• Today I woke up three-hours before the sun rise, like I always do. I doubled check my room to make sure nothing was stolen and counted off all my things. There was my single bowl from which I ate all of my meals and my fork and spoon that I used to eat with. My small bed of dirty straw, cover with my coarse brown blanket and hidden there was my secret treasure, a second shirt, no less dirt than the one I wore now, but a shirt it was and offered me more warmth when the winter snow come. Reassured that nothing had been stolen I went on my way to work.

    Being a girl and all, I was too weak and small to work with the machines, so they sent me to work with the textiles like all the other girls. When I got to work I saw Little Timmy being dragged along my Miss Elmstern by his ear, he was as bare as the day he was born. As a winter wind blew by I winced and pitied Little Timmy but was secretly glad that they never did that to us girls.

    Work was the same as always. Me and a bunch of other girls (and some boys too small to work the machines, like Little Timmy) ran around getting and feeding cloth into the machines so that they could get pretty patterns pressed onto them. I got “weighted” today because I dropped a bolt of white silk when I tripped on a patch of ice. Miss Elmstern yelled at me for so long I thought I was going to go deaf, so I was trying not to listen to her until she said she would take away my pay. That caught my attention and I begged her not to, I even got onto all fours, she sniffed at me and told me that I would only get half pay and I should be glad that I was getting anything at all. She then “weighted” me and said I had to walk for five hours and that the time would be taken from my pay.

    As I walked and felt all of my friend’s eyes on me, I heard my stomach growl and couldn’t help but think, “I wish my parent hadn’t died when they put in that new steam engine.”