University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
BUB MELL.

IT was a March night, and a gray night, and a
wild night; Perley Kelso stepped out into
it, from the damp little stone house, with something
of the confusion of the time upon her. Her
head and heart both ached. She felt like a
stranger setting foot in a strange land. Old,
home-like boundary lines of things to which her
smooth young life had rounded, wavered before
her. It even occurred to her that she should
never be very happy again, for knowing that factory-girls
ate black molasses and had the cotton-cough.

She meant to tell Maverick about it. She
might have meant many other things, but for
being so suddenly and violently jerked by the
elbow that she preserved herself with difficulty
from a smart fall into the slushy street. Striking
out with one hand to preserve her balance, she

found herself in the novel position of collaring
either a very old young child or a very young
old man, it was impossible at first sight to tell
which. Whatever he was, it was easy at first
sight to tell that he was filthy and ragged.

“Le' go!” yelled the old young creature,
writhing. “Le' go, I say, dern yer! Le' me be!”

Perley concluded, as her eyes wonted to the
dark street, that the old young creature was by
right a child.

“If yer had n't le' go I 'd 'a' made yer, yer
bet,” said the boy, gallantly. “Pretty way to
treat a cove as doin' yer a favor. You bet.
Hi-igh!”

This, with a cross between a growl of defiance
and a whine of injury.

“Guess what I 've got o' yourn? You could n't.
You bet.”

“But I don't bet,” said Perley, with an amused
face.

“Yer don't? I do. Hi-igh! Don't I though?
You bet! Now what do you call that? Say!”

“I call that my glove. I did not miss it till
this minute. Did you pick it up? Thank you.”

“You need n't thank me till you 've got it, you

need n't,” said the child. “I 'm a cove as knows
a thing or two. I want ten cents. You bet I do.”

“Where do you live?” asked Perley.

He lived down to East Street. Fust Tenement.
No. 6. What business was it of hern,
he 'd like to know.

“Have you a father and mother?”

Lor yes! Two of 'em. Why should n't he?

“I believe I will go home with you,” said Perley,
“it is so near by; and — I suppose you are
poor?”

Lor, yes. She might bet.

“And I can make it right about the recovery
of the glove when I get there?”

“N-n-oo you don't!” promptly, from the cove
as knew a thing or two. “You 'll sling over
to the old folks, I 'll bet. You don't come
that!”

“But,” suggested Perley, “I can, perhaps,
give your father and mother a much larger
sum of money than I should think it best to
give you. If they are poor, I should think you
would be glad that they should have it. And
I can't walk in, you know, and give your father
and mother money for nothing.”

“You give me ten cents,” said this young old
man, stoutly, “or what do you s'pose I 'll do with
this 'ere glove? Guess now!”

Perley failed to guess now.

“I 'll cut 'n' run with it. I 'll cut 'n' run like
mad. You bet. I 'll snip it up with a pair of
shears I know about. I 'll jab holes in it with
a jackknife I 've got. No, I won't. I 'll swop
it off with my sister, for a yaller yaggate I 've got
my eye on in the 'pothecarry's winder. My sister
's a mill-gal. She 'll wear it on one hand to
meetin', an' stick the t'other in her muff. That 's
what I 'll do. How 'll you like that? Hi-igh!
You bet!”

“At least, I can go home with you,” said
Perley, absently effecting an exchange between
her glove and a fresh piece of ten-cent scrip,
which the boy held up in the light from a shop-window,
and tested with the air of a middle-aged
counterfeiter; “you ought to have been at home
an hour ago.”

“Lor now,” said this promising youth, “I was
just thinkin' so ought you.”

“What is your name?” asked Perley, as they
turned their two faces (one would have been

struck, seeing them together, with thinking how
much younger the woman looked than the child),
toward East Street, the First Tenement, and
No. 6.

“My name 's Bub. Bub Mell. They used to
call me Bubby, for short, till I got so large they
give it up.”

“How old are you?”

“Eight last Febiverry.”

“What do you do?”

“Work to the Old Stone.”

“But I thought no children under ten years
of age were allowed to work in the mills.”

“You must be green!” said Bub.

“But you go to school?”

“I went to school till I got so large they
give it up.”

“But you go a part of the time, of course?”

“No, I don't neither. Don't you s'pose I
knows?”

“What is that you have in your mouth?”
asked Perley, suddenly.

Bub relieved himself of a quid of fabulous size,
making quite superfluous the concise reply, “Terbaccer.”

“I never saw such a little boy as you chew
tobacco before,” said Perley, gasping.

“You must be green! I took my fust swag a
year and a half ago. We all does. I 'm just
out, it happens,” said Bub, with a candid smile.
“That 's what I wanted your ten cents for.
I smokes too,” added Bub, with an air of
having tried not to mention it, for modesty's
sake, but of being tempted overmuch. “You
bet I do! Sometimes it 's pipes, and sometimes
it 's ends. As a gener'l thing, give me a pipe.”

“What else do you do?” demanded Perley,
faintly.

“What else?” Bub reflected, with his old,
old head on one side. He bet on marbles.
He knew a tip-top gin-sling, when he see it, well
as most folks. He could pitch pennies. He
could ketch a rat ag'in any cove on East Street.
Lor! could n't he?

“But what else?” persisted Perley.

Bub was puzzled. He thought there warn't
nothin' else. After that he had his supper.

“And after that?”

Lor. After that he went to bed.

“And after that?”

After that he got up and went in.

“Went in where?”

She must be green. Into the Old Stone.
Spoolin', you know.

Did he go to church?

She might bet he did n't! Why, when

should he ketch the rats?

Nor Sunday school?

He went to the Mission once. Had a card
with a green boy onto it. Got so old he give
it up.

What did he expect, asked Perley, in a
sudden, severe burst of religious enthusiasm,
would become of him when he died?

Eh?

When he died, what would become of him?

Lor.

Could he read?

Fust Primer. Never tried nothin' else.

Could he write?

No.

Was he going to school again?

Could n't say.

Why did n't his parents send him?

Could n't say that. Thought they was too old;

no, thought he was too old; well, he did n't know;
thought somebody was too old, and give it up.

Was this where he lived?

She must be green! Of course he did.
Comin' in?

Perley was coming in. With hesitation she
came in.

She came into what struck her as a very
unpleasant place; a narrow, crumbling place;
a place with a peculiar odor; a very dark place.
Bub cheerfully suggested that she 'd better look
out.

For what?

Holes.

Where?

Holes in the stairs. He used to step into 'em
and sprain his ankles, you bet, till he got so old
he give it up She 'd better look out for the
plaster too. She 'd bump her head. She never
saw nothin' break like that plaster did; great
cakes of it. Here, this way. Keerful now!

By this way and that way, by being careful
now and patient then and quite persistent at
all times, Perley contrived to follow Bub in safety
up two flights of villanous stairs and into the

sudden shine of a low, little room, into which he
shot rather than introduced her, with the unembarrassing
remark that he did n't know what
she 'd come for, but there she was.

There were six children, a cooking-stove, a
bed, a table, and a man with stooped shoulders
in the room. There was an odor in the room
like that upon the stairs. The man, the children,
the cooking-stove, the bed, the table, and the odor
quite filled the room.

The room opened into another room, in which
there seemed to be a bureau, a bed, and a sick
woman.

Miss Kelso met with but a cool reception in
these rooms. The man, the children, the cooking-stove,
the bed, the odor, and the woman thrust
her at once, she could not have said how, into
the position of an intruder. The sick woman,
upon hearing her errand, flung herself over to
the wall with an impatient motion. The man sullenly
invited her to sit down; gave her to understand
— again she could hardly have told how —
that he wanted no money of her; no doubt the
boy had had more than he deserved; but that, if
she felt inclined, she might sit down.

“To tell the truth,” said Perley, in much confusion,
“I did not come so much on account of
the glove as on account of the boy.”

What had the boy been up to now? The
sullen man darted so fierce a look at the boy,
who sat with his old, old smile, lighting an old
pipe behind the cooking-stove, that Perley hastened
to explain that she did not blame the boy.
Who could blame the boy?

“But he was out so late about the streets, Mr.
Mell. He uses tobacco as most children use
candy. And a child of that age ought not to be
in the mills, sir,” said Perley, warming, “he ought
to be at school!”

O, that was all, was it? Mr. Mell pushed back
his stooped shoulders into his chair with an air
of relief, and Bub lighted his pipe in peace. But
he had a frowning face, this Mr. Mell, and he
turned its frown upon his visitor. He would like
to know what business it was of hers what he did
with his boy, and made no scruple of saying so.

“It ought to be some of my business,” said the
young lady, growing bolder, “when a child of
eight years works all the year round in these
mills. I have no doubt that I seem very rude,

sir; but I have in fact come out, and come out
alone as you see me, to see with my own eyes
and to hear with my own ears how people live
who work in these mills.”

Had she? Mr. Mell smiled grimly. Not a pleasant
job for a lady he should think; and uncommon.

“It 's a job I mean to finish,” said Miss Kelso,
firmly. “The stairs in this house are in a shocking
condition. What is — excuse me — the very
peculiar odor which I notice on these premises?
It must be poisonous to the sick woman, — your
wife?”

It was his wife. Yes; consumption; took it
weaving; had been abed this four month; could
n't say how long she 'd hold out. Doctor said,
five month ago, as nothin' would save her but a
change. So he sits and talks about Florida and
the South sun, and the folks as had been saved
down there. It was a sort of a fretful thing to
hear him. Florida! Good God! How was the
likes of him to get a dyin' wife to Florida?

She did n't like strangers overmuch; better not
go nigh her; she was kind of fretful; the childern
was kind of fretful too; sometimes they cried
like as his head would split; he kept the gell

home to look after 'em; not the first gell; he
could n't keep her to home at all; she made
seven; he did n't know 's he blamed her; it was
a kind of a fretful place, let alon' the stairs and
the smell. It come from the flood, the smell did.

“The flood?”

Yes, the cellar flooded up every spring from the
river; it might be drained, he should think; but
it never was as he heard of. There was the
offal from the mills floated in; it left a smell
pretty much the year round; and a kind of chill.
Then they had n't any drain, you see. There was
that hole in the wall where they threw out dishwater
and such. So it fell into the yard under
the old woman's window, and made her kind of
fretful. It made her fretful to see the children
ragged too. She greeted over it odd times. She
had a clean way about her, when she was up and
about, the old woman had.

“Who owns this house?” asked Miss Kelso,
with burning eyes.

The man seemed unaccountably reluctant to
reply; he fixed the fire, scolded Bub, scolded a
few other children, and shook the baby, but was
evidently unwilling to reply.

Upon Perley's repeating her question, the sick
woman, with another impatient fling against the
wall, cried out sharply, What was the odds? Do
tell the girl. It could n't harm her, could it?
Her husband, very ill at ease, believed that young
Mr. Hayle owned the house; though they dealt
with his lessee; Mr. Hayle had never been down
himself.

For a sullen man, with a stoop in the shoulders,
a frown in the face, seven children, a sick
wife, and no drain-spout, Mr. Mell did very well
about this. He grew even communicative, when
the blaze in Miss Kelso's eyes went out, paled
by the sudden fire in her cheek.

He supposed he was the more riled up by this
and that, he said, for being English; Scotch by
breed, you know; they 'd named the first gell
after her grandma, — Nynee; quite Scotch, ye
see; she was a Hielander, grandma, — but married
to England, and used to their ways. Now there
was ways and ways, and one way was a ten-hour
bill. There was no mistaking that, one way was
a ten-hour bill, and it was a way they did well by
in England, and it was a way they 'd have to walk
in this side the water yet — w-a-l-k in y-e-t!

He 'd been turned out o' mills in this country
twice for goin' into a ten-hour strike; once to
Lawrence and once up to New Hampshire. He 'd
given it up. It did n't pay. Since the old woman
was laid up, he must get steady work or
starve.

He 'd been a factory operative[1] thirty-three
years; twenty-three years to home, and ten years
to the United States, only one year as he was
into the army; he was forty-three years old.
Why did n't he send that boy to school? Why
did n't he drive a span of grays! He could n't
send the boy to school, nor none of the other boys
to school, except as mayhap they took their turn
occasional. He made it a point to send them
till they was eight if he could; he did n't like
to put a young un to spoolin' before he was eight,
if he could help it. The law? O yes, there was
a law, and there was ways of getting round a law,
bless you! Ways enough. There was parties
as had it in their hands to make it none so easy,
and again to make it none so hard.

“What parties?”

Parties as had an interest in spoolin in common
with the parent.

“The child's employers?”

Mr. Mell suddenly upon his guard. Mr. Mell
trusted to the good feelin' of a young lady as
would have a heart for the necessities of poverty,
and changed the subject.

“But you cannot mean,” persisted Perley, “that
a healthy man like you, with his grown children
earning, finds it impossible to support his family
without the help of a poor baby like Bub over
there?”

Mr. Mell quite meant it. Did n't know what
other folks could do; he could n't; not since the
rise in prices, and the old woman givin' out.
Why, look at here. There was the gell, twenty
year old; she worked to weaving; there was the
boy as was seventeen, him reading the picture
paper over to the table there, he draws and
twists; there was another gell of fifteen, you
might say, hander at the harnesses into the
dressing-room; then there was Bub, and the
babies.

Counting in the old woman and the losses,
he must have Bub. The old woman ate a power

ful sight of meat. He went without himself whensoever
he could; but his work was hard; it made
him kind of deathly to the stomach if he went
without his meat.

What losses did he speak of? Losses enough.
High water. Low water. Strikes. Machinery
under repair. Besides the deathly feelin' to the
stomach. He'd been out for sickness off and on,
first and last, a deal; though he looked a healthy
man, as she said, and you would n't think it.
Fact was, he 'd never worked but one whole
month in six year; nor he 'd never taken a
week's vacation at a time, of his own will an'
pleasure, for six year. Sometimes he lost two
days and a half a week, right along, for lack of
work.[2] Sometimes he give out just for the heat.
He 'd often seen it from 110° to 116° Fahrenheit
in the dressing-room. He wished he was back
to England. He would n't deny but there was
advantages here, but he wished he was back.

(This man had worked in England from 6 A. M.
to 8 o'clock P. M., with no time allowed for dinner;

he paid threepence a week to an old woman who
brought hot water into the mills at noon, with
which she filled the tin pot in which he had
brought tea and sugar from home. He had, besides,
a piece of bread. He ate with one hand
and worked with the other.)

He warn't complainin' of nobody in particular,
to nobody in particular, but he thought he had a
kind of a fretful life. He had n't been able to lay
by a penny, not by this way nor that, considerin'
his family of nine and the old woman, and the
feelin' to the stomach. Now that made him fretful
sometimes. He was a temperate man, he 'd
like to have it borne in mind. He was a member
of a ten-hour society, of the Odd Fellows, Good
Templars, and Orthodox Church.

Anything for him? No; he did n't know of
anything she could do for him. He 'd never
taken charity from nobody's hands yet. He
might, mayhap, come to it some day. He supposed
it was fretful of him, but he 'd rather lay in
his grave. The old woman she would n't never
know nothing of that; it was a kind of a comfort,
that was. He was obliged to her for wishing
him kindly. Sorry the old woman was so fretful

to-night; she was oncommon noisy; and the
children. He 'd ask her to call again, if the old
woman was n't so fretful about strangers. Hold
the door open for the lady, Bub. Put down your
pipe, sir! Have n't ye no more manners than to
smoke in a lady's face? There. Now, hold the
door open wide.

Wide, very wide, the door flung that Bub
opened to Perley Kelso. As wide it seemed to
her as the gray, wild, March night itself. At the
bottom of the stairs, she stood still to take its
touch upon her burning face.

Bub crept down after her, and knocked the
ashes out of his pipe against the door.

“Ain't used to the dark, be ye?”

No; not much used to the dark.

“Afraid?”

Not at all afraid.

Lor. He was goin' to offer to see her home, —
for ten cents. He used to be afraid. Got so old
he give it up.

Half-way home, Miss Kelso was touched upon
the arm again; this time gently, and with some
timidity. Sip Garth, with a basket on her arm,
spoke as she turned; she had been out marketing,

she said; getting a little beef for to-morrow's
dinner; had recognized and watched her half up
the street; it was very late; Miss Kelso was not
so used to being out late as mill-girls were; and
if she cared for company —

“I do not know that there is any reason why I
should not be out as late as mill-girls are,” mused
Miss Kelso, struck by the novelty of the idea. But
she was glad of the company, certainly; fell into
step with the mill-girl upon the now crowded walk.

“This is very new to me,” she said in a low
voice, as they turned a corner where a gust of
oaths met her like an east-wind and took away
her breath.

“You 'll see strange sights,” said Sip, with her
dogged smile.

She saw strange sights, indeed; strange sights
for delicate, guarded, fine young eyes; but so
pitifully familiar to the little mill-girl with the
dogged smile! As familiar, for instance, as
Maverick and Axminster carpets to Miss Kelso,
Miss Kelso wondered.

The lights of the little town were all ablaze;
shops and lounging-places full. Five Falls was
as restless as the restless night.

“Always is,” said Sip, “in a wind. Take a
good storm, or even take the moon, and it 's
different. When mill-folks have a man to hate,
or a wife to beat, or a child to drown, or a sin to
think of, or any ugly thing to do, you may notice,
ten to one, they 'll take a windy night; a dark
night like this, when you can't see what the
gale is up to, when you 're blown along,
when you run against things, when you can't
help yourself, when nothing seems to be anybody's
fault, when there 's noises in the world
like the engines of ten thousand factories let
loose. You can't keep still. You run about.
You 're in and out. You 've got so used to a
noise. You feel as if you were part and parcel
of it. I do. Next morning, if you 've lost your
soul, — why, the wind 's down, and you don't
understand it.”

Sip's dark face lighted fitfully, as if the gusty
weather blew its meaning to and fro; she gesticulated
with her hands like a little French woman.
It struck Perley that the girl was not far wrong
in fancying that she could “do it over” at the
Blue Plum.

But Perley saw strange sights. Five Falls in

the gusty weather was full of them. Full of
knots of girls in bright ribbons singing unpleasantly;
of knots of men at corners drinking
heavily; of tangles where the two knots met
with discordant laughter; of happy lovers that
one sighed over; of haggard sinners that one
despaired of praying over; of old young children
with their pipes, like Bub; of fragments of murderous
Irish threats; of shattered bits of sweet
Scotch songs; of half-broken English brogue;
of German gutturals thick with lager; only now
and then the shrewd, dry Yankee twang.

It was to be noticed of these people that the
girls swore, that the babies smoked, that the men,
more especially the elder men, had frowns like
Mr. Mell.

“One would think,” said Miss Kelso, as she
watched the growing crowd, “that they had no
homes.”

“They have houses,” said Sip.

They passed a dark step where something lay
curled up like a skulking dog.

“What 's that?” said Miss Kelso, stopping and
stooping. It was a little girl, — a very little girl.
She had a heavy bundle or a pail upon her arm;

had been sent upon an errand, it seemed, and
had dropped upon the step asleep; had been
trodden on once or twice, for her clothes bore
the mark of muddy feet.

“That 's Dib Docket,” said Sip. “Go home,
Dib!” Sip shook her, not ungently.

The little thing moved away uncertainly like a
sleep-walker, jostled to and fro by people in the
street. She seemed either too weak or too weary
to sit or stand.

“That 's Dib Docket,” repeated Sip. “That
child walks, at her work in the mills, between
twenty and thirty miles a day. I counted it up
once. She lives three quarters of a mile from
the factory besides. She 's not so bright as she
might be. It 's a wicked little devil; knows
more wickedness than you 've ever thought of,
Miss Kelso. No, you 'd better not go after her;
you would n't understand.”

Women with peculiar bleached yellow faces
passed by. They had bright eyes. They looked
like beautiful moving corpses; as if they might
be the skeletons among the statues that were dug
against the face of day. Miss Kelso had noticed
them since she first came out.

“What are they?”

“Cotton-weavers. You can tell a weaver by
the skin.”

Threading her way through a blockade of loudspeaking
young people by the railroad station
(there was always plenty going on at the station,
Sip said), Miss Kelso caught a bit of talk about
“the Lord's day.” Surprised at this evidence
of religious feeling where she was not prepared
to expect it, she expressed her surprise to Sip.

“O,” said Sip, “we mean pay-day; that 's
all the Lord's day we know much about.”

There was an old man in this crowd with very
white hair. He had a group of young fellows
about him, and gesticulated at them while he
talked. The wind was blowing his hair about.
He had a quavering voice, with a kind of mumble
to it, like the voice of a man with a chronic
toothache.

“Hear him!” said Sip.

Perley could hear nothing but a jargon of
“Eight hour,” “Ten hour,” “Labor reform,”
“Union,” “Slaves and masters,” “Next session,”
and “Put it through.” Some of the young fellows
seemed to listen, more laughed.

“Poor old Bijah!” said Sip, walking on; “always
in a row, — Bijah Mudge; can't outgrow it.
He 's been turned out of half the mills in New
England, folks say. He 'll be in hot water in
Five Falls before long, if he don't look out. But
he 's a lonesome old fellow, — Bijah.”

Just beyond the station Sip suddenly stopped.
They were in the face of a gay little shop, with
candy and dry goods in the windows.

“And rum enough in the back room there to
damn an angel!” said Sip, passionately, “and he
will have her in there in five minutes! Hold on,
will you?” She broke away from Miss Kelso,
who “held on” in bewilderment.

A pretty girl was strolling up and down the
platform of this place, with her hand upon the
arm of a young fellow with a black mustache.
The girl had a tint like that of pale gold about
her hair and face, and large, vain, unhappy eyes.
She wore blue ribbons, and looked like a Scotch
picture.

Sip stopped at the foot of the platform, and
called her. The girl came crossly, and yet with
a certain air of relief too.

“What do you want, Sip Garth?”

“I want you to go home, Nynee Mell.”

“Home!” said Nynee, with weak bitterness.

“Yes, home; it 's better than this.”

“It frets me so, to go home!” said Nynee, impatiently.
“I hate to go home.”

“It is better than this,” repeated Sip, earnestly.
“Come. I don't set up to be a preacher,
Nynee, but I do set up that Jim 's no company
fit for a decent girl.”

“I 'm a decent girl,” said poor Nynee, trying
to toss her silly head, but looking about her with
an expression of alarm. “Who said I was n't?”

Sip's reply Miss Kelso lost. The two girls
talked together for a few moments in low tones.
Presently Nynee walked slowly away.

“Jim 'll be cross to-morrow, if I give him the
slip,” she said, pettishly, but still she walked
away.

“There!” exclaimed Sip, stopping where she
stood, “that will do. Dirk! Dirk, I say!”

Dirk I say stopped too. He had been walking
rapidly down the street when Sip spoke. He was
a young man of perhaps twenty-five, with a strong
hand and a kindly eye. He looked very kindly
at Sip.

“I want you to go home with Nynee Mell,”
said Sip.

“I 'd a sight rather go home with some others
than Nynee Mell,” said the kindly young man.

“I know what I 'm about,” said Sip. “I know
who 'll keep Nynee Mell out of mischief. Go
quick, can't you?”

The kindly young man kindly went; not so
quickly as he might, but he went.

“Who was that young man?” asked Miss
Kelso, as they climbed the hill.

“Jim? A miserable Irishman, Jim is; has n't
been in Five Falls a month, but long enough to
show his colors, and a devilish black mustache,
as you see. You see, they put him to work next
to Nynee; he must go somewhere; they put him
where the work was; they did n't bother their
heads about the girl; they 're never bothered with
such things. And there ain't much room in the
alley. So she spends the day with him, pushing
in and out. So she gets used to him and all that.
She 's a good girl, Nynee Mell; wildish, and
spends her money on her ribbons, but a good girl.
She 'll go to the devil, sure as death, at this rate.
Who would n't? Leastways, being Nynee Mell.”

“But I meant the other young man,” observed
Miss Kelso.

“Him? O, that 's Dirk Burdock; watchman
up at the Old Stone.”

“A friend of yours?”

“I never thought of it,” said Sip, gravely.
“Perhaps that 's what you 'd call him. I like
Dirk first-rate.”

Sip pointed out one other young man to Miss
Kelso before they were quite at home. They
were passing a dingy hall where the mission, Sip
said, held a weekly prayer meeting. The young
man came out with the worshippers. It was Mr.
Garrick (said Sip), the new partner. He 'd been
in the way of going since he was in the dressing-room
himself; folks thought he 'd give it up now;
she guessed it was the first time you 'd ever
caught the firm into the mission meeting; meaning
no offence, however.

He was a grave man, this Mr. Garrick; a man
with premature wrinkles on the forehead; with a
hard-worked, hard-working mouth; with a hard
hand, with a hard step; a man, you would say,
in a hard place, acquired by a hard process; a
man, perhaps, who would find it hard to hope, and

harder to despair. But a man with a very bright,
sweet, sudden smile. A man of whom Perley
Kelso had seen or heard half her life; who had
been in and out of the house on business; who
had run on her errands, or her father's, — it made
little difference — in either case she had never
troubled herself about the messenger; but a man
whose face she could no more have defined than
she could, for instance, that of her coachman.
Her eyes followed him, therefore, with some
curiosity, as he lifted his hat in grave surprise at
passing her, and went his way.

Perley counted the people that came out from
the mission meeting. There were six in all.

“There must be sixty folks within sight,” observed
Sip, running her quick eye up and down
the gaudy little street, “as many as sixty loafin',
I mean.”

Miss Kelso made no answer, and they reached
and entered her own still, clean, elegantly trimmed
lawn in silence.

“Now I 've seen you safe home,” said the mill-girl,
“I shall feel better. The fact was, I did n't
know but the boys would bother you; they 're a
rough set; and you ain't used to 'em.”

“I never thought of such a thing!” exclaimed
the young lady. “They all know me, you know.”

“Yes; they all know you.”

“I supposed they would feel a kind of interest,
or respect —”

“What reason have you ever given them,”
said Sip in a low tone, “to feel any special interest
or respect for you?”

“You are right,” said Miss Kelso, after a moment's
thought. “They have no reason. I have
given them none. I wish you would come in a
minute.”

“Have I been saucy?”

“No; you have been honest. Come in a
minute; come, I want you.”

The lofty, luxurious house was lighted and
still. Sip held her breath when the heavy front
door shut her into it. Her feet fell on a carpet
like thick, wild moss, as she crossed the warm
wide hall. Miss Kelso took her, scarcely aware,
it seemed, that she did so, into the parlors, and
shut their oaken doors upon their novel guest.
She motioned the girl to a chair, and flung herself
upon another.

Now, for a young lady who had had a season

ticket to the Opera every winter of her
life, it will be readily conjectured that she had
passed an exciting evening. In her way, even
the mill-girl felt this. But in her way, the mill-girl
was embarrassed and alarmed by the condition
in which she found Miss Kelso.

The young lady sat, white to the lips, and
trembled violently; her hands covered and recovered
each other, with a feeble motion, as they
lay upon her lap; the eyes had burned to a
still white heat; her breath came as if she were
in pain.

Suddenly she rose with a little crouch like a
beautiful leopardess and struck the gray and
green chess-table with her soft hand; the blow
snapped one of her rings.

“You do not understand,” she cried, “you people
who work and suffer, how it is with us! We
are born in a dream, I tell you! Look at these
rooms! Who would think — in such a room as
this — except he dreamed it, that the mothers
of very little children died for want of a few
hundreds and a change of climate? Why, the
curtains in this room cost six! See how it is!
You touch us — in such a room — but we dream;

we shake you off. If you cry out to us, we only
dream that you cry. We are not cruel, we are
only asleep. Sip Garth, when we have clear eyes
and a kind heart, and perhaps a clear head, and
are waked up, for instance, without much warning,
it is nature to spring upon our wealth, to hate
our wealth, to feel that we have no right to our
wealth; no more moral right to it than the
opium-eater has to his drug!

“Why, Sip,” rising to pick up the chess-table,
“I never knew until to-night what it was like to
be poor. It was n't that I did n't care, as you
said. I did n't know. I thought it was a respectable
thing, a comfortable thing; a thing that
could n't be helped; a clean thing, or a dirty
thing, a lazy thing, or a drunken thing; a thing
that must be, just as mud must be in April; a
thing to put on overshoes for.”

And now what did she think?

“Who knows what to think,” said Perley
Kelso, “that is just waked up?”

“Miss Kelso?” said Sip.

“Yes,” said Miss Kelso.

“I never knew in all my life how grand a
room could be till I come into this grand room
to-night. Now, you see, if it was mine —”

“What would you do, if this grand room were
yours?” asked Miss Kelso, curiously.

“Just supposing it, you know, — am I very
saucy?”

“Not very, Sip.”

“Why,” said Sip, “the fact is, I 'd bring Nynee
Mell in to spend an evening!”

An engraving that lay against a rich easel in a
corner of the room attracted the girl's attention
presently. She went down on her knees to examine
it. It chanced to be Lemude's dreaming
Beethoven. Sip was very still about it.

“What is that fellow doing?” she asked, after a
while, — “him with the stick in his hand.”

She pointed to the leader of the shadowy orchestra,
touching the baton through the glass,
with her brown finger.

“I have always supposed,” said Perley, “that
he was only floating with the rest; you see the
orchestra behind him.”

“Floating after those women with their arms
up? No, he is n't!”

“What is he doing?”

“It 's riding over him, — the orchestra. He
can't master it. Don't you see? It sweeps him

along. He can't help himself. They come and
come. How fast they come! How he fights
and falls! O, I know how they come. That 's
the way things come to me; things I could do,
things I could say, things I could get rid of if I
had the chance; they come in the mills mostly;
they tumble over me just so; I never have the
chance. How he fights! I did n't know there
was any such picture as that in the world. I 'd
like to look at that picture day and night. See!
O, I know how they come.”

“Miss Kelso —” after another silence and
still upon her knees before the driving Dream
and the restless dreamer. “You see, that 's it.
That 's like your pretty things. I 'd keep your
pretty things if I was you. It ain't that there
should n't be music anywhere. It 's only that
the music should n't ride over the master. Seems
to me it is like that.”