She never wasted energy worrying or complaining. It was almost as if they had exchanged natures, as though she had become the machine, perfectly tuned to the roaring, clattering beasts in her care. Think of them as bears she’d tell herself. Great, clumsy bears. You can face down bears.

From his high stool at the back corner of the great room, she could almost feel the eyes of the overseer upon her. Indeed, when Mr. Marsden got up to stroll the room he always stopped at her looms. She was often startled by the touch of his puffy white hand upon her sleeve, and when she turned, his little mouth would be forming something she took to be complimentary, for his eyes were crinkled as though the skin about them had cracked in the attempt to smile.

She would nod acknowledgment and turn back to her machines, which at least did not reach out and pat you when you weren’t watching.

He was a strange little man. Lyddie tried once to imagine him dressing in the morning. His impeccable wife tying that impeccable tie, brushing down that black coat, which by six A.M. would be white with the lint blowing about the gigantic room. Did she polish his head as well? And with what? You couldn’t use shoeblack of course. Was there a head grease that could be applied and then rubbed to a high shine? She saw the overseer’s impeccable wife with the end of a towel in either hand briskly polishing her husband’s head, just above the ears, then carefully combing back the few strands of grayish hair from one ear to the other. It was hard to put a face on the overseer’s wife. Was she a meek, obedient little woman, or someone like Mrs. Cutler, who would rule him as he ruled the girls under his watchful eye? Not a happy woman, though, for Mr. Marsden did not seem to be the stuff from which contentment could be woven.