HAPTER XVII

A VICTIM

In the spinning room at the Victory Mill, with its tall frames and
endlessly turning bobbins, where the languid thread ran from hank to
spool and the tired little feet must walk the narrow aisles between the
jennies, watching if perchance a filament had broken, a knot caught, or
other mischance occurred, and right it, Deanie plodded for what seemed
to her many years. Milo and Pony both had work now in another
department, and Lissy's frames were quite across the noisy big room.
Whenever the little dark-haired girl could get away from her own task
and the eye of the room boss, she ran across to the small, ailing sister
and hugged her hard, begging her not to feel bad, not to cry, Sis'
Johnnie was bound to come before long. With the morbidness of a sick
child, Deanie came to dread these well-meant assurances, finding them
almost as distressing as her own strange, tormenting sensations.

The room was insufferably close, because it had rained and the windows
were all tightly shut. The flare of light vitiated the air, heated it,
but seemed to the child's sick sense to illuminate nothing. Sometimes
she found herself walking into the machinery and put out a reckless
little hand to guard her steps. Sister Johnnie had said she would come
and take her away. Sister Johnnie was the Providence that was never
known to fail. Deanie kept on doggedly, and tied threads, almost asleep.
The room opened and shut like an accordion before her fevered vision;
the floor heaved and trembled under her stumbling feet. To lie down--to
lie down anywhere and sleep--that was the almost intolerable longing
that possessed her. Her mouth was hot and dry. The little white, peaked
face, like a new moon, grew strangely luminous in its pallor. Her eyes
stung in their sockets--those desolate blue eyes, dark with unshed
tears, heavy with sleep.

She had turned her row and started back, when there came before her, so
plain that she almost thought she might wet her feet in the clear water,
a vision of the spring-branch at home up on Unaka, where she and Lissy
used to play. There, among the giant roots of the old oak on its bank,
was the house they had built of big stones and bright bits of broken
dishes; there lay her home-made doll flung down among gay fallen leaves;
a little toad squatted beside it; and near by was the tiny gourd that
was their play-house dipper. Oh, for a drink from that spring!

She caught sight of Mandy Meacham pa