It is just like play."
And for a little while it was only a new amusement; I liked it
better than going to school and "making believe" I was learning
when I was not. And there was a great deal of play mixed with it.
We were not occupied more than half the time. The intervals were
spent frolicking around around the spinning-frames, teasing and
talking to the older girls, or entertaining ourselves with the
games and stories in a corner, or exploring with the overseer's
permission, the mysteries of the the carding-room, the dressing-
room and the weaving-room.
I never cared much for machinery. The buzzing and hissing and
whizzing of pulleys and rollers and spindles and flyers around me
often grew tiresome. I could not see into their complications, or
feel interested in them. But in a room below us we were sometimes
allowed to peer in through a sort of blind door at the great
water-wheel that carried the works of the whole mill. It was so
huge that we could only watch a few of its spokes at a time, and
part of its dripping rim, moving with a slow, measured strength
through the darkness that shut it in.
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