By the time the mill-hand has reached his home a good fifteen minutes out of the three-quarters of an hour recreation is gone:  his food is quickly bolted, and by the time I have reached the little brick hotel pointed out to me that morning and descended to its cellar restaurant, forced myself to drink a cup of sassafras tea, and mounted again into the air, the troop of workers is on the march millward.  I join them.

Although the student of philanthropy and the statistician would find difficulty in forcing the countersign of the manufactories, the worker may go everywhere.

I do not see my friend of the morning, the overseer, in the “weave-room”; indeed, there is no one to direct me; but I discover, after climbing the stairs, a room of flying spools and more subdued machinery, and it appears that the spool-room is this man’s especial charge.  He consigns to me a standing job.  A set of revolving spools is designated, and he secures a pretty young girl of about sixteen, who comes cheerfully forward and consents to “learn” me.

Spooling is not disagreeable, and the room is the quietest part of the mill—­noisy enough, but calm compared to the others.  In Excelsior this room is, of course, enormous, light and well ventilated, although the temperature, on account of some quality of the yarn, is kept at a point of humidity far from wholesome.

“Spooling” is hard on the left arm and the side.  Heart disease is a frequent complaint amongst the older spoolers.  It is not dirty compared to shoe-making, and whereas one stands to “spool,” when one is not waiting for yarn it is constant movement up and down the line.  The fact that there are more children than young girls, more young girls than women, proves the simplicity of this task.  The cotton comes from the spinning-room to the spool-room, and as the girl stands before her “side,” as it is called, she sees on a raised ledge, whirling in rapid vibration, some one hundred huge spools full of yarn; whilst below her, each in its little case, lies a second bobbin of yarn wound like a distaff.

Her task controls machinery in constant motion, that never stops except in case of accident.

With one finger of her right hand she detaches the yarn from the distaff that lies inert in the little iron rut before her.  With her left hand she seizes the revolving circle of the large spool’s top in front of her, holding this spool steady, overcoming the machinery for the moment not as strong as her grasp.  This demands a certain effort.  Still controlling the agitated spool with her left hand, she detaches the end of yarn with the same hand from the spool, and by means of a patent knotter harnessed around her palm she joins together the two loosened ends, one from the little distaff and one from this large spool, so that the two objects are set whirling in unison and the spool receives all the yarn from the distaff.  Up and down this line the spooler must walk all day long, replenishing the iron grooves