hey are, unwashed, undressed; and
the inanimate bundles of rags so lie until the mill summons them with
its imperious cry before sunrise, while they are still in stupid sleep:

"What do you do on Sundays?" I asked one little girl.

"Why, thare ain't nothing much to dew. I go to the park sometimes."

This park is at the end of a trolley line; it is their Arcadia. Picture
it! A few yellow sand hills with clusters of pine trees and some scrubby
undergrowth; a more desolate, arid, gloomy pleasure ground cannot be
conceived. On Sundays the trolleys bring those who are not too tired to
so spend the day. On Sundays the mill shanties are full of sleepers.

The park has a limited number of devotees. Through the beautyless paths
and walks the figures pass like shadows. There come three mill girls arm
in arm; their curl papers, screwed tight all the week, are out on
Sunday, in greasy, abundant curls. Sunday clothes are displayed in all
their superbness. Three or four young men, town fellows, follow them;
they are all strangers, but they will go home arm in arm.

Several little children, who have no clothes but those, they wear, cling
close to the side of a gaunt, pale-faced man, who carries in his arms
the youngest. The little girl has become a weight to be carried on
Sundays; she has worked six days of the week--shall she not rest on the
seventh? She shall; she claims this, and lies inert on the man's arm,
her face already seared with the scars of toil.

I ran such risk taking pictures that I relinquished the task, and it was
only the last day at the mill, while still in my working clothes with a
camera concealed in my pocket, that I contrived to get a picture or two.
I ventured to ask two little boys who swept the mill to stand for their
pictures.

"I don't kyar to," the older one said. I explained that it would not
hurt them, as I thought he was afraid; but his little companion
vouchsafed: "We-all ain't got no nickel." When they understood it was a
free picture they were as delighted as possible and posed with alacrity,
making touching apologies for their greasy, dirty condition.

When I asked one of them if he was ever clean, he said: "On Sunday I
wash my hands."

It was noon, on the day I chose to leave ----, turning my back on the
mill that had allured me to its doors and labour. In South Carolina
early April is torrid, flies and mosquitoes are rampant. What must this
settlement be in midsummer heat? There is no col