"Yes, boys," said Jud patronizingly as Stallings went out, "this here mill is a G.o.d-send to us po' folks who've got chillun to burn. They ain't a day we ortenter git down on our knees an' thank Mr. Kingsley an' Mister Travis there. You know I done took down that sign I useter have hangin' up in my house in the hall--that sign which said, _G.o.d bless our home_? I've put up another one now."

"What you done put up now, Jud?" grinned a tall weaver with that blank look of expectancy which settles over the face of the middle man in a negro minstrel troupe when he pa.s.ses the stale question to the end man, knowing the joke which was coming.

"Why, I've put up," said Jud brutally, "'_Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me_.' That's scriptural authority for cotton mills, ain't it?"

The paying went on, after the uproarious laughter had subsided, and down the long row only the clinking of silver was heard, intermingled now and then with the shrill voice of some creature disputing with Kingsley about her account. Generally it ran thus: "_It cyant be thet away. Sixty hours at five cents an hour--wal, but didn't the chillun wuck no longer than that? I cyant--I cyant--I jes' cyant live on that little bit._"

Such it was, and it floated down the line to Helen like the wail of a lost soul. When her time came Kingsley met her with a smile. Then he gave her an order and Travis handed her a bright crisp ten-dollar bill.

She looked at him in astonishment. "But--but," she said. "Surely, I didn't earn all this, did I? Maggie--you had to pay Maggie for teaching me this week. It was she who earned it. I cannot take it."

Kingsley smiled: "If you must know--though we promised her we would not tell you," he said--"no, Miss Conway, you did not earn but five dollars this week. The other five is Maggie's gift to you--she left it here for you."

She looked at him stupidly--in dazed grat.i.tude. Travis came forward:

"I've ordered Jim to take you home to-night. I cannot leave now."

And he led her out to where the trotters stood. He lifted her in, pressing her hand as he did so--but she did not know it--she burned with a strange fullness in her throat as she clutched her money, the first she had ever earned, and thought of Maggie--Maggie, dying and unselfish.

Work--it had opened a new life to her. Work--and never before had she known the sweetness of it.

"Oh, father," she said when she reached home, "I have made some money--I can support you and Lily now."

When Travis returned Jud Carpenter met him at the door.

"I had a mess o' trouble gittin' that gal into the mill. Huh! but ain't she a beaut! I guess you 'orter tip me for throwin' sech a peach as that into yo' arms. Oh, you're a sly one--" he went on whisperingly--"the smoothest one with women I ever seed. But you'll have to thank me for that queen. Guess I'll go down an' take a dram.

I want to git the lint out of my throat."

"I'll be down later," said Travis as he looked at his watch. "Charley Biggers and I. It's our night to have a little fun with the boys."

"I'll see you there," said Jud.

The clinking of silver, questions, answers, and expostulations went on. In the midst of it there was the sudden shrill wail of an angry child.

"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 sa.s.sy 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 h.e.l.l.

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 Baccha.n.a.l 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 voman."

The other interruption was the redoubtable Mrs. Billings; her brother, also a slubber, had arrived early, but had scarcely taken two delightful, exquisite drinks before she came on the scene, her eyes flashing, her hair disheveled, and her hand playing familiarly with something under her ap.r.o.n.

Her presence threw them into a panic.

"Mine Gott!" said Billy, turning pale. "Eet es Meeses Billings an'

her crockery."

Half a dozen jubilants pointed out a long-haired man at a center table talking proudly of his physical strength and bravery.

"Cris Ham?" beckoned Mrs. Billings, feeling nervously under her ap.r.o.n. "Come with me!"

"I'll be along t'orectly, sis."

"You will come now," she said, and her hands began to move ominously beneath her ap.r.o.n.

"To be sho'," he said as he walked out with her. "I didn't know you felt that away about it, sis."

It was after ten o'clock when the quick roll of a buggy came up to the door, and Richard Travis and Charley Biggers alighted.

They had both been drinking. Slowly, surely, Travis was going down in the scale of degeneracy. Slowly the loose life he was leading was lowering him to the level of the common herd. A few years ago he would not have thought of drinking with his own mill hands. To-night he was there, the most reckless of them all. a.n.a.lyzed, it was for the most part conceit with him; the low conceit of the superior intellect which would mingle in infamy with the lowest to gain its ignorant homage. For Intellect must have homage if it has to drag it from the slums.

Charley Biggers was short and boyish, with a fat, round face. When he laughed he showed a fine set of big, sensual teeth. His eyes were jolly, flighty, insincere. Weakness was written all over him, from a derby hat sitting back rakishly on his forehead to the small, effeminate boot that fitted so neatly his small effeminate foot. He had a small hand and his little sensual face had not a rough feature on it. It was set off by a pudgy, half-formed dab of a nose that let his breath in and out when his mouth happened to be shut. His eyes were the eyes of one who sees no wrong in anything.

They came in and pulled off their gloves, daintily. They threw their overcoats on a chair. Travis glanced around the circle of the four or five who were left and said pompously:

"Come up, gentlemen, and have something at my expense." Then he walked up to the bar.