THE weave room was close and hot, for no air that might break the precious threads must come in. Weavers stood at their looms wet through with sweat, and often there would be a stirring of people about some section when one of the women, overcome with the closeness, or perhaps by some kind of sickness, fainted. Frank worked at his looms there, so John, who was put in that room as a filling hauler, pushing the boxes on wheels filled with spools, saw him every day.
Bonnie worked in the spinning room as a doffer. It was temporary work, for the doffers were usually boys. She learned to breathe in air that was full of lint, and after the first two or three days did not get sick at the smell of oil. Each spinner had a different mark, and though she was bewildered at first, she soon learned to put the right mark for each spinner on the spools she took from the frames. Her work was very important, for each spinner must get the correct number of spools recorded for the pay check. For every cent counted. Bonnie’s head came just to the shelf where the full bobbins lay. She could not see over the long, high frames, and ran from one to another, trying to keep up.
At night she hurried back the two miles, cooked supper and made Emma comfortable. Every day Ora waited outside the mill to ask her, “How is Emma?” Some days she answered “better” and other days “worse.” It was like the game, “We’ve come to see Miss Jennie Jones, and how is she to-day?”
Emma was sick, and Bonnie and John were working in the mill. Their working came about in the most natural and reasonable way; yet no one, least of all Emma, had expected them to leave school so soon.
At the time Emma first became sick several things of special importance at the time, and of later interest, happened to the family.
She had been ailing for some time and one week-day morning did not get up. On Sunday when Mrs. Phillips learned of Emma’s illness she came over and brought her doctor.
“She has pellagra,” the doctor told Granpap in the kitchen after he had looked at Emma.
“Do you think,” Granpap asked, “I’d better get the Company doctor to her regularly?”
“He would tell you the same thing,” Doctor Ford said. “I was on the Board of Health once, so I’ve seen enough to know. And there’s nothing he could do. Give her plenty of lean meat, milk, and other nourishing food, and she’ll get better.”
Granpap told him. “I’m having a hard row to hoe right now. I don’t know how I can well do it.”
The doctor became very angry, angry enough to frighten Bonnie who was in the corner behind the stove, listening.
“Don’t ask me how,” the doctor said. “A doctor can’t produce decent food for the many that need it. What can I do? Don’t ask me.”
He went out of the back door hurriedly as if he wanted to shake the dust of the house from his feet. Granpap followed and left Bonnie to ponder on the dreadful word. She knew many children in the village who were afflicted with the disease, and grown up people. Only recently Mrs. Mulkey had become insane. She drove her young ones out of the house. It was said she heard voices talking to her and answered them, and imagined that horrible animals and devils were running around the walls. People said she behaved like a man who is crazy with drink.
If Emma did not grow better, Bonnie thought, she might become like Mrs. Mulkey. She went to the door of the bedroom and listened to Emma talking with Mrs. Phillips in order to reassure herself that her mother was very sane. Emma’s voice was quiet and just as usual, though she got somewhat excited when Mrs. Phillips told her that one of the girls who worked for her in the city knew Emma. The girl’s name was Minnie—Minnie Hawkins. Minnie had heard Mrs. Phillips and the doctor speaking of Robert and John McClure, and had asked, “Do those McClures come from the mountains, at Swain’s Crossing?” And then she had said, “I know them.”
The following week Ora and Frank brought Mr. Turnipseed to the farm house. They explained to Emma that the preacher, for whatever money Granpap could give, would sign papers saying that. John was old enough to work in the mill. And since Bonnie was old enough already, Ora and Frank persuaded Emma to let both of them work in the mill. They said the children could go back to school later, when Emma was well enough to go into the mill again. Reluctantly Emma had to consent, for if the young ones did not bring in some ready money, there would be nothing for them or anyone else in the family to eat.
That day while Frank and Granpap were in the fields, Preacher Turnipseed spoke to John and Bonnie while they were in the front room with Emma and Ora.
He said, speaking partly to Emma, partly to the children, it was time for them to acknowledge Christ as their Savior. Their mother was sick and how could they pray to God to make her well if they had not professed their belief in Him and His Son.
Standing at the head of the bed, John felt disturbed and angry. He looked on the bed and saw Emma’s face with the cheeks sunk in. He saw her hands stretched out palms down on the quilt. They were yellow and scrawny like the claws of chickens, and the fingers were bent as if in working they had grown that way. A great many thoughts had come up in him recently, and he was queerly upset and angry at everyone. Standing there, he wanted to ask, “Why did God make her sick in the first place?” To him it seemed a reasonable question, but to say it aloud before Emma was not quite possible. While the preacher talked, Emma reached her hand up along the bed clothes to touch him, and he could feel her hard fingers worrying at the tips of his own as they hung at his side. But he would not say what she wanted him to. It was Bonnie who answered Mr. Turnipseed’s waiting and promised that at the next baptizing she would come into the church.
Mr. Turnipseed had to be contented with that. He got up to go outside, but left Ora with Emma, after giving her a significant look from the door.
He came back again, opened the door, and called out, “John, you and Bonnie come and show me the farm.”
When they hesitated Ora said gently, “Yes, you run along with the preacher.”
As the door shut she bent over the bed. “I promised the preacher to tell you,” she said to Emma. “I don’t know what’s the right or wrong of it, for you have said Mrs. Phillips has been kind since you have been sick.”
“She has been kind. Before last week she paid us little or no attention. But she brought her own doctor over.”
“That’s hit,” Ora said. “That doctor was turned off the Board of Health for not believing in God, and for other things. And Mrs. Phillips,” Ora bent over Emma and whispered, “Mrs. Phillips . . . keeps a . . . bad house . . . in the city.”
“Is it sure?” Emma gasped.
“Preacher Turnipseed said hit.”
“Oh,” Emma said. “Oh. Pore Minnie.”