urs
a day an' sometimes mo'. Who ever heard of children workin' at all
befo' these things come into the country? Now, I've no objection to
'em, only that they ought to work grown folks an' not children. They
may kill me if they can," she laughed,--"I am grown, an' can stan'
it, but I can't bear to think of 'em killin' my little brothers an'
sisters--they're entitled to live until they get grown anyway."

She stopped to cough and to show Helen how to untangle some threads.

"Oh, but they can't hurt me," she laughed, as if ashamed of her
cough; "this is bothersome, but it won't last long after I get out on
the little farm."

She stopped talking and fell to her work, and for two hours she
showed Helen just how to draw the threads through, to shift the
machine, to untangle the tangled threads.

It was nearly time to go home when Travis came to see how Helen was
progressing. He came up behind the two girls and stood looking at
them work. When they looked up Maggie started and reddened and Helen
saw her tighten her thin lips in a peculiar way while the blood flew
from them, leaving a thin white oval ring in the red that flushed her
face.

"You are doing finely," he said to Helen--"you will make a swift
drawer-in." He stooped over and whispered: "Such fingers and hands
would draw in anything--even hearts."

Helen blushed and looked quickly at Maggie, over whose face the
pinched look had come again, but Maggie was busy at her machine.

"I remember when I came here five years ago," went on Maggie after
Travis had left, "I was so proud an' happy. I was healthy an' well
an' so happy to think I cu'd make a livin' for the home-folks--for
daddy an' the little ones. Oh, they would put them in the mill, but I
said no, I'll work my fingers off first. Let 'em play an' grow. Yes,
they've lived on what I have made for five years--daddy down on his
back, too, an' the children jus' growin', an' now they are big enough
and strong enough to he'p me run the little farm--instead"--she said
after a pause--"instead of bein' dead an' buried, killed in the mill.
That was five years ago--five years"--she coughed and looked out of
the window reflectively.

"Daddy--poor daddy--he couldn't help the tree fallin' on his back an'
cripplin' him; an' little Buddy, well, he was born weakly, so I done
it all. Oh, I am not braggin' an' I ain't complainin', I'm so proud
to do it."

Helen was silent, her own bitterness softened by the story Maggie was