What he would earn in the factory she knew
well--blows, curses, evil knowledge.
"If they should go to the Victory, I'd be mighty proud to do all I could
to look after 'em, Johnnie," spoke Mandy from the shadows, where she sat
on the floor at Laurella Consadine's feet, working away with a
shoe-brush and cloth at the cleaning and polishing of the little woman's
tan footwear. "Ye know I'm a-gittin' looms thar to-morrow mornin'. Yes,
I am," in answer to Johnnie's deprecating look. "I'd ruther do it as to
run round a week--or a month--'mongst the better ones, huntin' a job,
and you here standin' for my board."
Till late that night Johnnie laboured with her mother and stepfather,
trying to show them that the mill was no fit place for the children.
Milo was all too apt for such a situation, the very material out of
which a cotton mill moulds its best hands and its worst citizens. Pony,
restless, emotional, gifted and ambitious, craving his share of the joy
of life and its opportunities, would never make a mill hand; but under
the pressure of factory life his sister apprehended that he would make
a criminal.
"Uh-huh," agreed Pap, drily, when she tried to put something of this
into words. "I spotted that feller for a rogue and a shirk the minute I
laid eyes on him. The mill'll tame him. The mill'll make him git down
and pull in the collar, I reckon.
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