week14-08

Jo Bodeon’s Old Tattered Shirt

By Tyler.W.Proulx,
Ferrisburgh Central School, Grade 5

A young boy about 10 years old,
dressed so light, I wonder if he’s cold.
Working hard day and night,
in the cotton mill is where he burns daylight.

There he stood in an old tattered shirt,
I wonder if he ever got hurt,
in the cotton mill in that old tattered shirt.

Jo Bodeon

By Paige Stolen
Ferrisburgh Central School, Grade 5

Works long but paid low
Obedient
Smells the stink of the mill,
Poorly lit and dirty
The boom of the machines pounds in his ears
He sees the workers running this way and that
No education
He is exhausted Jo Bodeon.

What good is working hard if it never pays off?

By Neha Singh
Essex High School, Grade 9

What good is working hard
If it never pays off?
Striving to be the best
And doing your best
Is completely useless
If they never let you go.
Working from dawn till dusk
Doing as much as you can
What good is working hard
If it never pays off?
People say you lose if you don’t try

Good Old Days

By Michelle Ballou
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

Poor Jo Bodeon
Photo: reminder of past
Sadness, Pain, Hurt.

A Boy

By Theresa Glabach
Dummerston School, Grade 7

I never thought that,
This would be my life,
Waking up at 5 AM,
And walking down the road,
To another day as a slave,
To the dust,
The pain,
And the fright.
Will I still have all my fingers?

Then I go home,
If you can even call it that,
To get barely enough sleep,
Before I must go back,

Boy

By Nina McCaarthy
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

Dust on my face,
And frostbite on my nose,
Covering my back, are my ripped, tattered, clothes.

This is where I live,
This is my home,
Everyday I work to the bone.

To raise money for the farm,
For my baby sister in my mother’s arms,
The money I earn saves them from harm.

I gave up my life,
I gave up my friends,

The Boy

By Henry Farrand
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

A young cotton worker stands before me
Older than three, but still younger than me
His age I can not say
But lightened by the day
I can see
His cloths are warn
Ripped, tattered, and torn
His suspenders held tight
While his faced is overcome with piercing light
Such a strange expression on his face

The Rag Doll

By Caitlin Bernard
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

A Young Boy's Life

By Chelsea Harris
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

Monotonous Days

By Hila Saxe
Shelburne Community School, Grade 5

Sweat-soaked and grimy,
Eyes bloodshot and drooping,
A scowl on his dirty face,
The boy continues his endless work
At the cotton mill.
His arms and hands repeatedly move in
Work he has done for more than half his life.
The work is never ending,
The same thing day after day.
He is no one,
Just another laboring child of
Countless others in the room.
This work is his life,
And all he knows.
A new life
Is unthinkable, beyond imagination.
Hope is a distant thing,
Filling far fewer hopeless hearts
Than is kind for hope to do.
Will hope ever fly to perch
In the boy’s soul?

My Story

By Sarah Felten
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

My name is Jo Bodeon.
I am a “back-roper” in the mule room at the Chace Cotton Mill in Burlington.
I have forgotten what age I am.
But people say I am not old enough to work, but that I do.
Every morning at five o’clock I am summoned into the mule room.
I stay there until six o’clock in the afternoon,

One Life

By Alexandra Weimer
Shelburne Community School, Grade 5

Working at the mill

By Isabelle Sharp
Shelburne Community School, Grade 5

Click, clank the wheel turns as the day goes on,
From 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. we work our backs off.
We only get a break from 12 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Then click, clack back to the mill we go.
Doing the same work each day is not that fun at all.
Ever gone to work when you're 6 years old?
Well Ma and Pa would make you.
The mill never ever allowed kids 14 years old and younger, but Ma and Pa would try to sneak you in.
The mill wouldn’t mind if you were younger than you said you were, it’s just that you got hidden.
The mill inspector wouldn’t want to see us so he would stop in, smoke his pipe and wait to let us hide from him until he left the building.
That’s the story of how to work a mill.

Slave to Society

By Sydney Santor
Dummerston Middle School, Grade 8

Working at the Mill

By Molly Keenan
Shelburne Community School, Grade 5

The loom noise makes you drowsy.
There are no windows in that humid factory.
A little girl’s faint scream in the distance.
A needle punctured her wounded hand.
And the nurse comes by and takes her away.
As they walk into the darkness

Terrifying Flames

By Emma Vincent
Shelburne Community School, Grade 5

I wake up to hear the loud clangs of the pots and pans. I look across the room and see Mother preparing breakfast and vigorously cleaning the dirty dishes from last night. Anna is sitting at the little wooden table just beginning to eat her warm bread and butter.

The Accident

By Katherine Scotnicki
Shelburne Community School, Grade 5

The bells rang out loud and clear, echoing against the rustic brick walls.
I quickly set down my bucket of bobbins that I was using to change the old bobbins with no thread, almost too quickly. It hit the ground with a loud clatter.

Joe Bodeon: Young Man Sent for Freedom

By Bailey Bouchard
Shelburne Community School, Grade 5

The Clicking Noise

By Baxter Barber
Shelburne Community School, Grade 5

Late at night
The machines are running
The clicking noise
Lingers in the ears
Fills the mind
Consumes the soul
The clicking noise stops
The night shift is over
The day shift starts
More clicking begins
It never stops
It never ends
It always lingers in the room
The clicking of the machines

Poor Little Boy

By Amanda Milo
Lebanon High School, Grade 11

Poor little boy
Gears churning around him
Weaving being made by him
No friends to stand by him

No education
No time for games
No time for others
Only time for work

The Boy: Let Me Go

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 10

Your eyes are deep pools of love.
They sparkle when you smile,
They ignite when you laugh.

My eyes tell you secrets I am not yet ready
To divulge.

The Boy/The Girl

By Eli Millman
Fairfield Center School, Grade 8

He works at the mill to feed his brother,
I clean my room to please my mother.

He will end with a 7th grade education,
I will have a college evaluation.

His complaints are few because his closet is bare,
I have 100 outfits, but “nothing to wear”.

Compared to him my worries are none,

The Boy

By Samantha Burns
Fairfield Center School, Grade 8

He wakes up each morning with a heart swelled with pride
For today he shall work to keep his family alive
He is a band boy
Who works for so little
Barely enough to put food on the table.

The mill is a horrid place to work
With diseases that hide in every cranny and crook
Buty the boy keeps that single thought in his mind

The Mill

By Hannah-Mollie West
Rochester High School, Grade 9

Today’s a new day,
But it feels like the others.
I get up to go to the mill.
The 2nd youngest of 7.
Parents brothers and sisters all toil with the machines.

Working on the machine my mind wonders
What is it like in other parts of the world?
Do the children work?
Do they stand there wondering about me?

The Magic Man

By Hanna Kingston
Mount Mansfield Union High School

Dear Addie,
The last button on my shirt fell off today when I was playing with Baby Sarah. Mamma pinned it together seeing as I had to be going just then, and I left the house to her scolding me for crawling around on the ground with the baby. She said no man crawls on the ground and it’s a sin to be getting my trousers all dirty and torn when she’s the one who’ll have to be patching them up again. I figure, just cause I have to go off to work every morning and James and Taylor are still in school, it don’t mean I have to be a man all the time like Pa.
As you read this are you wondering what happened to your sweet brother? Well I’m not complaining really but I met a man today who put some ideas in my head and I know it’s best not to tell them to Pa cause he aint as open minded as you, seeing how he’s been around the old ideas a good deal longer.