Lyddie

The next day, even though the factory is just as loud and her feet hurt just as much, Lyddie feels energized—after all, tonight Betsy will read to her again from Oliver Twist. While Diana notices that Lyddie is settling in quickly, Lyddie can’t articulate—even to Diana—the source of her cheeriness.

Betsy cannot read every night (sometimes there are chores to be done, and on weekends Amelia insists that Lyddie go to church), but the girls still finish the book together. Lyddie starts sharing the library “rent” for Oliver Twist with Betsy, giving her 10 cents. Betsy confesses that she, too, is saving money, hoping to go to a school in Ohio that educates women.

Too soon, however, it is summer: the book is done, and Lyddie learns that all her friends (even Diana) are going home for the holidays. But Lyddie has signed on for a full year with the factory, and if she leaves for a holiday, she will be dishonorably discharged—meaning she would lose her job and be blacklisted at all the factories in town. Before Diana leaves, she encourages Lyddie to come to a meeting on Independence Day of the “ten-hour movement,” but Lyddie refuses, not wanting to get in trouble.

Though July is hot and lonely, Lyddie now has more looms to tend to, and her pay quickly increases. Besides, now that she has the room to herself, Lyddie can focus more on her reading. She checks Oliver Twist out from the library again, and she begins to copy the text page by page, so that she can practice reading as she works the looms.

Lyddie has even started reading Oliver Twist at church, slipping copied pages of the novel into her bible. One Sunday, Lyddie is surprised to learn that Jesus was Jewish—just like Fagin, the villain of Oliver Twist (“and yet not like Fagin at all”). After church, Lyddie is walking through Lowell, daydreaming, when she thinks she spots Diana with a handsome man. But when Lyddie waves, Diana doesn’t return her greeting, and Lyddie decides it couldn’t be her after all.