Charlie Foster lost the index finger on his right hand when he was 10 years old. He worked at the textile mill along with his father, mother, and two sisters. Charlie was a doffer, a position that required the speed and dexterity of a young boy. He replaced more empty bobbins faster than any other boy on his shift. Fast, but often careless, one day Charlie slipped from the box he was standing on to remove a bobbin, his finger catching in the cog of the spinning machine.

before daylight
mother in her rocker
knitting mittens

Twice a day during coffee and smoke breaks, when the adult workers went outside, the boys often got in a quick game of marbles. Despite his missing finger Charlie was the best shooter of the lot, knocking more marbles from the ring than any of the other boys. Yet, he never bragged; in fact, Charlie barely spoke at all, preferring to whistle the tune “Jimmy Crack Corn” continuously until his mouth grew dry. Fortunately, because of the loud machinery, his co-workers were spared from listening.

summer solstice
a jar of marbles
collecting sunlight

When Charlie was fourteen, his father succumbed to “mill fever” after years of breathing in the brown cotton lint that floated throughout the mill and settled on everything. Soon after, Charlie and his mother and sisters moved back to the family farm in Tennessee.

quittin’ time
the day moon settles
into night

The mill was demolished in 1992 and is now a park and soccer complex. Several dozen marbles were unearthed in the wreckage.

Author’s Notes:

1. Though this story is fictitious, Charlie Foster was a real boy who worked at Merrimack Mill in Huntsville, Alabama in the early 1900s. You may learn more about the history of the Huntsville textile mills in my book Huntsville Textile Mills & Villages: Linthead Legacy (Arcadia Publishing, 2017), available on Amazon.

2. “summer solstice” received Second Place in the 2023 Porad Haiku Award.

Bio: Terri L. French