Only Johnnie, speeding
down the room away from it all, was doing anything rational to avert the
catastrophe. The child hung on the slowly moving belt, inert, a tiny rag
of life, with her mop of tangled yellow curls, her white, little face,
its blue eyes closed. When she reached the top, where the pulley was
close against the ceiling, her brains would be dashed out and the small
body dragged to pieces between beam and ceiling.
Those who looked at her realized this. Numbed by the inevitable, they
made no effort, save Milo, who at imminent risk of his own life, was
climbing on a frame near at hand; but Pony flew at Himes, beating the
old man with hard-clenched, inadequate fists, and screaming.
"You git her down from thar--git her down this minute! She'll be killed,
I tell ye! She'll be killed, I tell ye!"
Poor Mandy made inarticulate moanings and reached up her arms; Shade
Buckheath cursed softly under his breath; the women and children stared,
eager to lose no detail.
"I always have said, and I always shall say, that chaps as young as that
ain't got no business around whar machinery's at!" Bob Conley kept
shouting over and over in a high, strange, mechanical voice, plainly
quite unconscious that he spoke at all.
The child was so near the ceiling now that a universal groan proceeded
from the watchers. Then, all at once the belt ceased to move, and the
clash and tumult were stilled.
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