The Clock (5 page)

I ran the whole way, dashed up the outside stairs, through the storage room and into the slubbing-billy room. Hetty was standing by our machine, waiting for me, for she couldn't work it alone. Mr. Hoggart was leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest. “It's about time you got here,” he said in his hard voice. He looked out the window to the clock in the bell tower of the other mill. “Almost an hour late, and you've kept another girl from working. That's two hours you've cost the mill.”

“I'm sorry, sir,” I said, pulling off my cloak and jumping to my place at the slubbing billy. “The wind was coming wrong and I didn't hear the bell.”

“That's
no excuse. If the bell doesn't wake you, you'll have to find a way that will.” He straightened away from the window and came over to me. “You can tell your pa your pay will be a half-day short.”

******

I felt sunk and scared. Pa was going to be mighty angry about it. Oh, he'd be furious. There was no telling what he might do. But I'd have to confess, for it'd be worse when he came to collect my wages at the end of my contract and found out they were short.

I was desperate to talk to Robert about it. But it was hard to find a chance to talk to him, for he was busy at his job. Most of the time he was in the carding room, which was down at the front of the mill, weighing wool. The farmers would bring it to him there, and he would mark down how much they brought. The baskets would be hauled up on a pulley rigged on a beam outside a storage area next to the slubbing room. Usually Tom Thrush was up there to take in the basket as it rose to the big door in the storage area. It was something he could do with one hand.

I ate my dinner as quick as I could, and then raced on out of there to the carding room. Robert was sitting on a heap of wool eating some bread and cold pork. He looked up. “What's the matter, Annie?”

“I was late, Robert. Mr. Hoggart caught me. He says I have to tell Pa my wages will be short.”

Robert whistled. “Your pa won't like that very much.”

“I know. Pa's tight up for money these days.”

“He always is,” Robert said.

“I know. But it seems like it's worse now, Ma says. I don't know exactly the reason, I guess it's because he owes so much for that blame merino ram.”

“There's going to be trouble about that, I hear. With the price of merinos shooting up so high, somebody's bringing in a whole shipload of them. The price is bound to drop.”

That scared me even more. “What'll happen to Pa?”

“If he can't sell his for what he owes on him, he'll be in trouble. He'll have to find the money somewhere.”

It was a mighty bad time for me to get my wages docked. “That blame clock, that blame ram.”

“Maybe you could talk to Mr. Hoggart. Maybe you could plead with him.”

I didn't want to be beholden to Mr. Hoggart. “I would hate to do that. I would hate to beg him.”

“I don't know what else you can do,” Robert said.

He
was right, but I hated the idea. “I wish I could think of something else.”

We were quiet. But I couldn't think of anything, and neither could Robert. “Well, I guess I'd better talk to him. Only I'm afraid of him. Look what he did to Tom Thrush.”

“Poor Tom,” Robert said. “It still hurts him to stand up straight.” He pursed his lips. “I'll tell you what, Annie. I'll go along with you.”

I shook my head. “I think he'd be more likely to give in if it was just me.”

“Maybe. All right, I'll wait outside, and if he gives you any trouble you can shout and I'll come in.

So that was the way we left it. And when the five o'clock bell rang I went looking for Robert. He was standing in front of the mill, down below the pulley hanging from the carding-room window where they pulled the wool up. Robert pointed up. “He's up there in the carding-room. He came in a few minutes ago and told me to go on for supper, he had some business to do.”

“He let you go early? That's funny.”

“Only a couple of minutes early. He does it sometimes. He asks for my tally sheets and sits up there for a while. I guess he's checking my figures on the amount of wool that came in.”

I looked up. It was dark now, and there was a low light flickering in the carding-room window. It seemed like it must be a candle, rather than the oil lamps we usually used for lighting the place during the winter when it got dark early. I took a deep breath. “I guess I'd better do it.”

“Maybe he'll be in a good mood.”

“I'd better get it over with,” I said.

“When you go up, shut the door behind you, and I'll come halfway up the stairs and listen.”

So I went on up the stairs, my heart beating fast, feeling kind of sweaty and scared. At the top of the stairs the door to the carding room was closed. I knocked.

“Who is it?” he said in a sharp quick voice. “What do you want?”

“It's Annie Steele, sir.”

I heard some noise, and then the door opened and he put his head out. “What do you want?” he said.

“Sir, I'm sorry I was late this morning. I promise I'll never do it again if you won't dock my pay.”

He stared at me. Then he looked around behind, as if he was checking on something. “Come on in, Annie. Let's talk about it.”

I went in, and he shut the door behind me. There was a candle sitting on the floor, and a lot of wool scattered around in bags or just loose. Beside the candle was a bag full of wool with a string around the neck. Next to it was another bag, half full. Beside the candle was a small bottle of rum. Mr. Hoggart bent over, picked up the bottle, and had a swallow. Then he looked at me like he
was
sizing up a horse. “You're a mighty pretty girl, Annie. I hope those New York boys haven't been pestering you.”

“No, sir,” I said.

“They're a bunch of nasty little devils,” he said. “If any of them pesters you, be sure to let me know. I'll birch him enough so he won't think to do it again.”

“My ma says I'm too young for fellows.”

He scratched his chin. “You don't have a fellow? What about the tally boy, Robert? I heard he was your fellow.”

I blushed, and I tried to make myself stop, for I didn't want Mr. Hoggart to see it. “No, sir. We're just friends. His folks have the next farm to ours. We grew up together from babies. We're just friends.”

He straightened up away from the door jamb, and took a couple of steps toward me. “Well, Annie, I hope you and me will be friends too. I could do a lot for you if we were friendly. I could forget about you being late this morning.”

“Oh, thank you, sir.''

He looked at me again. “I didn't say I was going to do it. I said I might. But you wouldn't expect me to forget about that if we weren't on friendly terms, would you?”

“No, sir.” It was what I'd been afraid would happen. “I just hope you'll think about it, for Pa's going to be mighty angry with me if my pay is short.”

He nodded. “I expect he will be.” He took another drink of rum. “You know, if we were friendly I could do a lot for you. I could even make you lamp girl.”

That was the easiest job in the mill. In wintertime it was pitch dark when we started work in the morning, and dark before we got finished at night too. The factory was lit by oil lamps, dozens of them on each floor. The lamp girl had to go around and see that the lamps had oil in them, and that the wicks were trimmed so they'd burn right. And then as it got dark she'd go through the mill lighting the lamps. It was easy work, and a whole lot more interesting than working a slubbing billy, for you got to go wherever you wanted, and could talk to people and see what was going on. They liked to have one of the girls for the job, because if you gave the job to one of the New York boys they'd use it as a chance to go into the kitchen and the storerooms and steal whatever they could find.

But I didn't want to be beholden to Mr. Hoggart for anything. “I don't mind the slubbing billy,” I said. “Maybe you could make Hetty Brown the lamp girl.”

“Oh, you'd like being lamp girl. But I couldn't make anybody lamp girl I wasn't on good terms with.” He squinted at me, his head slanted over. “Come, Annie. Robert's sweet on you, isn't he?”

I blushed again and looked down at the floor. I hated having him talk about Robert and me.
I
hated him being in it. “We're just friends, sir.”

“Just friends? I'll wager it's more than that.”

I was still looking at the floor, and suddenly I realized that he had walked softly toward me, and was standing a couple of feet from me. I could smell the rum he'd been drinking. He reached out, clenched my chin, and raised my face up so I had to look at him. “It'd be worth your while to be friendly to me, Annie,” he said in a soft voice. “There's a lot I could do for you.”

I felt disgusted, and twisted my head to break loose from his grip. He let go. “That isn't being very friendly, is it now?”

“Please, sir, can I go?” I started to step around him, but he grabbed my arm above the elbow.

“You ought to try to be a little friendly. You'd like being lamp girl.” He let go of my arm, and put his arm around my shoulders, and started to pull me toward him. My nose was filled with the smell of his sweat and rum, and I felt scared and disgusted. I pulled back and slipped out from under his arm. He reached out, and grabbed me by the shoulder; and just then I heard feet clumping up the stairs, and I knew from the clippety-clop way they went that it was Robert. The door slammed open. Mr. Hoggart let go of my arm and snapped around. “What the devil are you doing here?”

Then he noticed that Robert wasn't looking at him, or me, but at the two bags of wool next to the candle. “What are you staring at, Bronson?” he shouted.

Robert jerked his eyes away from the wool. “Nothing, sir. I just came to walk Annie home.”

Suddenly I saw it: We'd caught Mr. Hoggart stealing wool. Did he realize that we knew?

Mr. Hoggart gave Robert a mean, hard look. Then he looked back at me. “You can go now, Annie.”

CHAPTER
SIX

W
HEN I GOT HOME
Pa was sitting by the fire reading a newspaper. When I came in he looked at me, and then at that blame clock. “You're twenty minutes late,” he said.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to talk about what Mr. Hoggart had tried to do, but I realized I'd better. He was bound to do it again, and some day it'd come out. “Mr. Hoggart kept me late.”

“What was that for?” Pa said.

“He's—he tried to pester me.”

Ma came in from the kitchen, carrying a jug of cider. “What's that?” she said, mighty sharp. She put the jug on the table. “What do you mean, pester you?”

“He says I should be friendly to him. He says it would do me good to be friendly to him.”

Suddenly Ma was right in front of me, looking into my face. “Annie, did he touch you?”

“He grabbed my chin and twisted my head up. He put his arm over my shoulder, but I ducked away.”

Ma looked at Pa. He was staring at me, holding the paper in his lap.

“Now, just a minute, Annie—” Pa began.

“I never wanted her to go into the mill, Pa. I told you that from the beginning. And now see what's going on.”

Pa stood up and dropped the newspaper on his chair. “Now, just a minute, you two. Let's not jump to conclusions. What did he actually do, Annie?”

“He told me to be friendly to him. Then he tried to put his arm around me and hug me.”

Ma looked at me, and then back at Pa. “Was it because of you going in late this morning?”

Pa frowned. “Was Annie late? Why didn't you tell me?”

“Of course she was late. How was she to hear that bell over the wind this morning? You can't blame her, Pa.”

“She's supposed to be at the mill on time,” Pa said. “We're not on sun time anymore. We're on clock time. Did he say he was going to dock your wages?”

“He said he wouldn't if I was friendly to him.”

“There,” Ma said. She stamped her foot. “I won't have this.”

Pa stood there, his hands on his hips, looking around the room for an answer. I could tell what was going on in his mind as clear as if I could see through his face. He didn't want Mr. Hoggart pestering me any more than Ma did; but he wanted my wages too. That was Pa, always getting himself tangled up over things. Finally he said, “Annie, you sure you're not exaggerating all
this?
I know you'd be mighty happy to get out of the mill.”

“Pa, it's true,” I shouted. “And that's not all. Mr. Hoggart's been stealing wool out of the mill. He's been doing it for a long time.”

Pa stared at me, and even Ma looked shocked. “Now, Annie—” Pa said.

“It's true. Robert and I caught him. Robert knew all along anyway, because the tally sheets didn't calculate out.”

Pa puffed out his cheeks and stared around the room once again. Finally he said, “Annie, I don't know what to say about all of this. I don't doubt your word, but it's hard for me to believe that Mr. Hoggart's as bad as all that. I wouldn't think it of him.”

“It's true, Pa.”

“Well.” He looked out the window, the way he did when he knew he was supposed to do something, but didn't know what. “He shouldn't be pestering you. No, I won't allow that.”

“Pa, it's true about him stealing wool.”

He looked at me. “Now, Annie, you don't have any proof of that, do you?”

“No,” I said. “But I could get proof if we found out where he was hiding the wool.”

Suddenly Pa made up his mind about it. “Annie, I don't want you getting involved in anything like that. It isn't any of your business what Mr. Hoggart's doing down there. Probably he has a perfectly good reason for it. You don't know about these things, and I want you to stay clear of it.”