our affair. Now I should not
answer her, Richard," and Mrs. Westmore tapped him playfully on the
arm.

"Frankly, I am not," he said to Alice. "I think it is a horrible
thing. But how are we to remedy it? There is no law on the subject at
all in Alabama--"

"Except the broader, unwritten law," she added.

Travis laughed: "You will find that it cuts a small figure with
directors when it comes in conflict with the dividends of a
corporation."

"But how is it there?" she asked,--"in New England?"

"They have seen the evils of it and they have a law against child
labor. The age is restricted to twelve years, and every other year
they must go to a public school before they may be taken back into
the mill. But even with all that, the law is openly violated, as it
is in England, where they have been making efforts to throttle the
child-labor problem for nearly a century, and after whose law the New
England law was patterned."

"Why, by the parents of the children falsely swearing to their age."

Alice looked at him in astonishment.

"Do you really mean it?" she asked.

"Why, certainly--and it would be the same here. If we had a law the
lazy parents of many of them would swear falsely to their children's
ages."

"There could be some way found to stop that," she said.

"It has not been found yet," he added. "What is to prevent two
designing parents swearing that an eight year old child is
twelve--and these little poor whites," he added with a laugh, "all
look alike from eight to sixteen--scrawny--hard and half-starved. In
many cases no living man could swear whether they are six or twelve."

"If you really should make it a rule to refuse all children under
twelve," she added, "tell me how many would go out of your mill."

"In other words, how many under twelve do we work there?" he asked.

She nodded.

He thought a while and then said: "About one hundred and
twenty-five."

She started: "That is terrible--terrible! Couldn't you--couldn't you
bring the subject up before the directors for--for--"

"Your sake--yes"--he said, admiringly.

"Humanity's--God's--Right's--helpless, ignorant, dying children!"

"Do you know," he added quickly, "how many idle parents these hundred
and twenty-five children support--actually support? Why, about fifty.
Now do you see? The whole influence of these fifty people will be to
violate the law--to swear the children are twelve or over. Yes, I am
opposed to it--so is Kingsley--