has to train an Irish
immigrant,
and is frustrated when she sends her mother a
dollar.
Lyddie is recovering from her
injury. The girls at the factory are dropping like flies
by now, in Chapter
14. Many have to quit because of the cough, though several want to sign the
petition for workers' rights even if they might get fired.
Lyddie is
the
best worker at this point, and she is chosen to help train an Irish
immigrant named Brigid. She
considers Brigid stupid, and by extension all
Irish immigrants. She has no patience for the
girl. She would rather be
working her own machines.
By
the end of
the first day, the girl was far from ready to operate her own machine, but Lyddie
had
run out of patience. She told Mr. Marsden to assign the girl a loom next
to her own. (Ch.
14)
Since Lyddie was
earlier worried about the kiss of
death sounds coming from the loom, giving
the girl a loom is not only foolish, it is dangerous.
It proves that Lyddie
is selfish and impetuous. She acts out of her own desires, and does what
she
wants. Further evidence of this is when she worries about her familys debts because she
no
longer wants to send money home. She begrudges sending a dollar
home.
She marveled that there had been
a time when she had almost gladly
given a perfect stranger everything she
had, but now found it hard to send her own mother a
dollar. (Ch.
14)
This shows how much Lyddie has
changed.
She was willing to lend Ezekial, the runaway slave, money. Yet now
she does not want to give
her mother money. She knows what it is like to
work hard. She knows what it is like to sweat
and fear. Every penny means
something to her now. Her family, and her familys debts, seem far
off. She
is hardened now. It shows in the way she treats Brigid too, with little
patience.
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyddie">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyddie
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