noon
It was a blowy April day outside , with a gay blue sky in which the white clouds raced , drawing barges of shadow over the earth below . But the necessity of keeping dust out of the machinery , the inconvenience of having flying ends carried toward it , closed every window in the big factory , and the operatives gasped in the early heat , the odour of oil , the exhausted air . There was a ventilating system in the Hardwick mill , and it was supposed to be exceptionally free from lint ; but the fagged children crowded to the casements with instinctive longing for the outdoor air which could not of course enter through the glass ; or plodded their monotonous rounds to tend the frames and see that the thread was running properly to each spool , and that the spools were removed , when filled . By noon every nerve in Johnnie 's body quivered with excitement and overstrain ; yet when Mandy came for her at the dinner hour she showed her a face still resolute , and asked that a snack be brought her to the mill . `` I do n't see why you wo n't come along home and eat your dinner , '' the Meacham woman commented . `` The Lord knows you get time enough to stay in the mill working over them old looms . Say , I seen you in the hall -- did you know who you was talking to ? ''