Lyddie by Katherine Paterson

Author:Katherine Paterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 1994-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

“I ain’t a slave!” said Lyddie fiercely. “I ain’t a slave.”

“Of course you aren’t.” Amelia’s confidence had returned and with it her schoolmarm manner.

“At the inn I worked sometimes fifteen, sixteen hours a day and they paid my mother fifty cents a week, if they remembered. Here—”

“Oh shush, girl. Nobody’s calling you a slave. I was just singing the old song.”

“How do you know that radical song?” Amelia asked.

“I was a doffer back in ’36. At ten you learn all the songs.”

“And did you join the turnout?” Now Amelia looked like a schoolmarm who had caught a child in mischief.

Betsy’s eyes blazed. “At ten? I led out my whole floor—running all the way. It was the most exciting day of my life!”

“It does no good to rebel against authority.”

“Well, it does me good. I’m sick of being a sniveling wage slave.” Betsy picked up her botany book again as though closing the discussion.

“I mean it’s … it’s unladylike and … and against the Scriptures.” Amelia’s voice was shaking as she spoke.

“Against the Bible to fight injustice? Oh, come now, Amelia. I think you’ve got the wrong book at that church of yours.”

Lyddie looked from one angry face to the other. She cared nothing for being a lady or being religious. She was making far more money than she ever had at home in Vermont or was ever likely to. Why couldn’t people just live and let live?

The clang of the curfew bell quieted the argument but not Lyddie’s anxiety.

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