Free The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott

made you think you could get away with this?”
    “You don’t want her. You just want to hurt me.”
    “For leaving? I would’ve kicked you out, soon enough. Give me the kid, she’s my property.”
    “She’s not property.” Delia’s voice stopped quaking.
    Tom Appleton, in a slow, easy motion, took her by the arm and twisted, hard. Delia let out a cry.
    Briggs pulled himself from the floor and grabbed Appleton around the neck. Alice and the others came out of their shock and started pulling Delia away from Appleton’s grasp, shouting and screaming for help. Only Lovey stood still, concentrating, working one loom as if nothing were happening.
    “What’s going on here?”
    Appleton and the others turned in the direction of the voice. Samuel Fiske stood in the doorway.
    “I’m here for my kid,” Appleton said.
    “I don’t care who you are, you are not authorized to be here. Get out.”
    “I don’t need any authorization to get my kid.” Appleton wasn’t grinning anymore. “This here woman is a runaway wife, I have rights.”
    “Not to abuse her.”
    “I have the right to do anything I want, and I want my kid.”
    Delia found her voice. “She’s not here. I sent her to live with my sister.”
    Appleton purred his reply. “You think I won’t find her? I will. And she’ll catch it for leaving the farm.”
    Lovey stood silent, her skirt swaying slightly.
    “I see no child here,” Samuel said, moving farther into the room. “I repeat—get out. Now. And leave Lowell immediately.”
    “Who the hell are you?”
    “Samuel Fiske.”
    Appleton blinked. The swagger seemed suddenly punched out of him. “Look, you own the place, and I don’t want no trouble with the Fiskes,” he muttered.
    The foreman, back in charge, grabbed the man by the collar and forced him to the door.
    The girls were now all staring at Samuel. He quickly decided that proffering an invitation to the woman named Alice Barrow to join the family in Boston seemed a bit awkward at the moment.
    “I don’t think you’ll see any more of him,” he said.
    “Thank you,” Delia said, holding a wrinkled handkerchief to her face, dabbing at her eyes. “Thank you for not letting him hurt me.”
    “I could do no less,” he said, shifting uncomfortably.
    Another voice cut in. “Regardless, sir. You could have let him do what he wanted to do, and the law would back him up. We all thank you.”
    He recognized that voice. Alice Barrow was looking directly at him, which gave him a swift opening. “Miss Barrow, when your shift is over, I would like to speak to you in the central office, if you will,” he said.
    She nodded, eyes widening slightly.
    As he turned to go, a small girl crawled out from under Lovey’s skirts. “Mama,” she cried, her face stained with tears, as she ran into Delia’s arms.
    Everyone froze. “Too soon, Ellie,” whispered Lovey.
    Alice tried to find her voice. Lovey had been brave; now she had to be. “Mr. Fiske,” she said, “will you follow your kindness by refraining from firing our friend for being a mother?”
    Samuel blinked. It was a challenge, not an obsequious request—no bobbing, smiling faces here. Yet there were rules. Only single, unwed women could work in the Lowell mill, that was his father’s dictate; married women and mothers were too easily distracted.
    “There are rules—” he began. He stopped at the determined look in Alice’s eyes. No desperation, no supplication.
    It really wasn’t that hard a decision after all. “I do not believe I saw any child,” he finally said. He tipped his hat, turned, and left the room.
    T he overseer’s office was a plain affair: straight-backed chairs, a narrow desk listing slightly, heavy curtains turned gray by age. Ushered in by a secretary, Alice found herself facing Samuel Fiske. She had forced his hand; he would have every reason to retaliate. He must be bringing some response to her speaking out at the Lyceum meeting, and she had made it worse.