These settlers, habitants of dwellings built by finance solely for the purpose of renting, are celebrated for their immorals—­“a rough, lying, bad lot.”  “Oh, the mill-hands!” ...  Sufficient, expressive designation.  Nevertheless, these people, simple, direct and innocent, display qualities that we have been taught are enviable—­a lack of curiosity, for the most part, in the affairs of others, a warm Southern courtesy, a human kindliness.  I found these people degraded because of their habits and not of their tendencies, which statement I can justify; whatever may be their natural instincts, born, nurtured in their unlovely environment, they have no choice but to fall into the usages of poverty and degradation.  They have seen nothing with which to compare their existences; they have no time, no means to be clean, and no stimulus to be decent.

A job at Granton was no more difficult to secure than was “spoolin’” at the other mill.  I applied one Saturday noon, when Granton was silent and the operatives within their doors asleep, for the most part, leaving the village as deserted as it is on a workday.  A like desolation pervades the atmosphere on holiday and day of toil.  I was so lucky as to meet a shirt-sleeved overseer in the doorway.  Preceding him were two ill-clad, pale children of nine and twelve, armed with a long, mop-like broom with which their task was to sweep the cotton from the floors—­cotton that resettled eternally as soon as it was brushed away.  The superintendent regarded me curiously, I thought penetratingly, and for the first time in my experience I feared detection.  My dread was enhanced by the loneliness, the lawlessness of the place, the risk and boldness of my venture.

By this I was most thoroughly a mill-girl in appearance, at least; my clothes were white with cotton, my hair far from tidy; fatigue and listlessness unassumed were in my attitude.  I had not heard the Southern dialect for so long not to be able to fall into it with little effort.  I told him I had been a “spooler” and did not like it—­“wanted to spin.”  He listened silently, regarding me with interest and with what I trembled to fear was disbelief.  I desperately pushed back my sunbonnet and in Southern drawl begged for work.

“Spinnin’?” he asked.  “What do you want to spin for?”

He was a Yankee, his accent sharp and keen.  How clean and decent and capable he appeared, the dark mill back of him; shantytown, vile, dirty, downtrodden, beside him!

I told him that I was tired of spooling and knew I could make more by something else.

He thrust his hands into his pockets.  “To-night is Saturday; alone here?”

“Yes.”

“Where you going to stay in Granton?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Don’t learn spinnin’,” he said decidedly.  “I am head of the speedin’-room.  I’ll give you a job in my room on Monday morning.”

My relief was immense.  His subsequent questions I parried, thanked him, and withdrew to keep secret from Excelsior that I had deserted for Granton.