I lost my heart then. I saw no way out from the mill, yet I knew that in the end, and that not long removed, the mill would overpower me and set me off on one side, a helpless, physical wreck. It was just a matter of a year or two, and that waiting line of out-of-works, which always came into the mule-room in the morning, would move up one, as the head boy was given my place. Late in that afternoon, with the hands on the clock going slower than ever, and the bitterness of my life full before me, I began to think of suicide. I imagined that it would be the easiest and safest exit from it all. It would end the misery, the pain, the distraction, and the impending uselessness of my body for work! It was so easy, too. I took up a three-pound weight, and put it on a pile of bobbins high above my head. I balanced it on the edge where the merest touch would allow it to crash to the floor. Then I experimented with it, allowing it to fall to see how much force there was to it. I speculated as to whether it would kill me instantly or not. It was a great temptation. It just meant a touch of the finger, a closing of the eyes, a holding of the breath, and it would be over! I tried to imagine how sorry and repentant my aunt and uncle would feel. It might make them stop drinking. It was worth doing, then. But suddenly there loomed up the fact that there are two sides to a grave, and the thought of God, a judgment, and an eternity dazed me. I was afraid. I put the weight back, and thought: “Well, I guess I’ll have to do the best I can, but it’s hard!” _Chapter XIV. Bad Deeds in a Union for Good Works_ _Chapter XIV. Bad Deeds in a Union for Good Works_ After he had been away from home two weeks, uncle sent us a letter from a Rhode Island mill-town, informing us that he had the malaria, bad. Would one of us come and bring him home? There was a postscript which read: “Be sure and come for me either on a Monday, Wednesday, or a Friday. They are the alternate days when I don’t have the shivers.” The day he came home he and aunt patched up peace over a pailful of beer, and there the matter ended, save that echoes of it would be heard at the next wrangle. Uncle took his place in one of the long lines of unemployed that wait for work at the end of the mill alleys. The expenses of the household were dependent upon the four dollars and a half I was earning at the time.