Jess

Jess M //Hi, I’m Rosemary Millar. I am 20 years old; living in 1868. My master is Sir Henry Smith, and I am a loyal servant. When I was eight, I got sold to a textile mill. I got sent away from my hometown of Canton, Pittsburgh. My parents told me it was to save my baby sister Evangeline, but I am still upset that I was the sacrifice that they were willing to make. This is my story. //   //The day I started at the mill, I was in total agony. I had to stand all day working the machines. My feet hurt and I was starving. I only got a small amount of porridge before I was sent to the hut. The hut is possibly the clearest of my memories from the factory. I remember the twenty beds all lined up together completely filling the small space. I remember having no pillows and no blankets and on cold nights having to huddle up in my apron to keep warm And I remember that cold concrete floor that gave me endless nights of cold feet.// //When I got woken up in the morning, it was nearly 3am. After going to bed at 10pm I was exhausted. I remember looking around at the fellow girls and boys that I knew had the same or similar stories as me. They all had plain, dirty, scruffy clothes, similar to mine, and no-one had shoes on. I remember thinking that we were all new there and being worried that I didn’t know anyone’s name, and I remember quickly discovering that they didn’t want to know my name either. // //But I soon settled in to the repetitiveness of the mill. I had to wake up at 3am, to start work immediately. If we were not working by two past three we were punished. Our main forms of punishment were beatings, verbal abuse or being weighted, which is when we got a heavy weight tied around our neck and had to walk up and down aisles in front of other workers. I worked until eleven ‘o’ clock when I got a 15minute break and then until 4 when I got a half an hour break. I finished at ten when I got half a bowl of porridge. Then we were sent to bed and I would fall straight asleep, overwhelmed with my days work. // //I got punished frequently, but it was never very severe punishments. But I was lucky compared to the other people in the hut. One boy lost his arm when he fell asleep working the machines. And I remember when two girls got weighted for two hours because they were talking on the job. So, I remember being glad that I didn’t have any friends at the mill. It lessened the risk of getting punished for me. // //I remember it being years later and I was still stuck at the factory. I was fifteen years old and working fifteen hours a day with next-to-no food. I remember being the only one in the hut with ten fingers, ten toes, two arms and two legs. Two people had been shredded from falling asleep on the machines. But I had something wrong with my lungs. It was hard to breathe in and out, and still is to this day .I remember watching as I inhaled the stuffy mill air and all the tiny particles of dust and fabric. And my feet. I remember the first day that I saw they were flat. And I remember blaming standing up for too long. But I now have to hobble around and it hurts to stand. And I remember looking at the feet that always seemed to be covered in cuts and bruises that never went away. // //I remember the day that the boss dropped the bombshell. He was doing his six-monthly check-up on all of his machines with his assistant. When he was at my machine he was talking to her about that ‘new kid’. The one who had been crying all the time, apparently because her parents had died. And how she would ruin their reputation. It took a while (of which I waited impatiently) but the assistant finally got her name. Evangeline Millar. My sister. For the rest of the day, I had distraught thoughts. Evangeline was here? In the factory? She would face the same horrors as me? // //When I was nineteen the mill decided they didn’t want me anymore. That was one of the two most happiest day of my life. They held an auction and auctioned off me and nine others from the hut to make money to buy younger workers. I got sold to a nice man as a servant. He treats me nicely and has taught me how to read and write even though I have broken arches in my feet and respiratory disease, which I found is the problem with my lungs. He was even nice enough to fill the gaping hole inside of me and buy Evangeline off the mill. That day is the other of my two most happiest days. // //Now that I have been sold off the mill, I finally get a chance to reflect. // //I am disappointed that I didn’t get a proper childhood but I am glad me and Eve got saved when we did. I wish I could have been bought earlier off the mill to save my parents but I am content with what I’ve got. One day I dream to become an accomplished author to alert the world of what happens in the child labour factories. //
 * __The story of Rosemary Millar __**