ly
expanded into notes, expressions of her own awakened thought, and even
fancies, which held from the first a quaint charm and individuality.

The long, hot days at the foot of the hills did seem to the
mountain-bred creature interminable and stifling. Perspiration dripped
from white faces as the operatives stood listlessly at their looms, or
the children straggled back and forth in the narrow lanes between the
frames, tending the endlessly turning spools.

The Hardwick Mill had both spinning and weaving departments.
Administrative ability is as much a native gift as the poet's voice or
the actor's grace, and the managers of any large business are always on
the lookout for it. Before Johnnie Consadine had been two months in the
factory she was given charge of a spinning room. But the dignity of the
new position--even the increase of pay--had a cloud upon it. She was
beginning to understand the enmity there is between the soulless factory
and the human tide that feeds its life. She knew now that the tasks of
the little spinners, which seemed less than child's play, were deadly in
their monotony, their long indoor hours, and the vibrant clamour amid
which they were performed. Her own vigorous young frame resisted
valiantly; yet the Saturday half-holiday, the Sunday of rest, could
scarcely renew her for the exorbitant hours of mechanical toil.

As she left the mill those sultry evenings, with the heat mists still
tremulous over the valley and heat lightnings bickering in the west, she
went with a lagging step up the village street, not looking, as had been
her wont, first toward the far blue mountains, and then at the glorious
state of the big valley. The houses of the operatives were set up
haphazard and the village was denied all beauty. Most of the yards were
unfenced, and here and there a row of shanties would be crowded so close
together that speech in one could be heard in the other.

"And then if any ketchin' disease does break out, like the dipthery did
last year," Mavity Bence said one evening as she walked home with
Johnnie, "hit's sartin shore to go through 'em like it would go through
a family."

Johnnie looked curiously at the dirty yards with their debris of lard
buckets and tin cans. Space--air, earth and sky--was cheap and plentiful
in the mountains. It seemed strange to be sparing of it, down here where
people were so rich.

"What makes 'em build so close, Aunt Mavity?" she asked.

"Hit's the Comp