.

"I don't know what is the matter. Goodloets is money mad," wailed Mother
Spurlock, as she sank with weariness into the rocker on my porch one hot
August afternoon. "The girls and the women are all at work and two
babies have died this week from pure lack of mother's care, I might say
mother's milk. Ed Jones' wife weaned her six-months'-old baby so she
could go in the factory, and left it on condensed milk with old Mrs.
Jones, who fed it incessantly and not at all cleanly. Now it is not
expected to live. And they dance at the Last Chance until one o'clock
almost every night. Is the world mad?"

"No, just prosperous, Mother Elsie," I answered her as I gave her a
large fan and Dabney brought her a tall glass of very cold tea. "Little
old Goodloets is having the same boom that the rest of America is
getting from feeding and furnishing the rest of the warring world."

"Nickols Powers told me just last night that over two hundred thousand
dollars would be spent on the improvements to this town in the next two
months, counting the new schoolhouse, the restoration of the courthouse,
the paving of the public square and the enlargement of the electric
light plant. That doesn't count the money everybody is putting on their
own private homes. That camp of workmen down by the river that Nickols
has had sent down from the city has a hundred men in it now, and that is
one thing that demoralizes the Settlement. Jacob Ensley has had that
dance hall enlarged twice and he has employed George Spain to stand
behind the bar. It is breaking Mrs. Spain's heart, but she is helpless,
for George is being paid three dollars a day for being just where he
wants to be. I don't know what to do. I firmly believe the town is mad,
with only Gregory Goodloe to stand between it and God's wrath."

"What is he doing to stem the joy tide?" I asked with a laugh, for it
did seem in a way funny to see one of the leading citizens of old
Goodloets so distressed over its improvement and modernization through
its enormous prosperity.

"He was down in the workmen's camp last night having a song service and
seventy-five of them stayed there singing until midnight. Jacob had to
put out his lights at eleven o'clock because there were not enough to
pay to keep open. The chapel was full Sunday night and Jacob closed the
Last Chance at six o'clock for the first time in its existence. The men
passed it on to him to do it and he came and sat in a back pew himself.
Th