Catie Meet Mason

The Mason family. They are the richest family in the city. They own the factory that my parents and my sisters work at on the other side of town. The Mason’s needed another worker for their farmhouse, and that is where I come into the story. One night after Master Mason was leaving the factory, he saw me calming the horses and made my father an offer he could not refuse.
    That night was the last time I was at home. Momma did not stop crying, as she knew that it was the last time she would see her boy. Olivia and Pip took the news better than Momma, but not by much. They would not leave my side the whole night. Ollie was a year older than me so she knew why I had to go. She just had always thought that it would be her to leave first.  Pip was two years younger than me, she had just started working at the factory she did not understand why our family needed so much money.
    I did not know why either, for that matter. Momma had a job when she was not sick. Father was always working more hours than the rest of us. Ollie and I have been working for the past two years. Pip was working for the past six-months. We were always working yet we didn’t seem to have any more money than when Pip was at school. Now they had to send me away for money.
        Now that I had left I hoped that Pip could go back to school. She hated leaving all her friends. If I could do this for her it would be worth it, cleaning out stalls all morning and evening, feeding the horses more often than I was fed myself. Sleeping in a cold, small house with a small fire no larger in the winter than the summer, and the maids and other workers all slept there too. Some had loud snoring while others talked in their sleep. No one was a quite sleeper.
    I cannot say that it was all bad. I have made a lot of friends here. Lot’s of us are teenagers that have been taken away from our love ones. We all know that it could be harder for us then always having food on the table and a place to sleep. Most of the girls pick all day at the food they are making for dinner.  It is a better life than we had at home.
    The Masons have ten children. They are never going to have a life like any of ours in here. They all go to school, some even to university. I could not imagine going past grade eight. That is my hope for Pip – to make it to grade eight. I wonder if she even went back to school. . .
    “Hey Curtis you are not getting paid to daydream. Stop watching the Mason’s children and get back to the house, its time for our supper and we have a new worker. I think she's from your part of the city you may know her.”  Neil called. I ran back home, the tiny house that housed fifteen no sixteen workers. That was our home now.


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