"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"
—Mario Savio
The man was standing there. First he was not there, then he was. The man wore a top hat. And a purple top hat, at that!
Like the ignorant country girl she was, Sally gaped at the sight of it. She thought the hat remarkable, but took the man's impossible, magical entrance for granted. Sally was seven years old, and hadn't yet learned to be surprised at grown-up people mysteriously appearing out of nowhere. How'd he get into the mill? Why was the foreman frozen like a waxworks in the corner? Sally didn't consider such questions. Adults do strange things all the time, like God and so forth, and their ways were mysterious to Sally. (To be fair to the poor child, she'd also been working for twelve hours straight and wasn't thinking quite clearly.) But she'd never seen anything like that silly purple hat before in her life and it filled her with wonder.
Strong it was, this wonder. It drove Sally to a foolish, reckless act. Yes, dear readers. In spite of all her shyness, hard-learned timidity, and sense of her proper, lowly station, Sally boldly approached the strange man and asked the logical question.
"Hey, you."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. Where'd you get that hat?"
"Berkeley, California, 1967," the man replied. "It's on loan, actually, From my good friend, Pigpen."
"You found it in a pigpen?"
"No. Pigpen is the man's name."
"The man who gave you the hat?"
"Loaned, but yes."
For no reason at all, she shouted at the top of her lungs.
"My name is Sally!"
"Yes, I know," the man said.
How do you know?
Another logical question. But it didn't occur to Sally. Because she was a stupid, stupid girl.
Want to know what she did?
Sally blushed like a beet, that's what she did. Then spoke in a whisper.
"What's your name?"
"That would be telling," the man smiled.
Sally smiled back. The man was weird, but she liked him, although she couldn't place his accent. He definitely wasn't from around here.
Then the man did a funny magic trick. Closed his eyes, threw the hat up to the ceiling, spun around. And it landed on his head! Perfectly!
Sally applauded. The man bowed.
Then he pointed to the machine where Sally had been hard at work until his magical entry.
"What's that, then?"
"You mean that?"
Sally pointed to the same machine with a bloody, delicate finger.
"Yes, that," said the man. "Exactly that. What is it?"
"Stocking frame."
"Ah. What's it for?"
"Dunno."
"How's it work?"
"Dunno."
"Well, I do. To quote a machine intelligence in a world beyond your ken ... "
The man recited, in a droning sort of voice. A long string of singsong words. Like catechism, a bit. And the words made about as much sense to Sally.
"The needle bar goes forward;
the open needles clear the web.
The weft thread is laid on the needles;
the jack sinkers descend and form loops.
The weft thread is pushed down by the divider bar.
The jack sinkers come forward pulling the thread into the beard of the open needles.
The presser bar drops, the needle loops close
and the old row of stitches is drawn off the needle.
The jack sinkers come down in front of the knitting
and pull it up so the process can begin again."
"Amen," said Sally.
The man laughed. Sally laughed, too.
All at once the man stopped laughing. He looked sad.
"It's funny, but it's not."
"Why?"
"Because I know what you do with it. I know what ..."
The man stopped talking. He clenched his teeth. His face turned red—like he was fighting the horrible words inside him that he didn't want to say. The fight went on a bit, but the words didn't escape. (Sally reckoned the man won the fight. But adults are impossible, mad things. Who knows?)
At long last the man smiled brightly, and started talking again.
"This machine of yours. You know what I'm going to do with it, Sally?"
Sally shook her head "no."
"I'm going to smash the machine to bits, that's what."
"With what?"
"With this."
Presto-chango, the man was holding a very large hammer! (He didn't have it when he came in. She'd swear to it!)
The hammer was big and ugly and horrible.
A sensible girl would've been terrified at this point.
But Sally laughed and squealed and applauded.
The man smiled, and then posed a seriously serious question.
"You know what will happen if I smash this thing?"
"Then I won't have to work!" cried Sally.
"Precisely," he said. "May I have your permission?"
"You may," said Sally.
The man stopped smiling. He nodded with great solemnity, then bowed.
And then he smashed the hateful machine to bits. He kept smashing.
Until, at last, the machine was dead.
Sally studied its metal corpse with hate and happiness and triumph. But also a little guilt.
The man noticed the cloud of sadness on her bright face.
"What's wrong?"
"Smashing machines, like that. It seems so ... so unfair."
"Why?"
"Because you can move and hit and strike, right? But they can't! Machines can't fight back! They can't run away! You can hurt them. But they can't hurt you."
"Not now," the man said sadly. "But they will, if I don't put a stop to 'em."
For some odd reason, a ghostly clock popped up in front of the man's face.
"Ah, look at the time! I'm afraid I must be going."
"Wait!" cried Sally. "What's your name?"
"Ned Ludd," the man said wickedly. "Keep it a secret, Sally. Promise?"
Sally nodded.
The funny man tipped his funny purple hat, then vanished out of sight.
And Sally told the man's name to everybody.
(c) 2018, Marty Fugate. All rights reserved.
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