"She'll never come back, Lyddie thought sadly as she watched the buggy disappear around the corner...She'll never be strong enough again to work in a mill thirteen, fourteen hours a day. When I'm ready to go, she thought, maybe I could sign that cussed petition. Not for me. I don't need it, but for Betsy and the others. It ain't right for this place to suck the strength from their youth, then cast them off like dry husks to the wind."
Why does Lyddie think that Betsy has been "cast off like dry husks to the wind"?
Lyddie knows that since Betsy is no longer strong enough to work for the factory, she is being considered not useful and being sent unfairly away.
Lyddie knows that Betsy has been freed from the factory to do what she chooses.
Lyddie knows that Betsy is rightly being sent away to make room for a healthier, stronger worker.
Lyddie knows that Betsy is being sent to work on a farm.