nery had almost been bred into
him, and at any rate he had been brought up on it. Twelve years before,
there had been a small flutter of excitement in the loom room of this
very mill. Johnny's mother had fainted. They stretched her out on the
floor in the midst of the shrieking machines. A couple of elderly women
were called from their looms. The foreman assisted. And in a few minutes
there was one more soul in the loom room than had entered by the doors.
It was Johnny, born with the pounding, crashing roar of the looms in his
ears, drawing with his first breath the warm, moist air that was thick
with flying lint. He had coughed that first day in order to rid his
lungs of the lint; and for the same reason he had coughed ever since.

The boy alongside of Johnny whimpered and sniffed. The boy's face was
convulsed with hatred for the overseer who kept a threatening eye on
him from a distance; but every bobbin was running full. The boy yelled
terrible oaths into the whirling bobbins before him; but the sound did
not carry half a dozen feet, the roaring of the room holding it in and
containing it like a wall.

Of all this Johnny took no notice. He had a way of accepting things.
Besides, things grow monotonous by repetition, and this particular
happening he had witnessed many times. It seemed to him as useless to
oppose the overseer as to defy the will of a machine. Machines were made
to go in certain ways and to perform certain tasks. It was the same with
the overseer.

But at eleven o'clock there was excitement in the room. In an apparently
occult way the excitement instantly permeated everywhere. The one-legged
boy who worked on the other side of Johnny bobbed swiftly across the
floor to a bin truck that stood empty. Into this he dived out of
sight, crutch and all. The superintendent of the mill was coming along,
accompanied by a young man. He was well dressed and wore a starched
shirt--a gentleman, in Johnny's classification of men, and also, "the
Inspector."

He looked sharply at the boys as he passed along. Sometimes he stopped
and asked questions. When he did so, he was compelled to shout at the
top of his lungs, at which moments his face was ludicrously contorted
with the strain of making himself heard. His quick eye noted the empty
machine alongside of Johnny's, but he said nothing. Johnny also caught
his eye, and he stopped abruptly. He caught Johnny by the arm to draw
him back a step from the machine; but with