Lyddie by Katherine PatersonWhen a bear invades Lyddie's home, her mother decides that the bear foretells the ending of the world and goes off to live with her brother Lyddie's Armageddon-preaching uncle, leaving Lyddie and her brother Charlie to tend to the farm. Lyddie and Charlie are squeaking by when they receive a letter from their mother saying that she has incurred debts and has hired them off.
Charles goes off to be the miller's apprentice. The miller and his wife, who are childless, treat him as their own son. Lyddie is not so fortunate. She is sent to work at an inn, where she works hard hours for fifty cents a week that her mistress sends to her mother. When the mistress goes away, Lyddie goes to visit her home. There she finds a fugitive slave hiding in her cabin. She is tempted to turn him in for the hundred dollar reward, but after she talks to him, she changes her mind, and loans him all of her money instead. When she returns to the inn, the mistress has already returned and is furious with Lyddie. In a fit of rage, she fires Lyddie. Lyddie decides to go to work in the mills in Lowell, Massachusetts.
The job is not as easy as she had expected it to be, and it has the unwanted condition that she attend church, but the pay is good. Lyddie makes friends with her three roommates: Amelia, the daughter of a preacher and the girls' conscious, Betsy, a spirited girl who introduces Lyddie to the wonder of books, and Prudence, whom we do not really get to know. Lyddie also befriends Diana, a girl she works with at the mill. Diana is a unionizer, and is somewhat infamous among the girls. Amelia warns Lyddie to stay away from Diana.
Lydia makes it through the departure of all of these characters. Amelia leaves, somewhat dispiritted, to become a schoolteacher. Betsy gets too sick. Diana gets pregnant. Lyddie is becoming increasingly disheartened. She agrees to sign a petition for a ten-hour workday, but too late; it had already been submitted. Lyddie doesn't get to leave theatrically, though. Her new friend Brigid is the victim of sexual harassment from the manager, and Lyddie throws a bucket of water on the manager. She is fired.
Lyddie leaves the mills, and goes home. She plans to go to a woman's college when the book ends.
A sequel would be a great addition to the story. The ending does not really seem final, but rather the perfect introduction to a new story.
Happy reading.
