everything that we could to
elevate them--a natatorium, a reading library--and these halls fell into
disuse." I ask him now, through these pages, the questions which I did
not put to him then as I listened in silence to his complaint. He said
he thought too much was done for the mill-hands. What time would he
suggest that they should spend in the reading-room, even if they have
learned to read? They rise at four; at a quarter before six they are at
work. The day in winter is not born when they start their tasks; the
night has fallen long before they cease. In summer they are worked long
into their evenings. They tell me that they are too tired to eat; that
all they want to do is to turn their aching bones on to their miserable
mattresses and sleep until they are cried and shrieked awake by the mill
summons. Therefore they solve their own questions. Nothing is provided
for them that they can use, and they turn to the only thing that is
within their reach--animal enjoyment, human intercourse and
companionship. They are animals, as are their betters, and with it, let
us believe, more excuse.

The mill marriage is a farce, and yet they choose to call their unions
now and again a marriage. Many a woman has been a wife several times in
the same town, in the same house. The bond-tying is a form, and, of
course, mostly ignored. The settlements swarm with illegitimate
children. Next to me work two young girls, both under seventeen, both
ringless and with child.

* * * * *

Let me picture the Foster household, where I used to call Saturday
evenings.

Mrs. Foster herself, dirty, slipshod, a frowzy mass, hugs her fireside.
Although the day is warm, she kindled a fire to stimulate the thin, poor
blood exhausted by disease and fevers. Two flatirons lie in a dirty heap
on the floor. As usual, the room is a nest of filth and untidiness.

Mrs. Foster is half paralyzed, but her tongue is free. She talks
fluently in her soft Southern drawl, more Negro than white as to speech
and tone. Up to her sidles a dirty, pretty little boy of four.

"This yere is too little to go to the mill, but he's wild to go; yes,
ser, he is so. Las' night he come to me en say, 'Auntie, you-all wake me
up at fo' 'clock sure; I got ter go ter the mill.'"

Here the little blond child, whose mouth is set on a pewter spoon
dripping over with hominy, grins appreciatively. He throws back his
white and delicate little face, and his