May 1887

May 19, 1887

Dear Papa and Mama,

Make a joyful noise! I suppose in heaven you make joyful noises all the time, but make an extra one today. This morning Matron told me such good news that I hardly have the words to say how happy I am. I came right here to write to you in my notebook because if I write it down it will seem more real and fixed and not a dream. Matron had a letter from Auntie Janet. Auntie Janet had three pieces of news. The first thing is that she is married. The second thing is that she and her husband, whose name is James Duncan, have secured jobs in a big woollen mill in a town called Almonte. The third and most wonderful thing is that they have a place to live and they want me to leave Kingston and come and live with them, and work with them at the mill.

When Matron told me I managed to contain myself, but as soon as I was alone (I ran around to the vegetable garden) I cried with joy. I thought of all those joyful noises in the psalms, the sounds of harps and psalteries and timbrels. I do not exactly know what those instruments sound like, but I imagine it to be the sound inside the heart of a girl who has just found out that she will no longer live in the Protestant Orphans Home because she has a real family waiting for her. Rejoice!

Then I went inside to pare parsnips for dinner. Even parsnips for dinner cannot darken such a day.

May 20

Dear Papa and Mama,

Today I woke up early. The coal man was delivering and he is a big yelling sort of man, even before dawn. I almost turned over and went back to sleep when I remembered my news. Why waste time sleeping when I could lie awake being happy?

I took out my box of treasures. Best of the treasures are six letters from Auntie Janet, one for every birthday since I came to the Home, every one saying that she would love to have me with her, one day, when she had a home and a living. And now that one day has come.

I started to think about families. All the children here tell stories about their families, the families they remember, the families who are going to collect them some day. Most of these stories are made up. I know that because I make them up myself.

Every night, after prayers and before I go to sleep, I make up a day with you. Some things I make up from things I remember. Papa, you sing about Annie Laurie whose throat was like a swan. Mama, you hop your fingers up my arm and recite a verse about a rabbit. You have little half-moons on your fingernails. You hold buttercups under my chin and say that I like butter. We have a dog called Laird, who runs around in circles in the snow chasing his own tail. When he trips over his feet we all laugh at the same time. One night there is a thunder and lightning storm. Laird and you, Mama, are afraid, but Papa and I are brave. We love lightning.

Some things in my made-up day are the might-have-beens. We live in a house all on our own, just our family. There is a garden. Sometimes I have brothers and sisters. I find names for them in the Bible. Jeroboam and Timothy and Zillah.

The biggest might-have-been in my story is that nobody ever gets sick and dies.

Matron sometimes says that we are a family in the Home. She especially says this when the patrons come to visit. But we all know that it isn’t true.

But even with my memories and my made-up stories I do not really know what families are like. I know about moments, but not moments knitted together into days.

I thought of families in stories — stories about princesses and fairies. Princesses have families, of course — kings and queens. But mostly they seem to spend their time forbidding things or making up contests for the princess’s hand in marriage. The stories don’t tell about eating dinner or having rows. Fairies don’t seem to have families at all. The Holy Family is a bit better because at least Joseph had a job, being a carpenter, and they went travelling and Jesus went to school and they had troubles, but no brothers and sisters and it is not quite the same, being Holy.

At church and when I go to the shops for Matron I like to look at families. Here is what I have noticed: Fathers are sometimes harsh. I hope Uncle James Duncan is not a harsh man. Sometimes brothers are very kind and sometimes they are horrid. I have never heard a mother or a father tell a child that he should be grateful to be in the family the way Matron tells us that we should be grateful to be in the Home. I wondered about families until it was time to get up.

May 21

Dear Papa and Mama,

Today I told Alice my news. It was hard. We have been friends from the very day she arrived here. It seems as though even the best news has some part in it that is sad, and leaving Alice behind is the sad part. But she was happy for me and skipped right over the sadness to a story in which she shrinks herself to the size of a fairy and goes with me in my pinafore pocket. One of the best things about Alice is that she doesn’t think that eleven is too old for fairies.

May 22

Dear Papa and Mama,

In church today, in the middle of the sermon, I suddenly missed you very much. I often miss you in church because it is a place for thinking about heaven and also because I remember sitting between you in church and hearing both your voices say the prayers together. The remembering was like a flood. I started to think about going to live in a new place and I was pulled back to the time just after you died when I was sent to live at the Home. This feeling is not sensible because now I am happy as happy can be to be going to a new place, and then I was in a great despond. But sensible or not, I had to look very hard way up to the church ceiling so the tears did not spill over.

May 23

Dear Papa and Mama,

It is early. I did not sleep well last night. Harriet was coughing. When I hear coughing I think of pleurisy and that is the worst word I know. I remember when they told me you had both been “taken by pleurisy.” I thought pleurisy was a kind of monster. Now that I am grown I know that it is a sickness, but in the night, in the dark, I still think of that monster when I hear coughing.

I will think of something happier, like seeing Auntie Janet.

May 24

Dear Papa and Mama,

Auntie Janet sent me some money. She wrote that James Duncan wished me to have some pocket money for my journey. I think James Duncan must be like a fairy godmother. I suppose he would be a fairy godfather, but I have never heard of such a thing. I know exactly what I will buy with the money. When next I go to the store for Matron I will get it.

Matron says that I will be leaving on Friday. How can I wait three days? Hurry up, Friday!

May 25

Dear Papa and Mama,

Time is crawling like a worm. I am thinking of worms because John C., who loves to torment me, threw a worm at me yesterday in the garden. He expected me to shriek, but I am not troubled by worms, not after having to mind so many horrid little boys. Three new ones in the Home this year and each one worse than the last. I am supposed to make them mind, but they will not. I will not miss this task for a minute. Alice tells me that she is practising her shrinking so she’ll be ready to come.

May 26

Dear Papa and Mama,

Tomorrow morning I leave. Last Christmas, at the party, we had cakes sprinkled with tiny candies that Matron called hundreds and thousands. I feel like that now, a mixture of many bits. I am excited, joyful, afraid and sad too. I will miss Alice most of all, and Mary Anne and Harriet and Ellen. I will miss Cook, who is kind even when she is grumpy. I gave Alice my bead bracelet as a keepsake. Tonight the Bible reading was Psalm 148, which is a list of things praising the Lord. Sun and moon, fire and hail, creeping things and flying fowl. My favourite verse is “Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps.” I think this is a good sign.

May 27

Dear Papa and Mama,

I am writing this on the train. You can see what I bought with my pocket money — this new notebook and three new pencils. The page is so clean, like new snow, and the pencils smell lovely.

The train feels much faster than it looks when you are standing watching it. It is so fast that you cannot even see near things like fences and grass. They just turn into a blur of colour and if you really try to look at them your stomach turns upside down. For a time a horse in a field galloped beside us, but we were faster. I pretended that I was on that galloping horse, racing the train. Then I pretended that I had magic boots and was running alongside the train myself, running like the wind.

Sitting across from me is a very kind and pretty lady. She has a work basket with her and when she opened it up I could not help staring. Inside were skeins and skeins of embroidery cotton in every rainbow colour, and some colours not even in the rainbow. She began to work on a fancy cloth, with purple and yellow pansies. She asked me if I did embroidery and I said no. Matron thought that good plain stitching and knitting were all we needed to learn. Then the kind lady asked me if I would like to learn. I don’t know if it was proper to say yes, but I could not help myself. So she lent me a needle and some beautiful sky-blue cotton and a scrap of cloth and taught me how to do stem stitch, the lazy daisy stitch and French knots. With these three stitches I made some cunning little flowers. She lent me some scissors shaped like a long-billed bird. I like embroidery very much. It is so much more pleasant to make stitches that you want to see — unlike hemming where you are supposed to have invisible stitches. The kind lady inspected it, paying special attention to the back, and said that it was well done and that I was a quick study.

Then she said why didn’t I embroider some flowers on my pinafore. At first I thought to say no, that I was not allowed to, and then I had a most bouncing thought. Matron will never know. Would Auntie Janet mind? She was not there to ask. I hesitated and the kind lady said that I must not worry, the cotton was boil-fast and the colours would not run so that no harm could come of it. She said I could use any colours I liked and that made up my mind for me.

I took off my pinafore and embroidered a line of flowers along the top of the bib. The flowers are pink, mauve and blue and the leaves are two kinds of green and the French knot middles are yellow and white. It is truly the prettiest thing I have ever worn. In between these sentences I reach up and touch it — the French knot middles are little bumps — and then I tuck my chin under and look at my own garden. I wish Alice really was in my pocket.

I long to see Auntie Janet, but I also want this train ride to go on forever. Nobody to take care of, no chores, nobody wanting anything, nobody getting into trouble, nobody to please but myself. But I must get off at Brockville and get on another train.

Later

Dear Papa and Mama,

The train from Brockville had a big surprise. We left the station and then we were plunged into utter darkness, like at the beginning of the Bible, where darkness is on the face of the deep. I could not help crying out and a voice said, “Do not distress yourself. It is just a tunnel.” I was happy to come out into the light of day.

Back to my garden.

May 28, in the morning

Dear Papa and Mama,

It is Saturday morning and I can hardly believe that I am here. I woke up to the sound of a child crying. I was on my feet, thinking that it was little Jessie with her toothache, before I remembered that I wasn’t at the Home. The crying sound was coming through the wall. Then I heard a woman’s voice, not the words, but the sound of it. The crying has stopped now. It is early still, just a hint of daylight. No sound of Auntie or Uncle. I do not want to go back to sleep, to miss the first morning in my new home, newest morning of my whole life.

Today I am a new person. At the Home I was Flora Rutherford, orphan, or Flora Rutherford, child-minder. Now I am Flora Rutherford, niece. I did not sleep very much last night. First of all I kept waking up for the pleasure of waking up, in my own snug. (That is what Uncle James calls it, Flora’s snug.) I do not ever remember sleeping in a room by myself. Nobody snuffling, nobody whimpering. And I thought it would be the quietest night of my life, but — not at all! It was the noisiest night of my life because of the trains. The first time the train whistle blew I thought it was going to come right into the house. It was that loud and close! But I don’t mind. A train is a friendly noise once you know what it is. And Auntie Janet says that I will get used to it and sleep right through the noise.

But I am jumping forward. I want to tell you what happened yesterday,

As the train left Carleton Place and the conductor announced, “Next station Almonte,” my heart began to fail me. I started to fret about what was coming, how my aunt and uncle are strangers to me. I thought about all the things I do not know, such as how to live in a family, how to do the work in a mill. I even started to fret about the embroidery on my pinafore. At that moment if a magic fairy had said to me, “Do you want to fly back to the Home?” I would have said yes. I am not a shy or timid girl, but I suddenly felt as though I might be.

Such fretting drained away when Auntie Janet hugged me at the train station. She hugged me and then she held me away by my shoulders for a minute and studied me, as though she were reading me, and then she said that I look just like my mother. Then her eyes got wet and shiny. Then a handsome young man with black curly hair appeared and it was Uncle James. He took off his cap and bowed very low and said, “Welcome, Lady Flora,” and I didn’t know if he was mocking me. But Auntie Janet laughed and said, “Oh, go on with you, you daft silly,” and she told me that he was always like this and that I wasn’t to mind him.

It was a very short walk from the station to the place where Auntie Janet and Uncle James live. I suppose I must say where I live now. The building is three stories tall and our rooms are on the second floor. There are two rooms. One is a kitchen and sitting room, and a little curtained-off corner for me. The other is a bedroom. The bathroom is downstairs and we share it with the other people who live in the building. In the sitting room there is a stove, a woodbox, a sink with a shelf above, and a dresser for crockery. There is a table and three chairs. In my corner there is a bed and a hook for my clothes and a box under the bed for my things. There are pretty things to look at — two fancy teacups, a tatted cover for the table, a picture of flowers on the wall and a rag rug. I told Auntie Janet about the embroidery lady on the train and she admired my pinafore and said that she will teach me how to tat and make rag rugs if I like.

Auntie Janet made tea and then she and Uncle James told me a bit about the mill, the Almonte Woollen Mill. Auntie is a spinner and Uncle is a weaver. I am to be a doffer girl, which is something in the spinning room with Auntie, but I couldn’t quite understand what. They told me that it is the largest woollen mill in Canada and that the worsted cloth they make has won prizes for quality. Auntie Janet said that the Prime Minister might be wearing a suit that she helped to make. “Yes,” said Uncle James, “if it were not for Janet and me, Sir John A. Macdonald might be going around wrapped in a sheepskin!”

I asked if we would go to work tomorrow, but Uncle James said the mill owner, Mr. Flanagan, had declared a holiday because Lady Flora had come to Almonte. Then Auntie Janet pretended to punch him in the arm and said that the mill was closed for one day while they replaced some machinery, but that it was lucky timing because it gave them a chance to welcome me.

Last thing. I was writing in my snug corner when Auntie Janet put her head round the curtain. She asked me what I was writing. I’ve never told anyone about these letters to you because I feared I would be mocked, so I thought to say that I was writing a journal. But I did not want to lie to her, when she is so kind to take me in, so I just told her. She smiled and said wasn’t I clever to be able to write such long letters. She said that she found writing hard and that made me even more grateful for the letters she sent me.

Uncle James piped up and said, “You wrote plenty of letters when we found out that Flora was coming.” Auntie Janet looked shy and said, “Well, I wanted to share the good news with all the family.” Then she kissed me goodnight, which was surprising and nice. I wonder if she will do that every night? I am not accustomed to kissing. There was not much kissing at the Home. Only the bread man with the lumpy red nose and greasy hair who tried to kiss me when he brought the bread in the morning. I didn’t like that one bit.

So the first thing I have discovered about families is that there is teasing, but not mocking.

One more last thing. The nicest thing about Auntie Janet is the way she smells. That sounds disrespectful, but I mean that she smells lovely.

There’s another train coming through, rattling the walls. What will today be like?

Still May 28, in the evening

Dear Papa and Mama,

If there were a pleasanter day to be had I cannot think what it would be. Auntie made porridge for breakfast and it had no lumps, which is something that Cook at the Home could not manage. I was helpful with stirring and washing up and fetching water. I am determined to be very helpful. I started to sweep, but then Uncle said it was a holiday and we should leave off sweeping and go out and introduce me to the town.

The first thing I got introduced to and got introduced to me was a neighbour. As we came out the front door there was a boy shooting marbles against the wall. He jumped up and said, “At last! Are you Flora?” Uncle James laughed and said that the boy was Murdo Campbell and that the Campbells are our neighbours.

“We live through the wall,” said Murdo. “There are seven of us.” Then he rattled off seven names which I do not remember except that he is the second oldest. Auntie Janet said that the Campbells are like a flights of stairs. The remarkable thing about Murdo is that he has the brightest red hair I’ve ever seen. In the sun it looked as though his head were on fire — half boy, half candle. Murdo said that he had been waiting for me to arrive. “All the rest of them are too small to be any use,” he said, “except Kathleen, and she’s too bossy. Isn’t it grand to have a day’s holiday?”

I was not sure what I was to be of use for, but Auntie and Uncle seemed to be friendly with Murdo and he tagged right along with us, talking a mile a minute, cheerful as can be.

We walked along past the railway station and then onto Bridge Street and Mill Street to the river. Auntie and Uncle pointed out all the buildings: boot maker, blacksmith, grocery store, dry goods store, hotel, tinsmith, drugstore, town hall, dentist, surgeon, post office and watchmaker. Next to the hotel was a long line of stables and carriage sheds. I like the sounds of horses — the jingling of harness and that sneezing sound they make with their noses. Murdo told stories about who lives where and which shopkeepers are kind and which are mean.

When we got to the town hall, which is very grand, Murdo pointed out the electric light and Uncle James laughed and said all the courting couples meet there. “It’s a spooning light,” he said and Auntie Janet laughed and Murdo groaned.

Then we got to the river. It is splendid. It is called the Mississippi (when you are writing that word it is hard to know when to stop) and it has a tremendous waterfall. The water comes down the river looking lazy and smooth and then when it gets to the falls it turns white and boiling and racing. I thought of horses with great white manes.

Murdo tried to explain how the power of the river turns the wheel, which is the power for all the machines in the woollen mill. He was very enthusiastic and he started talking about overshot wheels and undershot wheels and I didn’t understand it at all, but Auntie told me I would see it on Monday, which was time enough to be thinking about the mill.

On the way home we bought some groceries and then Murdo disappeared to play baseball and Uncle James went off to go fishing.

Auntie and I went home and had a cup of tea. She showed me her knitting project, a sweater for Uncle James. I told her that I knew how to knit socks, even to turning the heels, because Matron was very stern about girls learning to knit. Auntie was very impressed. She found some grey wool, suitable for socks, and some needles for me, and suggested we take our work outside.

We walked to the other side of the river and found a place to sit in the sun, looking across at the mill. It looks like a huge castle, with the sun shining on the windows and the river like a moat. I thought of a princess living in the castle. She would have a whole room full of gowns, in all the colours of the autumn leaves. Crimson, golden, fiery orange, yellowy-green and bright pink. She would have a different crown for every day of the week.

As we knitted, Auntie told me a story. It was about a bairn (that’s a baby), who was stolen away by the fairies. The mother was beside herself with grief. But a wise woman told her to make a cloak that was so beautiful that she could trade it for her baby. Luckily the woman was a weaver. She wove a cloak from goose down. It was so soft and white it could have been a cloud caught from the sky. Then, using her own golden hair, she wove in a border of flowers and fruits and magical beasts. The fairies were so taken with this cloak that they were lured into returning the baby. It all ended happily.

Auntie is a wonderful storyteller. She makes magic as everyday as parsnips. After a few minutes I was in two places at once — Almonte and the land where fairies are. I asked her how she could remember stories so well and she told me that she learned the stories from her grandmother. “You remember the things you heard when you were small,” she said. She told me about her grandmother, who is my great-grandmother, and how she came from Scotland to Canada on a great ship. “They could not bring much with them, but the stories were light.” She said that she liked that story because the heroine was a weaver, just like Uncle James.

I liked the cloak in the story. I could see it in my mind. I also liked what the wise woman said to the mother: “My wisdom is only as old as man, but the wisdom of the fairies is older than the beginning of the world.” Alice would like this story too. I wonder what she is doing at this minute.

When we got home we met another family that lives in our building. They are just two. Granny Whitall lives with her grandson, who is a grown-up man. She takes care of small children, like the small Campbells, when their parents work at the mill. Auntie Janet said that even though Granny Whitall is very old she is still wonderful at sewing, just needing help with threading the needles.

Fish for dinner.

There is one more thing about the day, but my hand is just too tired to write.

May 29, in the morning

Dear Papa and Mama,

Again I’m awake before Auntie and Uncle. So I will tell you the one last thing from yesterday.

In the evening Auntie Janet went into a trunk and brought out a Bible. Inside the front cover are written the names of the family, from now and long ago. The first name I noticed was my own. Flora Rutherford, b. 1875. Alongside were the names of my three brothers, who died as infants. Above it were your names, William Rutherford, b. 1851 d. Oct. 1881, and Sarah Dow, b. 1855, m. William Rutherford 1873, d. Oct. 1881. A sadness came upon me on reading those names. I think of you every day, but I think of you as angels. Seeing your names in the Bible made me think of you alive and walking on the earth with all the other people.

Auntie Janet pointed out the name of Martha Dow, her grandmother: b. 1802 Glasgow, Scotland, d. 1873, Pakenham Township, Ontario, Canada. “There she is, the one who told the stories.”

Auntie Janet told me that Granny Dow knew more stories than there are days in a year. “They just came out of her mouth like water over a millrace,” she said. “She was a tiny wee woman, but when she told stories she could quiet a whole room of great big men. I think she had the stories from the fairies themselves. She always said it was a pity that the fairies were disappearing because of us building great cities and driving them away.”

I ran my fingers over the lovely loopy writing and thought about all those people in the olden days.

When Uncle James came home he said that it was fleece-scouring night. “We’ll dip you in the carbolic,” he said, “and get you ready for the carding room.” But Auntie Janet said that he wasn’t to terrify me with such talk and that all he meant was that it was bath night. Which is one thing that is the same as at the Home.

There’s that baby crying again, through the wall. It must be a Campbell. Probably teething. Sun’s up so I’m going to get up and be helpful. I watched Uncle James yesterday and now I think I know how to light the stove.

May 29, in the evening

Dear Papa and Mama,

So much is new that if I were to write about it all I would not have time to be living it through, but only writing about it! I made the tea this morning and had it ready when Auntie got up. She said she felt like Queen Victoria.

I know you will want to know about church. Auntie and Uncle go to St. John’s Church. It was grand, walking into church just with Auntie and Uncle, and not in a line the way we did from the Home, with everyone staring at us.

Last night I thanked God for Auntie and Uncle and this morning I thanked Him again and asked Him to give me a grateful heart.

Most things about church, like the words and the hymns and the books, were the same. Just like in Kingston there were girls my age with nice dresses and just like in Kingston they did not look friendly. The most surprising and different thing was the sermon. The minister was not the regular minister, but a visitor. He preached on the text “the labourer is worthy of his hire.” But he did not just talk about Bible times. He talked about now and he said something about how his blood boiled when he saw wealthy men “grinding their employees in the dirt.” He had a great black beard and his beard started to move up and down more and more when he said things like, “beastly, diabolical doctrine.” He is very different from Rev. Pollock at home, who always spoke very softly and only about Bible times.

On the walk home Auntie said that she thought the minister was too fierce and she hoped he wasn’t talking about Mr. Flanagan, who owns the mill, because Mr. Flanagan is a decent man and doesn’t grind the mill workers in the dirt, but pays good wages. But Uncle said that the minister had spoken a lot of good sense, and besides, he liked a sermon that didn’t put him to sleep. Then Uncle asked if Auntie liked the minister’s whiskers and perhaps he should grow a fine beard like that, and Auntie said that she would not like it one bit because she would not care to kiss a man with whiskers. I agree.

In the afternoon Auntie put together a big pot of beans to last us all week. She says that there isn’t much time for cooking in the week so she cooks a big pot of something on Sunday afternoon.

After supper Auntie said she wanted to ask me a favour. She seemed shy to ask and I could not imagine what it could be. Running an errand? Sewing? Scrubbing? As it turned out, she wanted me to read aloud to her and Uncle James. “Mr. Campbell usually shares his newspaper with us,” she said, “but James doesn’t read, and I’m not good at reading aloud. We thought you might be.” She pulled out The Almonte Gazette.

I wanted to do it, but I faced a dilemma. Was it right to read a newspaper on Sundays? Matron would not let us read anything but Bible stories on Sundays, and a book about being good called The Peep of Day. I did not know what to say.

Auntie Janet saw right away that something was wrong and she just asked me straight out so I told her. Then we three all talked about it and decided that I would read aloud from the Bible first and then I would read the newspaper. When we talked about it Uncle James and Auntie Janet really listened to what I had to say. Is this what happens in families?

I asked what I should read from the Bible and Uncle James said, right away, that it should be Judges, Chapter 6. This was a story about a man called Gideon and it had sheep fleeces in it. A bit hard to read with words like Abi-ezrite, but I did my best. Auntie Janet teased Uncle James that he only attends to the Bible reading when there is something about sheep and wool. Uncle James said that that wasn’t true. He said that he always attends with one ear. It is just that when there is something about wool or weaving or fishing or something else that he knows about, he attends with both ears. I know just what he means. I attend with one ear almost all the time (except when I’m daydreaming, such as when the lesson is about begats or smiting), but when there is mention of an angel I get both ears working. Angels and fairies are my favourite things in stories. (And princesses.)

Then I read some parts of the newspaper. A boy was attacked by a dog. There was a fire in Irishtown. Maple syrup costs a dollar a gallon.

Uncle James says that I am such a good reader that I could be a minister myself if I would only grow a beard. I know he is being comical, but it still made me feel very happy. I don’t recall that anybody has ever told me I am good at something.

Right before bed Auntie said she had to talk to me about something very important. She looked so stern that I wondered if I had done something wrong. But she was not angry, just serious. She told me that when I am working at the mill I must always be careful. She told me that the machinery is dangerous. “All mill accidents are bad accidents,” she said, “and it only takes a moment’s inattention. Promise me that you will always pay attention, watch where you are going, and never never run.” I promised.

And now to sleep. Tomorrow will be my first day as a doffer girl. I asked Auntie and Uncle to be sure to wake me up early early, but they smiled and said I needn’t worry about that and I would find out why in the morning.

May 30

Dear Papa and Mama,

Now I understand why I did not need to be routed out in the morning. I was fast asleep when the noise of bells got into my dream. (It was a very curious dream about my teeth falling out. When they fell on the ground they made a little ringing noise. This was not frightening, just odd.) But then my teeth jumped right back into my head in a great hurry when I awoke to the sound of bells filling the air. When Auntie Janet put her head round the curtain she was laughing. “Welcome to Almonte,” she said, “town of mill bells.”

Auntie Janet told Uncle James that he had to make the porridge because she had another important job. And he pretended to be cross. She took no notice. Then she braided my hair. She said I needed to have it pulled back to work at the mill because otherwise it is dangerous — loose hair could get caught in the machinery. She was very gentle with the brushing and the braiding. I almost fell back to sleep. My hair has always been a trial, for it is thick and the kind of curly that tangles easily. One of the first things I remember from the Home is a nurse brushing my hair so roughly that I thought she was going to scalp me. She called it “wicked gypsy hair.” But Auntie Janet said it was lovely and Uncle James said it was like a number-one quality fleece and I had better watch out when I walked through the wool sorting room.

Auntie Janet made two braids and then she made rings of them. I’ve never had this before, tidy and pretty both. With her own hair she did this twisting thing and it all ended up in a neat roll on the top of her head.

We had porridge (Uncle James can also make it without lumps) and Auntie packed bread and cheese into three pails and then we set off. First we walked along the road by the railway tracks, tracks on one side and rail sheds on the other. There were birds singing and flowers in the grass. As soon as we got onto Mill Street there was a river of people, all going to work. Some people were walking and talking cheerfully and some looked as though they were still asleep or wished to be. This is just like the Home. There are people who like to get up early and people who like to stay up late. Matron was like a bird in the morning, poking her beak into everything. Cook was like a slow turtle. And grumpy first thing.

On Mill Street I heard running steps and Murdo came up alongside. He told me that I looked like a proper mill girl with my lunch pail and all. We stopped for a minute on the bridge. The waterfall, roaring and bubbling white over the rocks, was sending jewels of water into the air. But then the mill bell began to ring again and Uncle James said we had to hurry. We walked by two mills and some of the river of people went in those gates and then a red-painted building that Auntie told me was a knitting mill, where they make long underwear. “They call it Big Red,” said Murdo. Finally we went down a little hill to the Almonte Woollen Mill No. 1, which is OUR mill.

It looked even taller close up — bigger than a train station, bigger than a church. There was a crowd of people mingling outside, men and women, some boys and girls too. Auntie Janet greeted many of them and they said, “So this is Flora.”

This all takes longer to write about than to walk as it is only about fifteen minutes distance. Auntie says it seems long enough on a bitter dark winter morning. But it is so hard to imagine winter in summer. As hard to imagine sad when you’re happy. And the other way round is true too. Why is that? Now I haven’t

May 31

Dear Papa and Mama,

The letter from yesterday ended in the middle of a sentence because I fell asleep. Auntie Janet said I just fell forward onto my notebook. She had to get me out of my clothes and put me to bed just as though I were a baby. I do remember being tired. I was tired in my arms and tired in my mind. The clattering noise of the machines made it hard to fix my mind on learning new things. I am determined to do everything well and not disappoint Auntie Janet. Tonight I am not so tired, so I will finish my story about Flora’s first day:

At seven o’clock a loud bell rang and we all went in. Uncle James headed off up the stairs and Murdo and some other boys ran across the yard toward a shed. Auntie and I stopped at an office. There was a man wearing a suit sitting at a desk. The man asked me my name and he wrote it in a big book. Then he said that he knew I would be a good worker because Auntie and Uncle were excellent operatives. Then he said that Auntie was to take me to see Mr. Haskin. Then Auntie said thank you and I said thank you. As we started up the stairs I asked Auntie if the man was Mr. Flanagan who owns the mill, and she laughed. “No,” she said, “the likes of us don’t see too much of Mr. Flanagan, especially at seven o’clock in the morning. That was Mr. Boothroyd.”

We went up and up the stairs. We stopped at the fourth floor to look into the weaving room where Uncle works. I didn’t know it would be so noisy. The big machines make a great bang and clatter. There were many men and women working and I saw Uncle, but he didn’t look up to see us.

Then we went up one more flight and came to the spinning room. The room is very large with tall windows all along one side. Long belts loop down from the high ceiling and are attached to machinery. It was noisy in that room too, but more of a loud hum that just goes on and on. Not so much of a clatter. It seemed to be all women in that room and they looked up at me as I came in. Some smiled.

The room was very warm, which felt good early in the morning, but not by noon. I wondered why we could not open the windows, but Auntie said it needs to be warm and damp so the threads do not break. The air was filled with bits of wool, like a snowstorm. The women have wool clinging to their clothes and their hair. If you stayed there long enough you would start to look like a sheep.

Another man in a suit came up to us. Mr. Haskin. Everything about him was thin, even his nose and lips. He and Auntie talked, but I couldn’t hear a word they were saying. So I just nodded and tried to look like an excellent operative.

Auntie took me over to the spinning machine. It is a wonder. There is a frame that stays in one place and a carriage that moves back and forth on rails. It all looks a bit like a dance. The machine pulls out the threads, many at a time, and makes them thinner and at the same time it twists them to make them strong. In the olden days women would spin at spinning wheels and they could only make one thread at a time.

Auntie spoke right into my ear so that I could hear her and she told me my job. I am to take the full bobbins off the spindles and replace them with empty ones. This is called doffing. When I was carrying the bobbins in their wooden box to the right place I saw another girl, smaller than me, doing the same job. I smiled but she just looked at the floor in a timid way.

At ten o’clock there was a loud bell. This is when we have a break for a rest and to use the toilet. When they turned off the machines the silence was louder than the sound. I felt as though I had silence clouds around my ears stuffing them up.

I met the other spinning frame operatives. Mrs. Brown is a stern-looking woman with a turned-down mouth. She is a widow and her two sons and one daughter work at the mill. Then there are Mrs. Murphy and Miss Bertha Rose. A smiling woman with dark red hair I guessed to be Mrs. Campbell, even before she told me. “I’ve already heard a lot about you from Murdo,” she said. “You will have discovered that Murdo talks like this machine spins — he never tires!”

The other doffer girl is called Ann. She does not have much to say.

The friendliest and prettiest operative is a young woman, younger than Auntie Janet, named Agnes Bamford. Ann and I are the only girls. The break went very quickly and at the end Mr. Haskin came in. He gave a little speech in a thin voice about working hard. When he turned his back to leave I saw Agnes make a funny face. She saw me seeing her and winked at me.

Another loud bell at noon told us that it was time for dinner. We took our dinner outside to eat. There is a garden next to the mill for the mill workers, and a cricket pitch for the men. It was quiet and it felt good to breathe outside air. Murdo and some other boys who work in the dye house played catch. Three girls from the weave room talked among themselves. I tried to talk to Ann, saying that the wool made me think of snow, but she just said, “No, that’s not right. Snow is cold.” There’s not much you can reply to that.

Agnes came to sit with Auntie and me and she asked all sorts of questions. Where was I from? Where had I been? What had I seen? “I’m just longing to go anywhere,” she said, “anywhere but Carp and Almonte.” I noticed that Auntie Janet wasn’t too friendly to Agnes. Polite enough, but distant. The half hour passed by in a second and my ears were barely unplugged before we went back into the racket.

Then it was the same until six o’clock when another bell rang and that was a very welcome sound. One the walk home Auntie told me that every time she caught sight of me in the day her heart danced. “Almost everyone has family here,” she said, “and it is just grand to have one of my own people here with me.” I could not seem to say this, but I am happy just to be somebody’s people.

Today was much the same except that I met Murdo’s father and all six brothers and sisters, Kathleen, Percy, Archie, Willie, John and baby Bea. Kathleen works in the weave room. They all have some kind of red hair. Mr. Campbell works in the dye house. Uncle James says he must take his children there when they are babies and dip their heads in cochineal. (Cochineal is red.)

One more thing. I forgot to tell you about someone else at the mill. It is Smokey the spinning-room cat. Her job is to catch mice so that they don’t eat our dinners! She is soft and grey and her tongue is very raspy. Agnes said that Mr. Flanagan could fire all the carders and just let Smokey lick the wool into shape.