om the outside
was enough to show her that she didn't want to go inside--and go she
would not."

"But she let her children go--she and Johnnie," muttered Stoddard,
settling himself in his saddle.

"Well, I'd like to see either of 'em he'p theirselves!" returned Pap
Himes with a reminiscence of his former manner. "Johnnie ain't had the
decency to give me her wages, not once since I've been her pappy; the
onliest money I ever had from her--'ceptin' to pay her board--was when
she tried to buy them chaps out o' workin' in the mill. But when I put
my foot down an' told her that the chillen could work in the mill
without a beatin' or with one, jest as she might see and choose, she had
a little sense, and took 'em over and hired 'em herself. Baylor told me
afterward that she tried to make him say he didn't want 'em, but Baylor
and me stands together, an' Miss Johnnie failed up on that trick."

Pap felt an altogether misplaced confidence in the view that Stoddard,
as a male, was likely to take of the matter.

"A man is obliged to be boss of his own family--ain't that so, Mr.
Stoddard?" he demanded. "I said the chillen had to go into the mill, and
into the mill they went. They all wanted to go, at the start, and
Laurelly agreed with me that hit was the right thing. Then, just because
Deanie happened to a accident and Johnnie took up for her, Laurelly has
to go off into hy-strikes and say she'll quit me soon as she can put
foot to the ground."

Stoddard made no response to this, but touched Sultan with his heel and
moved on. He had stopped at the post-office as he came past, taking from
his personal box one letter. This he opened and read as he rode slowly
away. Halfway up the first rise, Pap saw him rein in and turn; the old
man was still staring when Gray stopped once more at the gate.

"See here, Himes," he spoke abruptly, "this concerns you--this letter
that has just reached me."

Pap looked at the younger man with mere curiosity.

"When Johnnie was first given a spinning room to look after," said Gray,
"she came to Mr. Sessions and myself and asked permission to have a
small device of her own contrivance used on the frames as an Indicator."

Pap shuffled his feet uneasily.

"I thought no more about the matter; in fact I've not been in the
spinning department for--for some time." Stoddard looked down at the
hand which held his bridle, and remembered that he had absented himself
from every place that threatened him