hild.

"I wants some of my money, Paw--I wants to buy a ginger man."

Then came a cruel slap which was heard all over the room, and the boy
of ten, a wild-eyed and unkempt thing, staggered and grasped his face
where the blow fell.

"Take that, you sassy meddling up-start--you belong to me till you
are twenty-one years old. What 'ud you do with a ginger man 'cept to
eat it?" He cuffed the boy through the door and sent him flying home.

It was Joe Sykes, the wages of whose children kept him in active
drunkenness and chronic inertia. He was the champion loafer of the
town.

In a short time he had drawn a pocketful of silver, and going out
soon overtook Jud Carpenter.

"I tell you, Jud, we mus' hold these kids down--we heads of the
family. I've mighty nigh broke myself down this week a controllin'
mine. Goin' down to take a drink or two? Same to you."

CHAPTER VI

THE PLOT

A village bar-room is a village hell.

Jud Carpenter and Joe Hopper were soon there, and the silver their
children had earned at the mill began to go for drinks.

The drinks made them feel good. They resolved to feel better, so they
drank again. As they drank the talk grew louder. They were joined by
others from the town--ne'er-do-wells, who hung around the bar--and
others from the mill.

And so they drank and sang and danced and played cards and drank
again, and threw dice for more drinks.

It was nearly nine o'clock before the Bacchanal laugh began to ring
out at intervals--so easily distinguished from the sober laugh, in
that it carries in its closing tones the queer ring of the maniac's.

Only the mill men had any cash. The village loafers drank at their
expense, and on credit.

"And why should we not drink if we wish," said one of them. "Our
children earned the money and do we not own the children?"

Twice only were they interrupted. Once by the wife of a weaver who
came in and pleaded with her husband for part of their children's
money. Her tears touched the big-hearted Billy Buch, and as her
husband was too drunk to know what he was doing, Billy took what
money he had left and gave it to the wife. She had a sick child, she
told Billy Buch, and what money she had would not even buy the
medicine.

Billy squinted the corner of one eye and looked solemnly at the
husband: "He ha'f ten drinks in him ag'in, already. I vill gif you
pay for eet all for the child. An' here ees one dollar mo' from Billy
Buch. Now go, goot voma