On that morning it was our custom to wake one another at four
o'clock, and start off on a tramp together over some retired road
whose chief charm was its unfamiliarity, returning to a very late
breakfast, with draggled gowns and aprons full of dewy wild
roses. No matter if we must get up at five the next morning and
go back to our hum-drum toil, we should have the roses to take
with us for company, and the sweet air of the woodland which
lingered about them would scent our thoughts all day, and make us
forget the oily smell of the machinery.
We were children still, whether at school or at work, and Nature
still held us close to her motherly heart. Nature came very close
to the mill-gates, too, in those days. There was green grass all
around them; violets and wild geraniums grew by the canals; and
long stretches of open land between the corporation buildings and
the street made the town seem country-like.
The slope behind our mills (the "Lawrence" Mills) was a green
lawn; and in front of some of them the overseers had gay flower-
gardens; we passed in to our work through a splendor of dahlias
and hollyhocks.
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