The last stroke
of the bell saw almost everybody within the mill doors.
There were always fluffs of cotton in the air like great white bees
drifting down out of the picker chimney. They lodged in the cramped
and dingy elms and horse-chestnuts which a former agent had planted
along the streets, and the English sparrows squabbled over them in
eaves-corners and made warm, untidy great nests that would have
contented an Arctic explorer. Somehow the Corporation homes looked
like make-believe houses or huge stage-properties, they had so little
individuality or likeness to the old-fashioned buildings that made
homes for people out on the farms. There was more homelikeness in the
sparrows' nests, or even the toylike railroad station at the end of
the main street, for that was warmed by steam, and the station-master's
wife, thriftily taking advantage of the steady heat, brought her
house-plants there and kept them all winter on the broad window-sills.
The Corporation had followed the usual fortunes of New England
manufacturing villages. Its operatives were at first eager young men
and women from the farms near by, these being joined quickly by pale
English weavers and spinners, with their hearty-looking wives and rosy
children; then came the flock of Irish families, poorer and simpler
than the others but learning the work sooner, and gayer-hearted; now
the Canadian-French contingent furnished all the new help, and stood
in long rows before the noisy looms and chattered in their odd,
excited fashion.
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