John dusted a wood spindle carefully, leaving not a spot behind. He had already dusted every other one in the rusty old cotton mill.
Sighing, he strode over to the closet in a secluded corner of the mill where all the cleaner’s tools were kept. Switching from duster to broom, he closed the closet door. He took the broom and started sweeping slowly.
Footsteps sounded on the creaky wooden floor behind him. A man wrinkled with age though still as straight as a pencil cuffed him over the ear. “Faster, boy.”
John didn’t mind the aching of his ear, he was used to the pain by now; his whole life he worked here, livi
ng under its roof. The elderly man was James William, and John’s guardian/parent, giving him food and shelter if he cleaned the cotton mill after work hours.
So here he was, sweeping the floor of the mill to keep a roof over his head and to not be short of food and water.
He swept the floor with long, swift strokes. James gave an approving nod and one of his rare smiles, then strode away.
John never saw what happened there before he came out to clean. All he knew was it was a cotton mill, he didn’t know how to work it. Sure, he dusted the spinning jennies and spindles and swept the loose cotton away, but he never saw the workers using the machines. So when James told him to try it, he was completely clueless. He was only 7, and he hadn’t been taught to work in the mill.
A few of the kids gave him pointers when there was no one around, but when an adult walked into the room they fell silent mid-sentence and continued working.
It was long, tedious work.
John soon got the hang of it but was still clumsy with the strings of cotton. He worked there for eleven more years. Then he had enough money and was old enough to move out. He still worked at the cotton mill, but he now lived in his own house and bought his own food. And he lived happily, in the new, growing world of the industrial revolution, ever after.
