no more work, and neither could Andrew.

Fanny lamented that the shop had closed at that time of year, for
she had planned a Christmas tree of unprecedented splendor for
Ellen, but Mrs. Zelotes was to be depended upon as usual, and Andrew
told his wife to make no difference. "That little thing ain't goin'
to be cheated nohow," he said one night after Ellen had gone to bed
and his visiting companions of the cutting-room had happened in.

"I know my children won't get much," Joseph Atkins said, coughing as
he spoke; "they wouldn't if Lloyd's hadn't shut down. I never see
the time when I could afford to make any account of Christmas, much
as ever I could manage a turkey Thanksgiving day."

"The poor that the Lord died for can't afford to keep his birthday;
it is the rich that he's going to cast into outer darkness, that
keep it for their own ends, and it's a blasphemy and a mockery,"
proclaimed Nahum Beals. He was very excited that night, and would
often spring to his feet and stride across the room. There was
another man there that night, a cousin of Joseph Atkins, John
Sargent by name. He had recently moved to Rowe, since he had
obtained work at McGuire's, "had accepted a position in the
finishing-room of Mr. H. S. McGuire's factory in the city of Rowe,"
as the item in the local paper put it. He was a young man, younger
than his cousin, but he looked older. He had a handsome face, under
the most complete control as to its muscles. When he laughed he gave
the impression of the fixedness of merriment of a mask. He looked
keenly at Nahum Beals with that immovable laugh on his face, and
spoke with perfectly good-natured sarcasm. "All very well for the
string-pieces of the bridge from oppression to freedom," he said,
"but you need some common-sense for the ties, or you'll slump."

"What do you mean?"

"We ain't in the Old Testament, but the nineteenth century, and
those old prophets, if they were alive to-day, would have to step
down out of their flaming chariots and hang their mantles on the
bushes, and instead of standing on mountain-tops and tellin' their
enemies what rats they were, and how they would get what they
deserved later on, they would have to tell their enemies what they
wanted them to do to better matters, and make them do it."

"Instead of standing by your own strike in Greenboro, you quit and
come here to work in McGuire's the minute you got a chance," said
Nahum Beals, sullenly, and Sargent responded,