aunt, drawing him close to her,
caresses him and continues: "Yes, ma'am, to-day he dun wake up after
they-all had gone and he sayd, 'My goodness, I dun oversleep mase'f!' He
sha'n't go to the mill," she frowned, "not ef we can help it. Why, I
don't never let him outen my sight; 'fraid lest those awful mill
children would git at him."

Thus she sheltered him with what care she knew--care that unfortunately
_could not go far enough back to protect him_! His mother came in at the
noon hour, as we sat there rocking and chatting. She was a straight,
slender creature, not without grace in her shirt-waist and her
low-pulled felt hat that shadowed her sullen face. She was very young,
not more than twenty-two, and her history indicative and tragic. With a
word only and a nod she passes us; she has now too many vital things and
incidents in her own career to be curious regarding a strange mill-hand.
She goes with her comrade--and cousin--Mamie, into the kitchen to
devour in as short a time as possible the noon dinner, served by the
grandmother: cabbage and hominy. "They don't have time 'nough to eat,"
the aunt says; "no sooner then they-all come in and bolt their dinner
then it is time to go back." Her child has followed her. Minnie was
married at thirteen; in less than a year she was a grass widow. "My
goodness, there's lots of grass widows!" my frowsled hostess nods. "Why,
in one weave-room hyar there ain't a gyrl but what's left by her
husband. One day a new gyrl come for to run a loom and they yells out at
her, 'Is you-all a grass widow? Yer can't come in hyar ef you ain't.'"

But it was after her grass widowhood that Minnie's tragedy began. The
mill was her ruin. So much grace and good looks could not go, cannot go,
_does not_ go unchallenged by the attentions of the men who are put
there to run these women's work. The overseer was father of her child,
and when she tried to force from him recognition and aid he threw over
his position and left Columbia and this behind him. This, one instance
under my own eyes observed. There are many.

"Mamie works all night" (she spoke of the other girl)--"makes more
money. My, but she hates the mills! Says she ain't ever known a restful
minute sence she left the hills."

My hostess has drawn the same conclusion from my Northern appearance
that the Joneses drew.

"You-all must eat good where you come from! you look so healthy.' Do
you-all know the Banks girl over to Calcutta?"

"No.