. Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and
directness. At the same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was
awake.

"All right," he mumbled.

She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in darkness.

"You'll be docked," she warned back to him.

He did not mind the darkness. When he had got into his clothes, he went
out into the kitchen. His tread was very heavy for so thin and light a
boy. His legs dragged with their own weight, which seemed unreasonable
because they were such skinny legs. He drew a broken-bottomed chair to
the table.

"Johnny," his mother called sharply.

He arose as sharply from the chair, and, without a word, went to the
sink. It was a greasy, filthy sink. A smell came up from the outlet. He
took no notice of it. That a sink should smell was to him part of the
natural order, just as it was a part of the natural order that the soap
should be grimy with dish-water and hard to lather. Nor did he try very
hard to make it lather. Several splashes of the cold water from the
running faucet completed the function. He did not wash his teeth. For
that matter he had never seen a toothbrush, nor did he know that there
existed beings in the world who were guilty of so great a foolishness as
tooth washing.

"You might wash yourself wunst a day without bein' told," his mother
complained.

She was holding a broken lid on the pot as she poured two cups of
coffee. He made no remark, for this was a standing quarrel between them,
and the one thing upon which his mother was hard as adamant. "Wunst" a
day it was compulsory that he should wash his face. He dried himself on
a greasy towel, damp and dirty and ragged, that left his face covered
with shreds of lint.

"I wish we didn't live so far away," she said, as he sat down. "I try
to do the best I can. You know that. But a dollar on the rent is such a
savin', an' we've more room here. You know that."

He scarcely followed her. He had heard it all before, many times. The
range of her thought was limited, and she was ever harking back to the
hardship worked upon them by living so far from the mills.

"A dollar means more grub," he remarked sententiously. "I'd sooner do
the walkin' an' git the grub."

He ate hurriedly, half chewing the bread and washing the unmasticated
chunks down with coffee. The hot and muddy liquid went by the name of
coffee. Johnny thought it was coffee--and excellent coffee. That was one
of the few of life