第42章 CHAPTER XIII A SOFT BREEZE IN A SULTRY PLACE (2)

     
     
     
     　　\"Don\"t let us talk of what fancies come into your head when you arefeverish. I would rather hear something about what you used to dowhen you were well.\"
     
     　　\"I think I was well when mother died, but I have never been rightlystrong sin\" somewhere about that time. I began to work in a carding-room soon after, and the fluff got into my lungs and poisoned me.\"
     
     　　\"Fluff?\" said Margaret, inquiringly.
     
     　　\"Fluff,\" repeated Bessy. \"Little bits, as fly off fro\" the cotton, when they\"recarding it, and fill the air till it looks all fine white dust. They say itwinds round the lungs, and tightens them up. Anyhow, there\"s many aone as works in a carding-room, that falls into a waste, coughing andspitting blood, because they\"re just poisoned by the fluff.\"
     
     　　\"But can\"t it be helped?\" asked Margaret.
     
     　　\"I dunno. Some folk have a great wheel at one end o\" their carding-rooms to make a draught, and carry off th\" dust; but that wheel costs adeal o\" money--five or six hundred pound, maybe, and brings in noprofit; so it\"s but a few of th\" masters as will put \"em up; and I\"ve heardtell o\" men who didn\"t like working places where there was a wheel,because they said as how it mad \"em hungry, at after they\"d been longused to swallowing fluff, tone go without it, and that their wage oughtto be raised if they were to work in such places. So between mastersand men th\" wheels fall through. I know I wish there\"d been a wheel inour place, though.\"
     
     　　\"Did not your father know about it?\" asked Margaret.
     
     　　\"Yes! And he were sorry. But our factory were a good one on the whole;and a steady likely set o\" people; and father was afeard of letting me goto a strange place, for though yo\" would na think it now, many a onethen used to call me a gradely lass enough. And I did na like to bereckoned nesh and soft, and Mary\"s schooling were to be kept up,mother said, and father he were always liking to buy books, and go tolectures o\" one kind or another--all which took money--so I just workedon till I shall ne\"er get the whirr out o\" my ears, or the fluff out o\" mythroat i\" this world. That\"s all.\"
     
     　　\"How old are you?\" asked Margaret.
     
     　　\"Nineteen, come July.\"
     
     　　\"And I too am nineteen.\" She thought, more sorrowfully than Bessy did,of the contrast between them. She could not speak for a moment or twofor the emotion she was trying to keep down.
     
     　　\"About Mary,\" said Bessy. \"I wanted to ask yo\" to be a friend to her. She\"sseventeen, but she\"s th\" last on us. And I don\"t want her to go to th\" mill,and yet I dunno what she\"s fit for.\"
     
     　　\"She could not do\"--Margaret glanced unconsciously at the uncleanedcorners of the room--\"She could hardly undertake a servant\"s place,could she? We have an old faithful servant, almost a friend, who wantshelp, but who is very particular; and it would not be right to plague herwith giving her any assistance that would really be an annoyance and anirritation.\"
     
     　　\"No, I see. I reckon yo\"re right. Our Mary\"s a good wench; but who hasshe had to teach her what to do about a house? No mother, and me atthe mill till I were good for nothing but scolding her for doing badlywhat I didn\"t know how to do a bit. But I wish she could ha\" lived wi\"
     
     　　yo\", for all that.\"