BREAD DOUGH SMACKED AGAINST the kitchen table with a great thwap, sending forth an explosion of floury smoke within which Mrs. Hanson might well have concealed herself, except that continuous muttering betrayed her position. In fresh curses she protested the crick in her neck, the fatigue in her feet, the indifference of young people, and the arrogance of rich. Most specially that great potentate of Lowell himself, Kirk Boott! Her fingers, so arthritic and unwilling as they kneaded the dough, itched to seize and twist the man’s silk cravat until he choked. She might have known he’d turn their interview into an interrogation. More fool her, for marching upon him without reinforcements or artillery. A mistake she would not repeat.
At least no harm had yet come of it. For here was Hannah, gobbling her supper as hastily as any night, her narrow backside propped against the windowsill.
There’d been some fuss among the girls over that little mouse Abigail North, who’d come in with Betsy and Laura and the groceries, a shawl over her head, and scurried upstairs at once. She did not reappear for supper. Mrs. Hanson felt no inclination to investigate; she had kept the Lowell house long enough not to involve herself in all the little dramas of her wards. One more plate of beans and gravy remained on the sideboard, for Abigail or Judith Whittier, whichever had the stomach to come for it. Hannah—Hannah the Gifted, Hannah the Fire-Kissed—never went to bed hungry. Well, house matrons (like mothers) were entitled to their favorites.
Four years earlier, when the ginger-haired maid came to Lowell, Mrs. Hanson had never seen a child so haunted. Hannah was mute among the robust crowd of girls at meal times, and first to retreat to the dormitories while the others took turns at checkers and cards. Finally, the matron told her that the washing-up after supper fell to the newest tenant in the house, and so drove her into the refuge of a task each evening. There, among the scrub brushes and buckets, Mrs. Hanson talked to her. Idle stories. Gossip from the Acre and English Row. The rising price of butter and the waste of modern fashions. The uselessness of Baptist and Methodist ministers alike. It was no more than the matron would have said to herself, if she were alone. She might as well have been, the ginger girl worked so silently.
Not until she witnessed Mrs. Hanson’s tonics and potions did Hannah speak up. One of the Sarahs was carried home from the mills fainting, and her friends begged the matron not to call the doctor, who would charge much, help little, and report every cough and shiver to the corporation. Mrs. Hanson was not inclined to fetch the man anyhow, but instead brewed a tea for Sarah—Hemingway, she thought it was—to answer the trouble. That night, the good woman discovered Hannah staring into her cabinet of herbs as if to memorize every leaf and root, except that her eyes were shut.
“You too can See the genius in things?” she asked, when Mrs. Hanson nudged her to get on with the washing.
“No,” replied the matron. “I learned by rote. My great-granddam could, or so the family lore tells me. But that was a hundred years ago, on a different shore. Now you tell me: what are you doing in a factory if you have the gift?”
“Gift?”
“Your Sight.”
“It is not a gift to me,” the girl sighed. “My father was a waterman on the Chesapeake where the tobacco farmers ship out; in my eighth year, I first witnessed a slave auction there. One young man was standing on the block when I shut my eyes—his soul shone orange like embers—and the planters made their bids, one after another, until they’d conjured a thing that swallowed those burning embers in its mouth. . . . I howled so loudly, our congregation told my parents they must cast me out or be cast out themselves.”
“What happened?”
“The family went west to start a new farm. In the winter, we slept all together in the one room, nine of us and the hogs and the cow, so not to freeze. I couldn’t close my eyes, because I would See the succubae coiling around the necks of the animals.” The girl shuddered.
“You cannot be near subjugated creatures, man nor beast,” said Mrs. Hanson, recalling more of the ancient lore.
Hannah nodded. “My brothers and sisters froze anyway. All but my oldest brother, who escaped to sea. He sailed for two seasons on a whaling ship before he drowned.”
“That’s hard.” Even now, the matron feared a similar end waiting for her first and fourth sons. “But how did you come to Lowell?”
“On the day my parents received the news, I started north. I knew they couldn’t bear the sight of me any longer.” As if her own sad history could no longer interest her, the girl reached out and fingered a jar of hazel bark. “You work magic blind?”
“I grope my way in the dark.” The matron shrugged. “You See but you don’t work it?”
“No one ever taught me. And I was afraid.”
“Well. I can answer the first score and teach you what I know. On the second, I cannot help. I cannot make you brave.” Mrs. Hanson put an arm around the ginger girl’s thin shoulders, to soften the words. For truly, this was a wonder and a precious thing: to have a living Seer in her house. Mrs. Hanson blinked back tears even at the memory of the revelation.
Now the girl sat on the windowsill, masticating her plate of beans and coughing into the underside of her elbow when the phlegm and cotton dust proved too great a barrier to her lungs. She looked listless. Unsettled. Recalling Kirk Boott’s questions, Mrs. Hanson wished she had a lesson to read the girl, a scheme of protection or undetectable attack, but they had sounded the depths of the matron’s wisdom and found bottom some time ago.
And now here was Judith Whittier on the threshold, sniffing the air like a hound for whatever food might be on hand. This one. Mrs. Hanson smiled—could not forbear smiling—as she put the plate in the little bulldog’s hand. At least Judith’s name had not crossed Kirk Boott’s lips that afternoon.
She dug in where she stood, too ravenous to complain that the beans were cold. Her fist around the spoon was stout and pugnacious as the rest of her, and Mrs. Hanson wondered what they had got up to today. Out in the parlor, sounds of the usual nightly diversions had crept back into the house, and someone was picking out notes on the piano, shaping a recognizable tune.
Mrs. Hanson returned to her kneading, singing to herself.
“There came a young man from the old countree,
The Merrimack River he happened to see,
What a capital place for mills, quoth he,
Ri-toot, ri-noot, ri-toot, ri-noot, ri-umpty, ri-tooten-a.”
It was an old tune, but these lyrics told a tale not so ancient, well known to the farmers and goodwives in the hills around Lowell.
Meanwhile, the girls spoke to one another at last.
“Did I injure you?” Judith began.
“No.” Hannah shook her head at once. “No. I only—I only wonder why you treated Abigail that way? You were so cold with her.”
“She endangered the entire Union—she could have broken the strike—”
Now Mrs. Hanson gave up the final ri-toot. What was this?
“She couldn’t,” said Hannah, setting her empty plate against the table with a clatter. “None of us could. It doesn’t matter how many boardinghouses evict us, or whether our families starve, or we spend our last penny. We can’t end the strike, Judith. That’s how the spell works!”
Judith’s features, close-packed in the center of her face and best suited to expressions of determination and doggedness, nevertheless gave their best impression of astonishment. “Of course. That was the objective—we cannot end it until the owners give in.”
“And if they never do?”
“Then, when we decide—all together—we end it.”
Hannah shook her head. “You don’t realize, do you?”
“Realize what?”
“You spoke the spell.” Hannah smudged a tear off her cheek. “I didn’t know it would happen this way, but it gives you command of us. I could see it plain as day tonight.”
“I didn’t ask to be in command! I thought we were all equals in this endeavor.”
Hannah smiled, a little chuckle escaping her lips.
“What is it?”
“It isn’t a lie if you believe it’s the truth.”
Judith danced foot to foot.
“You have a very hard soul,” said Hannah.
“What?”
“I only mean—I only mean that you could go on and on, much farther than the rest of us could. Or would.” A coughing fit came over Hannah then, and she turned her head. Mrs. Hanson wanted to go to her, to thump her back and stroke her hair out of her face. Instead, she filled a cup of water and pressed it into the Seer’s hands.
Meanwhile the other girl watched, wringing her hands. “So, the other girls want to end it,” she said, “but they can’t, because I don’t. Is that it?”
“No.” Hannah breathed in cautiously, testing her lungs. When no cough exploded back at her, she continued. “They don’t want to end it, not yet. But I’m frightened for you. If we don’t find a way to win soon, you’ll be beset by enemies abroad and at home. Mr. Boott can’t fail to notice you, and the other girls must begin to tire and fear. Abigail isn’t the only operative with troubles.”
Hannah wouldn’t lie to spare Judith’s feelings; she couldn’t.
“Do you think I ought to end it?”
Upon discovering the question was meant for her, Mrs. Hanson’s eyebrows rose. “And when has my opinion mattered?”
“You’ve been in Lowell longer than any of us,” said Judith. “You’ve worked for them longest. You must know the enemy best. Can we outlast them?”
Always the little general. Mrs. Hanson sighed. “They are looking for new girls to hire, and not only in Boston. And their pockets are far deeper than yours. Can the lot of you afford to stay out a week? A fortnight? A month? I cannot promise to feed you beyond that.”
Judith’s jaw hardened.
Hannah, the reedy young thing, threaded her arm through the matron’s and put her head upon the older woman’s shoulder. Tired and aching as her limbs might be, Mrs. Hanson suddenly felt quite stout, and patted the girl’s pale hand.
“What is that song you were singing, Mrs. H?” Hannah asked.
“That’s the ballad of your friend Mr. Boott. When the Boston gentlemen wanted to build their mills, ’twas he who spotted for them and noticed the might of the Merrimack below the falls. The only trouble was, the village of Chelmsford was already here, enjoying the rush of the river in pastoral simplicity. So, up he comes to the villagers, playing no more than a sheep rancher—and buys up their land for a trifle:
“And then these farmers so cute,
They gave all their lands and timber to Boott.
“Only after the mills were built, the people of Chelmsford knew what they’d given up.”
“A dissembler through and through,” said Judith, through her teeth.
“A clever businessman, he might say,” said the matron.
“But it’s all built on fictions and theft, isn’t it? Boott stole the land. Old Mr. Lowell stole the looms—”
What other thefts the little radical might wish to enumerate would remain a mystery, however, for Hannah interjected a question. “What do you mean, ‘stole the looms’? They’re built here.”
Unperturbed, Judith replied, “I mean the plans. Did you think our Boston overlords are clever enough to devise a machine of their own? No. Old Lowell crossed the sea just to spy on the Lords of Lancashire and copy their inventions, such as they are. The owners christened the new city ‘Lowell’ to honor his subterfuge. That’s how the power loom reached these free shores.”
If the Seer wished to know any more of this history, her inquiry was cut short, for another coughing fit overcame her. She released Mrs. Hanson in order to bend forward, her palms resting on her knees. While the matron winced at one girl’s hacking, she nevertheless caught a glimpse of the other’s face observing her friend keenly. How strange! Always in the past the parts were swapped: Hannah studying Judith as if she were a lesson Hannah meant to learn.
With a hand, the ginger girl gestured her desire for a handkerchief, and Mrs. Hanson obliged before Judith could supply hers.
“I should fetch Dr. Green,” said Judith, though the coughing abated.
“There’s nothing to pay him,” said Hannah.
“You ought to rest now,” the matron advised. Mercifully, the Seer nodded, though her gaze lingered on Judith before passing and retreating out of the kitchen and up the stairs. The other girl moved to follow her co-conspirator, but the matron caught her with a stern glance.
“Wash up those plates, will you? I’ve already started on tomorrow’s breakfast.”
Reluctantly, the bulldog moved, retrieving the plates and spoons which she and Hannah had eaten off.
“Do you know,” said the matron, as she dusted her fingers to take up rolling and smashing dough once more, “why I stuck you up in that room beside her when you arrived in Lowell, not a friend in the world?”
“To irritate Lydia at every opportunity?”
Mrs. Hanson smiled in spite of herself. “She asked for you. I’d just sent you down to the corporation to log your name with the paymaster, when she comes and tells me, ‘Mrs. H, hers is the brightest soul I’ve ever Seen. If she is beside me, when I shut my eyes, it shall be like staring into the sun that blots out every other flame. All else will be darkness and calm.’ Did you know? Did she never tell you how she manages to sleep when phantoms and demons live on the insides of her eyelids?”
The young bulldog had gone still. “I didn’t know,” she murmured.
“Think on that when you decide to keep the strike or not.”