r plenty of it an' have her
at the mill by to-morrow, or I'll cut off all your rations. As it is
I don't see that you need them, anyway, to eat"--he sneered--"for you
'aint got no appetite at all.'"

From the Carewe cottage Jud went to a small yellow cottage on the
farthest side of the valley. It was the home of John Corbin, and
Willis, his ten-year-old son, was one of the main doffers. The father
was lounging lazily on the little front verandah, smoking his pipe.

"What's the matter with Willis?" asked Jud after he had come up.

"Why, nothin'--" drawled the father. "Aint he at the mill?"

"No--the other four children of your'n is there, but Willis aint."

The man arose with more than usual alacrity. "I'll see that he is
there--" he declared--"it's as much as we can do to live on what they
makes, an' I don't want no dockin' for any sickness if I can he'p
it."

Willis, a pale over-worked lad, was down with tonsillitis. Jud heard
the father and mother in an angry dispute. She was trying to persuade
him to let the boy stay at home. In the end hot words were used, and
finally the father came out followed by the pale and hungry-eyed boy.

"He'd better die at the mill at work than here at home," the father
added brutally, as Jud led him off, "fur then the rest of us will
have that much ahead to live on."

He settled lazily back in his chair, and resumed his smoking.

CHAPTER XIX

A QUICK CONVERSION

It happened that morning that the old Bishop was on his daily round,
visiting the sick of Cottontown. He went every day, from house to
house, helping the sick, cheering the well, and better than all
things else, putting into the hearts of the disheartened that
priceless gift of coming again.

For of all the gifts the gods do give to men, that is the
greatest--the ability to induce their fallen fellow man to look up
and hope again. The gift to spur others onward--the gift to make men
reach up. His flock were all mill people, their devotion to him
wonderful. In the rush and struggle of the strenuous world around
them, this humble old man was the only being to whom they could go
for spiritual help.

To-day in his rounds, one thing impressed him more sadly than
anything else--for he saw it so plainly when he visited their
homes--and that was that with all their hard work, from the oldest to
the youngest, with all their traffic in human life, stealing the bud
along with the broken and severed stem--as a matter