Meg+C

 Jump back into time, right back, into the 1860's. Become Katherine Smith as she goes through a tough few days, from getting sold to watching her close friend die. Lose yourself, become the character, and feel what Katherine feels. Hope you like it!

KATHERINE SMITH I didn’t want this. This diary my mother gave me. She said I had too much imagination and that this would help. I don’t believe her.  My mother, Lady Harriet, is a kind woman, loves sewing, but she can be naive. When I came home yesterday she told me my dear cousin Bella had died at a cotton mill. She didn’t give details but I knew anyway. The machinery was to blame for my six year old cousin’s death.  As morning broke my father, Sir William Smith, came into my room. He told me, “Katherine. I’m afraid we’re having a bit of trouble with money. I wasn’t surprised. Money slipped through my father’s hands like water, as he was a keen better on the horses down at the Birmingham Track. Father told me I had been sold to the mill I was working at. I was no longer part of the family. I was silent all through breakfast, fuming inside. How could they do that to me? I had heard of others getting sold but I never would have thought it would happen to me. Now, it had.  That day I worked from five in the morning until eight at night, with absolutely no food, struggling to stay awake, especially in the dying light of the late afternoon. Near the end of the day I watched as one of my close friends, Margaret Collins, got dragged into one of the largest machines in the mill. She was shredded to bits by the sharp blades. The sad thing was that I didn’t feel a thing. I had seen so many deaths in my lifetime that I didn’t respond to grief or sadness at all.  My first night at the mill was awful. Dinner was no more substantial then the feed was at home, a small bowl of porridge no bigger than my hand, and no chance of seconds. I tossed and turned in the bunk bed that I was forced to share with five other girls, hungry and restless.  With barely three hours of sleep I was forced to stagger out of bed by the prospect of Mr Robinson’s leather strap. An hour and one tiny bowl of gluggy porridge later I was put to work. Today I was in charge of the type of machine that killed Margaret Collins. I was one of the oldest children in the mill these days and I knew that my time would come very soon. Mr Robinson made sure that all girls in his mill were married off by age thirteen. I’m turning thirteen tomorrow and I was sure he had already picked out my future husband.  “Katherine Smith! Come to my office immediately!” Mr Robinson yelled from the balcony. My head snapped up. That was me! I hurried to his office and waited as he continued to pase, back and forth, his hands behind his back. “Katherine. It’s your thirteen birthday tomorrow. You know my rule. Tomorrow, I will buy another orphan and you will get married. I have picked your husband, a very fine man he is indeed, and Lady Fiona has organized the marriage forms for you and Sir Rodger Ferguson. You should be extremely grateful to her.” Mr Robinson told me solemnly. I hadn’t realised just how soon I would be a married woman, or rather, a married girl, but I also realised that it didn’t matter when it happened, just that it would happen. It was my future, my destiny even. Mrs Lady Katherine Ferguson. Forever and always.