Yet here in his library sat another overseer, telling another tale of mutiny.
“Third day in a row,” said Mr. Curtis, overseer of the Merrimack Corporation. “Third in a row they do not come!” His was a thin face, somewhat overly endowed with crooked nose, that did nothing to hide his tempers.
“Certainly it isn’t every girl,” said Mr. Boott, hoping a calm demeanor might prevent his visitor from upsetting the tea service.
“Today I have enough weavers for one floor only! And not enough spinners to keep them in thread.”
Mr. Boott noted as much in his ledger. “They can’t stay out forever. They require wages for their room and board.”
Curtis’s singular nostrils flared. “You don’t know women, do you? They’ll last for weeks on spite alone.” He slapped the desk like an impertinent schoolboy, which caused Mr. Boott’s pen to splutter.
A frown creased the agent’s face. With his powers of empathy, it was no great exertion to imagine many a man (or woman) chafed under Curtis’s supervision. “Let it not be said we are cruel masters,” he said, coming to a decision. “Give the operatives who’ve stayed on an extra nickel this week. I’ll put it out that any who return at once will get the same.”
The overseer scowled. “Better to drag the rebels back in by their hair.”
“To what purpose?” Mr. Boott blotted his ledger. “Earning even more spite?”
“At least you ought to make an example of the ringleaders. I could point to a few.”
“I am sure you could. But this isn’t the old world, and our operatives aren’t serfs to be whipped and transported.”
The maid interrupted to announce visitors at the front door. None too disappointed to leave this meeting, Mr. Boott rose to go and see. A dozen mill girls were standing between the Greek columns.
“Mr. Boott, we are so pleased to find you at home,” said a short, sturdy child of fifteen or sixteen.
“Good morning.” Something about the girls’ appearance disquieted Mr. Boott, beyond the obvious fact that they were on his porch instead of in the factories. “Who might I have the honor of addressing?” His first glance had been wrong: there were more than a dozen of them. Many more.
The one who had spoken smiled. “We represent the Factory Girls’ Union of Lowell.”
Union? So it was war, was it? The working men—women—against the capitalists; precisely the sort of thing he and his employers had designed Lowell to prevent.
Mr. Boott cleared his throat and chose to remain calm. “Oh? What’s your business with me?” It would not be the owners’ side that opened hostilities.
“You may have noticed that we have not returned to work since Friday. We are here to present you with our demands before we do so.”
Before he understood what was happening, she had pressed a leaf of paper into his hand. Mr. Boott was literate—quite so—and yet his mind could not make meaning of the runes it found on that page. At most, it snatched out words he recognized. Clocks . . . boardinghouses . . . ventilation . . . health . . . females . . . equal.
“None of us,” said the girl who had handed him the page, “will return to our posts until the corporations comply with these demands in good faith.”
Mr. Boott stared, wondering what sort of creature he was facing. Not a lovely one to look at: her small eyes were black and round, and quashed together with a blunt nose at the central latitude of her face. A bonnet might have helped, but her head was bare, brown hair wild. Indeed, all the young female faces before him were framed with free-flowing locks, from the freckle-faced girl with flaxen hair to the dusky beauty with lips like a gem. Each one wore an armband of the most curious variegated cloth. It wasn’t cotton.
The skin at the back of Mr. Boott’s neck prickled.
“My dear young woman,” he began, composing his features carefully into a smile. “Young women,” he added, acknowledging the full crowd. “Clearly, you have considered your lot and noticed many arenas for improvement. I understand. But even the simplest of alterations cannot be accomplished in the space of a day.”
The black-eyed leader cocked her head. “We’ll wait.”
Kirk Boott, of course, was a Christian and an educated man—a man in full mastery of his base animal nature. And yet, when she held her face at that angle, every bit of him, from the marrow of his bones to the tip of his eyelashes, wanted nothing more than to shatter that arrogant smirk against the back of his hand.
Instead, he swallowed and patiently, as if speaking to his own adorable but wayward progeny, explained to the young women that they worked for a modern concern, a species which required continuous production to survive among its rivals. “I promise you,” he finally said, “the Boston gentlemen will get a full account of your demands. But no change will be possible unless you return to work. Any girl”—he redoubled his tolerant smile—“who does so immediately will receive an additional nickel in her pocket at the end of the week.”
That quieted the little swarm.
“A nickel?” asked the stout little leader.
“Yes,” he replied, pleased that he had chosen this gentle, generous form of persuasion. “This week, and next, until the end of your contracts.”
“You raised our board by twenty-five cents last week.”
Mr. Boott’s mouth opened but he had no reply.
The girl shook her head. “We are a union now. Tell your masters.” She nodded at the paper in his hands and then gave some signal to her sisters. The crowd turned about and marched away, militaristic precision in their steps.
Mr. Boott shut the door before they were out of sight. He stretched out an arm to the lintel, supporting himself while his limbs took to trembling.
“Well, did the carrot move the mules?”
Mr. Boott lifted his head. Curtis stood watching him, those prodigious nostrils flaring with the answer he must already know.
“This impertinence is uncanny.”
“That’s what comes of giving women a free rein. Wages spoil them—soon as they have money in hand, they get to think they’re people-in-the-world and they want to say what’s so. I’ve seen it even in some men. Better ship this lot back to the farms and let your Boston nabobs start over.”
Mr. Boott grimaced, remembering who was the superior man. Curtis was a blunt instrument—useful in the appropriate moment but hopeless in most others. Instead of listening to the overseer further, Mr. Boott thought about the bands of strange cloth wound about the girls’ arms, and their hair flowing wild over their shoulders. He thought of the violent temptation that had reared up inside him, to strike their leader.
Might that not be his soul rebelling against the presence of something foul and evil?
Mr. Boott crossed himself, and then thought better of it. Witchcraft? No. There hadn’t been a witch in New England for two hundred years. Besides, what worker would go so far? This wasn’t Lancashire; this was Massachusetts. And yet . . .
These girls were so very defiant.
Mr. Boott crossed himself again.
4: The Advertisement
WORD OF THE BATTLE at the Boott Palace spread from boardinghouse to boardinghouse and from factory to factory, whispered from one worker to another. So too went word of the Union’s demands. At all hours, a knock might come at Mrs. Hanson’s door, to reveal another girl on the step, her cheeks pink with excitement.