were dancing and drawing her
in--they were actually singing-- ... humming and chanting a May
song...._

_O lovely--lovely dolls!..._

Jud Carpenter found her asleep in the greasy aisle, her head resting
on her arm, a smile on her little face--a hand clasping a rounded
well-threaded doll-like bobbin to her breast.

It is useless to try to speak in a room in which the Steam Beast's
voice drowns all other voices. It is useless to try to awaken one by
calling. One might as well stand under Niagara Falls and whistle to
the little fishes. No other voice can be heard while the Steam Beast
speaks.

Shiloh was awakened by a dash of cold water and a rough kick from the
big boot of that other beast who called himself the overseer. He did
not intend to jostle her hard, but Shiloh was such a little thing
that the kick she got in the side accompanied by the dash of water
shocked and frightened her instantly to her feet, and with scared
eyes and blanched face she darted down to the long line of bobbins,
mending the threads.

If, in the great Mystic Unknown,--the Eden of Balance,--there lies no
retributive Cause to right the injustice of that cruel Effect, let us
hope there is no Here-after; that we all die and rot like dogs, who
know no justice; that what little kindness and sweetness and right,
man, through his happier dreams, his hopeful, cheerful idealism, has
tried to establish in the world, may no longer stand as mockery to
the Sweet Philosopher who long ago said: "_Suffer the little children
to come unto me._..."

They were more dead than alive when, at seven o'clock, the Steam
Beast uttered the last volcanic howl which said they might go home.

Outside the stars were shining and the cool night air struck into
them with a suddenness which made them shiver. They were children,
and so they were thoughtless and did not know the risk they ran by
coming out of a warm mill, hot and exhausted, into the cool air of an
Autumn night. Shiloh was so tired and sleepy that Bull Run and Seven
Days had to carry her between them.

Everybody passed out of the mill--a speechless, haggard, over-worked
procession. Byrd Boyle, with a face and form which seemed to belong
to a slave age, carried his twins in his arms.

Their heads lay on his shoulders. They were asleep.

Scarcely had the children eaten their supper of biscuit and bacon,
augmented with dandelion salad, ere they, too, were asleep--all but
Shiloh.

She could not sleep--no