For he can see all works better

  If we do pass the time this way

  Aye for a while it seem a fine life

  For I have money I never afore

  New dress new boots button smart

  Take home to Stocton Hill pork and potaters

  For Nettie and me

  Buy myself a hair ribbon

  Give a few pennies to Emma for her childers

  Make her some time stewd ox cheek

  Or a pot of stirabout

  For she no a ways does have any meat

  Not even tripe or slink or broxy

  Can her money run that far

  Yet she is always my friend and defender

  Turns her snake tongue on any hissing woman

  Who does mock or spite me

  Buy wool stockings for Nettie

  For her feet is v swelld

  I do this for Lucetta did once do the same

  I like to do as she has done

  Nettie say You fool to waste yr money

  Yet I know her now and see

  How she does cradle those stockings

  When she thinks I do not see

  Still in the eve when I get home

  It be late but I help in the kitchen and clean

  Not so much for there is no time

  Truth to say Mr Harland Cottrell not care

  As long as he has a fire and supper

  Rain running in and mould growing

  All where the chimbley is brokd

  Yet still I like to be there

  Sometimes also sit in the evenings

  When all is done

  Hold the lamp close

  Read a few lines to Mr Harland Cottrell

  His eyes going milky and cakd up

  Mind running oft ovr the same track

  Again and again

  For in this way his kindness come back to he

  That he did teach me to read and write

  Which no other person would have

  So now I can do this service for he

  Which is blessd comfort

  You plant kindness so kindness grow

  Though it may take many a long year

  Afore you have yr kindness back

  This I should like to believe

  I see all his weaknesses and frailties

  Still it gives me pleasure see him by the fire

  His is a life livd close to our Lord

  This no one may gainsay

  During those first years at Pitchcombe Mill

  I have quite oft a letter from Lucetta

  They bring word to me from the George

  To tell me so

  Lucetta is fine settld now and training

  For to be a teacher

  I also do write back to she

  Mr Harland Cottrell giving me the paper

  Some of the pain and anger goes

  Yet not the missing of her

  Which will always be sharp

  Still the letters bring some comfort

  In my mind I am always planning

  When it comes Whitsun perhaps

  I could take the fish cart as she did take

  Go and see her

  Yet the journey so long

  I do not know when twill be

  Still the letters come from Master Blyth

  Mr Harland Cottrell start to open them now

  His anger has died now some

  He does not say much yet hands them to me

  Words from London town of the hospitals there

  The work which is never at an end

  In streets where are many poor and uneducatd

  Terrible sickness they are crowd close

  So the letters say

  Though it also clear to see

  What a success does Master Blyth make

  Of this course which he has chosd

  Attending many lectures and demonstration

  Soon offerd a much prestigious position

  Also Master Ned does write sometimes

  But those letters I do not see

  I do not need to for I hear oft

  Even see him sometimes

  He comes to a meeting at the mill

  Raise his hat to me

  When he sees me walking by

  I say Good morning to you Sir

  Hope you are keeping well

  He gives me that smile

  As he smild when he was a boy

  Full of laughter and light

  Say Oh yes Mary Ann thank you

  V well and busy about this

  Important and God givd work

  So he nods again and smiles

  Raises his hat with a flourish

  Making me think of the cloakd man

  Who did raise the Devil

  In that strange place

  Maybe the past maybe a dream

  For I know and he knows

  Tis knowd everywhere

  That though he works for the factor

  Does buy sell cloth up and down these Valleys

  Then goes to Bristol and takes more orders there

  He is also taking chap books with he

  Some as come from the London Working Men

  These he distributes all round

  These are read much in the yard

  Round about some even go in the fields

  Proclaiming so with hand on chest

  For them as cannot read theysselfs

  Also talk of whether force be just

  What may be done in the girt struggle to come

  Reading also from that book Mr Thomas Paine

  As many have been imprisond for the spreading

  Like poor Mr Abel Woebegone

  The words theysselfs a breathless magic

  You start to read you want for more

  Many at the mill fall upon this talk

  For they have no education and all for them

  Is bloody struggle break all down

  Afore you build again

  Always they are threatening

  The evil they shall visit on that Mr Fluck

  Which I cannot say surprise

  For sure he is an unyielding man

  Such as Ambrose do not care for this

  You must shew yrself respectable

  Make clear that you can be trustd

  These wild schemes only bring working men

  Into disrepute

  These folk in London Birmingham Manchester

  He say and so do some others

  Tis only dreams and cloud building puff

  What chance is there they give the vote

  To those who have naught

  Why should them who own no land

  Be given a say in what is done

  Such as Ambrose also place girt faith

  In Mr Miles who is sent from London

  To enquire into the condition

  Of those many weavers as without work

  I listen to these debates close

  So when Ambrose come to ask if I will help him

  Course I say I will do all I can

  Tis not much he wants

  Only to copy out some letters

  For many letters are sent

  The writing of them long work

  This is nothing to me

  For I have oft writ a letter

  For some person who is not letterd theysselfs

  In this way earning myself a few pennies

  Also Ambrose ask I should report back to he

  All that goes in that picking room

  If the foreman push someone head down slap

  When he has no good reason

  These things I am to say

  This does involve difficulty for me

  For the foreman is a rough and ignorant man

  Knows what I do

  So slams my head gainst the wall

  When no one can see

  Or trip me as I walk and push me down

  I do not care

  So that was how it start

  In ways that seemd small enough

  That surely count for naught

  Yet as time goes on many things change

  At the mill itself but inside of me

  You see things there

  Anger like a putrid boil grows

  I were four years there by then

  This I must say as being

  A difficulty of the human character

  The more you have the more you want

  What satisfies you once

  Does soon begin to seem but little

  What you see also is that letters are writ

  Reports are made meetings is organizd

  Mr Fluck is ask again and again

  Could not he change this or that

  Pamphlets passd around and read

  Strikes is threatend and people are beat

  Yet that Mr Fluck is a man of iron and stone

  No a ways will yield

  Oft cruel to the childers

  Pushing one in a freezing water trough

  For the sin of falling asleep

  This I say though I respect Ambrose dear

  More and more I think no progress can come

  Unless there is force

  Yet still when some of the rougher men

  Come to me ask my help in certain matters

  I do say No

  Put on the whole armour of God

  That you may be able to stand firm

  Gainst the wiles of the Devil

  Mr Harland Cottrell has taught me well

  But oh oh it were not so long after

  Two events did come to happen

  Both did change my mind and venom it perhaps

  The first was that my letters to Lucetta

  No longer receive any reply

  Though I write again and again

  Comes back only silence

  I go to ask Mr Birch Nazareth

  His letters also receive no response

  He hisself never been quite so merry

  Since she left

  You see the age in he

  What can we do I say

  How can we find out if she is safe

  Mr Birch Nazareth shake his shaggy head

  You must hand her ovr the care of God

  Cease yr canting

  We cannot know what might have come to pass

  But be sure she is belovd of God

  All will be well

  So I try to do

  Yet still my mind is hauntd

  Surely some wrong has come to her

  Otherwise why does she not write

  I think again of Master Blyth

  Does she write to him in London

  Could I find some way to ask him this

  Yet I feel sure he has quite forgot her

  Though he were the start of all her troubles

  That I do never forget

  So my mind is stirrd and turns tumultous

  Then just at this time come other trouble

  Which has been gathering a while

  For the men who work been making moan

  For some time now how the beams is unsafe

  These beams being anyway too low

  So you may easily catch yrself in they

  Already trouble with a wheel running too fast

  As does break the shaft

  Ambrose I know many times spokd to the owner

  Those beams must be takd down

  New ones put up

  We cannot patch nail forver

  Yet this will not happen for to do it

  Does cost much money and time

  So the argument goes back and forth

  Til one October day low skye and air closd in

  Feverish damp with all dripping

  There comes a grating heaving breaking

  Goes all through the building

  So that all stop and gasp

  A girt shouting and banging

  A sudden silence as a raging cry goes up

  All the looms and wheels must be stoppd

  Straps levers rollers all pulld loose

  Then we hear screaming

  The running of many feet

  The foreman say You get on with yr work

  Is no cause for you to go

  Yet some women work in the picking have men

  Who are in that loom workshop

  So they take no notice of the foreman

  Push their way through

  For tis clear that

  All is smashd

  It were the beam as has been warnd of

  It come down and two were killd

  Crushd under its weight

  Their heads and back brokd

  One other with his arm broke

  Another knockd out senseless

  By the fall of the timber

  All is shouting and weeping

  Emma from the picking shop is wailing sore

  For her husband was one of the dead

  Sure there are promises all will be right

  Money paid those lost their family

  Twill all be takd care

  But oh times goes on and tis not so

  We seed it once we seed it a multitude of times

  The only recompense offerd to Emma

  Is that her three young ones

  Must come now to work in the mill

  Those poor childers not ten feet away

  From where their father died

  The beam really no better than twas

  Though we are told tis quite safe

  Only patchd again

  Tis the honour of the scarlet of Stroudwater

  Knowd throughout the world

  So all this we are told

  But what good is that for Emma

  What good also for all the mills that close

  Many of the small ones gone years back

  Now the larger also turnd to grist or pins

  Even Griffin Mill made ovr to sawing

  Many sneer then at Ambrose and his like

  Talk talk talk all the owner does is fill time

  He has no intention of redress any question

  Also at that time comes news sheets

  Make their way from London or Bristol

  I am sure is Master Ned who brought them

  The Poor Mans Guardian the Northern Star

  Other like them saying

  How all men must have the vote

  Which seem no more possible to me

  Than Queen Victoria do take in laundry

  But many at the mill say

  That tis the way

  The only way

  All cross the country news of the struggle

  Growing apace

  What an age is this we live in

  When all is shouting clambering

  Everyone talk but no one listen

  How come there so much knowledge

  Yet still we chokd by ignorance

  Impossible to sort the wheat from the chaff

  So is my mind stirrd up

  Nothing in the world seems simple

  I am torn this way and that

  So despite all my loyalty to Ambrose

  I come to think they are right

  Who says no point in talking more

  When I see Master Ned again

  I look at him and think

  Maybe he is the man for this

  As others think it too

  We do not need the sane and wise now

  In their place we need those who will act

  I do not want to think this

  But I do

  So then when I am askd again to help

  I say that God help me I will

  Yet tis only they want me to keep the watch

  While some meeting or discussion does take place

  This I feel no fear to do

  All I must is stand near the gate of the mill

  Watch to see if anyone comes near

  This no danger to me as should anyone come

  I pretend I am but taking a rest

  As I walk toward Stroudwater

  Anyways no one much notice me

  Think me too small and stupid

  To be involvd in any matter of import

  Only once or twice do I hear some talk

  Which I try hard to forget

  So I may say if askd

  I know naught

  Yet still one thing does stick in my mind

  The words Little Mill

  All the time more and more are without work

  Come again and again to the gates

  Pleading not even for work

  Just for a crust of bread

  Never were this country of England

  Brought so low

  So another year drawing toward its end

  The air all around weightd with the loss of hope

  Then all changes quite sudden

  Such is the gift life can all turn round

  For we receive news that Master Blyth

  Will be a coming home at Christmas tide

  Nettie and I set to though tis late the eve

  Cakes puddings fires laid dust raisd

  Holly and ivy carrid in

  All past strife forgot for this time

  What a fine gentleman he has become

  So says Nettie beaming wide

  Her sticking out teeth dancing

  Merry in her mouth

  Tis true Master Blyth was much changd

  A silk top hat a double breastd vest of velvet

  A girt coat with a narrow waist and high collar

  Side burns and moustache all neatly trimmd

 

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