Learn English – Did the printer get sick or not in fact

grammarsubjunctives

From The Heart of a Broken Story:

I’m a good printer’s assistant, but that’s all I am. One day the
printer got sick, and I had to take his place. What a mess I made of
things, Miss Lester. No one would take my orders. The typesetters just
sort of giggled when I would tell them to get to work.

When I read "One day the printer got sick", I thought the printer got sick in fact, then I read "No one would take my orders", the "would" here suggests it's in a subjunctive mood which implies the printer didn't get sick in fact.

So I got confused about "the printer got sick" is a fact or a fiction? Could anyone please give me some hints about that?

Best Answer

Yes, the printer got sick. (Or at least the speaker asserts that he in fact got sick.)

Would is used here in the sense 'be willing, consent', with overtones of the sense 'persist (in a particular action or behavior)'.

And it is used its past form not to express conditional or unreal modality but to express tense.

Paraphrase:

Nobody was willing to take my orders = Everybody refused to take my orders.

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