This is a very dark story. It starts with the father of a family being killed at Gettysburg. The family moves North to stay with some relatives but they end up having to leave there and go to another place to live where the children get jobs working in a textile mill while the mother goes to work for some rich people.
The story centers on the terrible working conditions at the mill, the hours they have to work, and the just how dangerous the mill is to the young people who work there. Some are killed in accidents, others terribly injured, and many who avoid those two problems still get sick from their lungs being contaminated by the cotton fluff in the air.
Patrick, the eldest youngster of the family, befriends an old woman who, herself, was injured in a mill accident. His friend has become a thief, and his friend has a girlfriend who had been used by one of the mill officials and is now pregnant.
The greed of the stockholders, and their lack of concern about the lives of those who work in the mill, matches the greed of stockholders today and their lack of concern about anybody else and their needs.
It's a very depressing story showing just how bad things were in the past for workers, but at the same time relating to what is still going on today in the name of greed.
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