She’ll never come back, Lyddie thought sadly as she watched the buggy disappear around the corner, headed for the depot and the train north. She’ll never be strong enough again to work in a mill thirteen, fourteen hours a day. When I’m ready to go myself, she thought, maybe I could sign that cussed petition. Not for me. I don’t need it, but for Betsy and the others. It ain’t right for this place to suck the strength of their youth, then cast them off like dry husks to the wind.

*  *  *

He was standing by the front door of Number Five when she came with the rush of girls for the noon meal. “Lyddie Worthen …” He said her name so quietly that she almost went past him without hearing. “Miss Lyddie …”

She turned toward the voice, which didn’t seem familiar, to see a tall man she didn’t know. Later she realized that he had not been wearing his broad black Quaker hat. She would have known him at once in his hat. His hair in the sunlight was the rusty red of a robin’s breast. Several girls nudged her and giggled as they pushed past her up the steps to the boardinghouse.

“I was hoping thee would come,” he said. He was so tall he had to stoop over to speak to her. “I’m Luke Stevens.” His grave brown eyes searched her face. “Has thee forgotten?”

“No,” she said. “I’d not forgot. I just never expected—”

“I wondered if thee would know me in this strange garb.” He was wearing shirt and trousers of coarse cotton jean—the kind of cloth the Lowell mills spit out by the mile. She would have known him at once in his Quaker hat and his mother’s brown homespun. “I’m fetching some freight from down Boston way,” he said almost in a whisper, glancing over his shoulder as he spoke. “They tend to look out for Friends on the road.”

“Oh,” she said, not really understanding.

“My pa sent thee this,” he said, handing her a thick brown parcel about the size of a small book. “He didn’t want to risk the post with it, and since I was coming down Boston way—”

She took the parcel from his big, rough farmer fist. “I thank you for your trouble,” she said.

“It was no trouble.” Was he blushing behind that sun- and wind-weathered face? How odd he seemed.

She felt a need to be polite. “Maybe Mrs. Bedlow could find you some dinner,” she said. “We was just coming to eat.”

“I can’t stay longer. I’m due in Boston. But—but, I’m obliged,” he said.

“Well …”

“I’d best be on my way …”

“Well …” She could hear the calls and clatter of the dinner hour even through the closed front door. She’d hardly have a minute to eat her meal if he didn’t go.