Chapter Seventeen
A textile factory going at full steam was an awesome sight to the uninitiated—and a terrible assault on unprotected ears. The noise began at the gates, where huge high-wheeled wagons pulled by teams of six horses or mules came in a steady stream from Liverpool, thirty miles to the south. There the cotton had been off-loaded from the fleets of packet ships shuttling back and forth across the Atlantic. These wagons made the very ground tremble, and the clattering racket of the iron-rimmed tires on cobblestone filled Preston’s main street with mind-numbing noise from first light to dark.
Inside the carding sheds, machines screeched and moaned like demented spirits. First, huge rollers covered with iron teeth drew the tangled fibers into straight, even rows. Then another machine began to roll the fibers over and over one another to form “slivers,” loose ropes of cotton yarn. From there they went to the “spinning mules,” hundreds of them, spitting out continuous lines of threads, as many as sixty-four at a time.
But it was in the long, low building that housed nearly two dozen of the great steam-driven power looms where the noise was so thunderous that it vibrated the skull and made it nearly impossible to speak. Even in the building next to it, where the boilers that fired the steam engines were housed, the noise of the looms was as real and as palpable as a living presence.
For the most part it was women who tended the weaving machines. As a boy, Derek hadn’t understood why so many of the women who worked in the factories always spoke loudly. They seemed to be screaming at everybody, even when they were just making idle conversation. He no longer wondered why. They stood at the machines from seven a.m. to seven p.m., battered by the incessant roaring, from whose noise they were relieved for only an hour, their dinner break, plus two brief stops—one midmorning and one midafternoon—to clean the machines and gulp down some tepid water, or perhaps some cold coffee, before the machines started rolling again.
Three great boilers provided the steam for the power looms. Derek Ingalls had moved into the boiler room from the unloading sheds at the age of fifteen. When he had first started, he had been one of the lads who “lapped” the cotton—laid it out in bundles of similar-size fibers—when the bales were first opened. Now he shoveled coal to feed the insatiable bellies of the boilers. He worked without a shirt, and his upper torso—wet with perspiration from the heat and the labor—almost glowed in the dancing firelight. There were three shovelers. Derek was the youngest and the toughest. Four years of shoveling for ten to twelve hours per day had turned his developing body into something hard and muscular.
The man working alongside Derek tapped his shoulder. He was pointing toward the door. Surprised, Derek turned. His surprise was even greater when he saw Peter standing there, motioning to him frantically. He turned, threw the shovel-load of coal into the gaping mouth of the boiler, then stuck his shovel into the coal pile.
The foreman was on him like a hawk on a straggler pigeon. “Eh, mate, where do ya think yer goin’?”
Derek hesitated for a moment. England’s unemployment was so horrendous that there were a dozen men for every job available. Often new men were so desperate for work that they would accept a lower wage, so the owners looked for the slightest letdown or misstep as an excuse to fire a person. Derek pointed to the door. “It’s my little brother, sir.”
The foreman looked, then nodded. He had a son a year younger than Peter who also worked in the cutting room. The boys were not close, but friendly. “All right,” he muttered, “but make it snappy.”
Peter stepped outside when he saw Derek was coming. Derek didn’t even wait for the door to close. “What is it, Peter? What’s the matter?”
His brother clutched at his arm. “Mr. Morris is here, Derek.”
“The owner?”
“Yes, the young one. The son. The lady who runs the front desk fainted. They’ve taken her to hospital.”
“So?”
His grip tightened on Derek’s arm. “Mr. Morris is fumin’. He needs someone who can read the orders. Says he needs ’em today.”
Derek was staring at his brother. “You can read.”
“He don’t want no kid, Derek,” Peter exclaimed in disgust. “He wants a bloomin’ adult. Go there. Tell him you can read.”
“But I can’t read.”
“You can!” Peter shouted up into his face. “You’re getting better all the time.”
“I . . . I’m still learnin’, Peter.”
Peter slugged him on the shoulder. “It’s three schillings more a month, Derek. Three schillings!”
Derek straightened, his mind racing.
“Do it, Derek, do it!”
He gulped hard. “All right.”
Peter started away. “I’ve got to get back. I snuck away. Don’t tell him how you knew.”
He nodded, half-numb. This was crazy. He could lose everything.
No!
It exploded fiercely in his mind.
I won’t pass this up! I won’t.
In a moment he was back inside and to the foreman. He took a breath. He was taking a terrible risk. If Morris and the foreman ever got together . . . He swept his hat off. “They want me up front.”
“What?” the foreman roared.
“Mr. Morris is here.”
The foreman looked startled for a moment, glancing nervously at the door. “Old Man Morris?”
“No, his son.”
“And what does he want you for?”
Derek shrugged, trying to look appropriately perplexed.
“All right, but you get your behinder right back here. What am I supposed to do for a shoveler in the meantime?”
Derek didn’t wait to hear what the foreman’s muttered answer to his own question would be. He grabbed his shirt and in an instant was out of the door.
* * *
Alexander Morris looked nothing like his father. He was nearing fifty and had gone quickly to corpulence. His father, the old man who had founded the factory and made it into one of the largest in Lancashire, was still, at seventy-two, lean as a buggy whip and tougher than a blacksmith’s anvil. But though the younger Morris looked nothing like him, as he glared balefully at Derek it was obvious there had been some inheritance of the old man’s genes.
“You can read?”
“Yes, sir.” It was all Derek could do not to stammer.
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen, sir.”
“Comin’ up or already there?”
“I was nineteen last October, sir.”
The narrow little eyes ran up and down Derek’s clothes, black with coal dust. “You’re in the boilers now.”
“Yes, sir. Four years as a shoveler.”
Morris swung around, grabbed a large ledger book and shoved it in front of Derek with a faint sneer. His thick forefinger jabbed at a line of writing. “Read this.”
Derek leaned over, conscious of a roaring in his ears. For a moment he thought he was going to faint. He squinted a little. Thankfully, the cursive was not too elaborate. “‘Robert T. Little, Esquire. 71 High Street, Putney, London.’” He straightened, sure that the quaver in his voice would betray him.
Morris sat back, still scowling, but more interested now. “You know your numbers too?”
“Yes, sir.” Fortunately, Derek had found numbers much less complex to grasp than the alphabet.
Morris stood up abruptly. “What’s your name?”
“Derek Ingalls, sir.”
“You got another set of clothes?”
“Yes, sir. At home, sir.”
There was a trace of amusement. “I’ll give you two weeks. If you don’t work out, you’re out of both jobs. Fair enough?”
“
Yes, sir.
”
“All right. You’ve got thirty minutes to get home and be back here in something that doesn’t stink of sweat and coal dust. I’ll send word to the boiler room to find a replacement.”
It was all Derek could do to just walk out of the office and down the path without breaking into a run. But the moment he rounded the corner he gave a whoop and headed for the cutting building. He didn’t have to go in. Peter’s face was pressed against the end window, his eyes round as two china plates.
Derek stopped. He was grinning from ear to ear. He nodded, then punched his fist into the air. There was a moment’s expression of disbelief, then a faint cry came through the glass. “All right!” Peter shouted. “You did it! You did it!”
* * *
“Mr. Steed?”
Joshua swung around sharply. Doctor Hathaway was at the doorway. He was wiping his hands on a towel. In three great strides Joshua was to him. Olivia and Will were not two steps behind him.
Hathaway smiled. “You can go in.”
“Is she all right?”
“Yes. She did very well.”
“And the baby?”
His smile broadened even further. Had it been any other day, Joshua would have been struck with the oddness of Hathaway’s mood. In his proper, Bostonian ways, he rarely smiled, and when he did it was usually a thin, tight-lipped expression that came out as more of a grimace. But there was no mistaking it now. The man Joshua Steed had found practicing medicine in St. Louis and brought to Independence so he could specifically help Jessica Steed carry a child; the man who had been greatly frustrated when that same Jessica Steed had refused to see him after she miscarried—that man was now immensely pleased. “I’ll let Mrs. Steed tell you that,” he said.
He looked down at the children. “You let your father have a few minutes with your mother first, then you can go in.”
Caroline looked up as Joshua slipped into the bedroom. Against the pillow, she looked drawn, washed out. Her eyes were filled with weariness, but a soft smile instantly lit her face. He went to her quickly and took her free hand. “Are you all right?” he asked, half whispering.
She nodded.
His eyes moved to the small bundle cuddled inside the crook of her other arm. She reached over and pulled the blanket carefully down. A tiny round face appeared. The eyes were closed, the nose a button stuck between fat, round cheeks, the mouth small and half-puckered. The head still looked a little squashed from the trauma of birth. Caroline pulled the blanket back further. Now he could see a shock of dark hair, thick as a rug but fine as goose down, still wet from the baby’s birth.
“It’s a girl, Joshua.”
He dropped to one knee so he could get a closer look. “Really?” he breathed.
“Are you disappointed?”
He instantly frowned at her. “Why would I be? It’s our baby. Boy or girl. It’s our baby.”
She smiled, deeply pleased.
He reached out with one finger, his face filled with wonder. “I can’t believe it. Look at all that hair.”
Caroline laughed. “Not only that, look at the color.” She turned a little, moving the baby more into the light.
Joshua leaned over to peer more closely. At first glance it looked black with the wetness, but then he saw it, and he smiled broadly. “It’s red,” he exclaimed.
“Yes, much more than mine. She’s going to have my mother’s hair.”
“That’s wonderful. Our own little carrot top.” He reached out, half gingerly, half in eagerness. Caroline lifted her to his hands. He straightened, holding the baby out at arm’s length and looking at her in awe.
“Well,” Caroline said after a moment, “now that we know it’s a girl, we have to settle on a name.”
“I already have.”
Her eyes widened a little. “But the other day you said you weren’t sure.”
“I wasn’t. Now I am.”
Her look chided him a little. “What if I don’t like it?”
“You will.”
She laughed. “All right, if you’re so sure, let’s hear it.”
“Savannah.”
That startled her. They had discussed several girls’ names—Elizabeth, Margaret, Belinda—but not once had that possibility come up.
He brought the baby back down and tucked her into one arm, then began to rock her gently, still looking down into her face. “Savannah Steed. What more appropriate name could there be?” His voice went suddenly tight. “It’s where everything important to me started.”
Tears sprang to Caroline’s eyes. It touched her more deeply than she could say that he was responding in this way.
He looked up, saw that she was crying. He met her gaze steadily. “Is that all right with you, then?”
She swallowed, smiling through the tears. “I think Savannah sounds absolutely perfect, Joshua.”
He came back to her, handed her the baby. “Hold her for a minute. There’s something I need to get.”
“All right.” A little puzzled, she took the baby and watched him as he knelt down beside the bed. He reached underneath and pulled out his valise, the one he had taken to Savannah. He looked up at her, his eyes grave, then quickly undid the buckles. She heard the rattling of paper. Finally he stood. In his hands was the porcelain doll he had purchased in New Orleans.
Her eyes widened as he held it out for her to see. “Joshua,” she breathed, “what an exquisite thing!”
He glanced down at it, then smiled slowly. “It’s for her, Caroline. I bought it in New Orleans, when I was on my way to Savannah. Thank you. Thank you for giving me this beautiful daughter.”
* * *
“Do you think it’s a boy?” Lydia asked.
Thankful Pratt nodded. “I know it is.”
Rebecca, standing on the opposite side of the bed, cocked her head to one side, looking a little surprised. The doctors were estimating that Parley’s wife was still two weeks from delivery.
Mary Ann saw the look and spoke up. “Remember? Brother Heber’s blessing upon Parley?”
Rebecca’s head bobbed. “Oh, yes. I forgot.”
“Yes,” Thankful said. “Brother Kimball promised Parley that I would conceive and bear him a son and that he should be named after his father.”
“That was a remarkable blessing,” Lydia said. “You were so sick back then, and ten years without child. Now look at you.”
Thankful laid her head back on the bed. They were standing around her in the small bedroom of the home in which the Pratts lived. Parley was off at a meeting with some of the brethren, and Mary Ann, Rebecca, and Lydia had brought her some chicken broth and some warm biscuits. Thankful’s recovery from a six-year bout with “incurable” consumption had left her healthy and filled with energy. When she had accompanied Parley back to Canada the previous June, she had seemed like an entirely different woman than the frail wraith they had known. She was fairly tall and quite slender, though now she was heavy with child. But evidently the reserves of strength were thin, for the pregnancy seemed to have drained much of them. The strain of her and Parley’s return from Toronto the week before had also taken its toll. She looked fragile and weary. That was partly what had triggered the women’s visit.