hem together. "I jus' can't stan' it any longer. Mother is dead, you
know, an' father is an invalid. I've five little brothers and sisters
at home. I couldn't bear to see them die in here. It's awful on
children, you know. So I've managed to keep 'em a-goin'
until--well--I've saved enough an' with the help
of--a--a--friend--you see--a very near friend--I've managed to get us
a little farm. We're all goin' to it next week. Oh, yes, of course,
I'll be glad to teach you."

She glanced at Helen's hands and smiled: "Yo' hands don't look like
they're used to work. They're so white and beautiful."

Helen was pleased. Her fingers were tapering and beautiful, and she
knew her hands were the hands of many generations of ladies.

"I have to make a living for myself now," she said with a dash of
bitterness.

"If I looked like you," said Maggie, slyly and yet frankly, "I'd do
something in keeping with my place. I can't bear to think of anybody
like you bein' here."

Helen was silent and Maggie saw that the tears were ready to start.
She saw her half sob and she patted her cheek in a motherly way as
she said:

"Oh, but I didn't mean to hurt you so. Only I do hate so to see--oh,
I am silly, I suppose, because I am going to get out of this
terrible, terrible grind."

Her pale face flushed and she coughed, as she bent over her work to
show Helen how to draw in the threads.

"Now, I'm a good drawer-in, an' he said onct"--she nodded at the door
from which Travis had gone out--"that I was the best in the worl';
the whole worl'." She blushed slightly. "But, well--I've made no
fortune yet--an' somehow, in yo' case now--you see--somehow I feel
sorter 'fraid--about you--like somethin' awful was goin' to happen to
you."

"Why--what--" began Helen, surprised.

"Oh, it ain't nothin'," she said trying to be cheerful--"I'll soon
get over this ... out in the air. I'm weak now and I think it makes
me nervous an' skeery.... I'll throw it off that quick," she snapped
her fingers--"out in the open air again--out on the little farm." She
was silent, as if trying to turn the subject, but she went back to it
again. "You don't know how I've longed for this--to get away from the
mill. It's day in an' day out here an' shut up like a convict. It
ain't natural--it can't be--it ain't nature. If anybody thinks it is,
let 'em look at them little things over on the other side," and she
nodded toward the main room. "Why, them little tots work twelve ho