At this time I had learned to do a spinner's work, and I obtained
permission to tend some frames that stood directly in front of
the river-windows, with only them and the wall behind me,
extending half the length of the mill,--and one young woman
beside me, at the farther end of the row. She was a sober, mature
person, who scarcely thought it worth her while to speak often to
a child like me; and I was, when with strangers, rather a
reserved girl; so I kept myself occupied with the river, my work,
and my thoughts. And the river and my thoughts flowed on
together, the happiest of companions. Like a loitering pilgrim,
it sparkled up to me in recognition as it glided along and bore
away my little frets and fatigues on its bosom. When the work
"went well," I sat in the window-seat, and let my fancies fly
whither they would,--downward to the sea, or upward to the hills
that hid the mountain-cradle of the Merrimack.
The printed regulations forbade us to bring books into the mill,
so I made my window-seat into a small library of poetry, pasting
its side all over with newspaper clippings.
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