ndy Meacham shook her by the shoulder and bade her get up,
the room was humming with the roar of mill whistles, and the gray dawn
leaking in at its one window in a churlish, chary fashion, reminded her
that they were under the shadow of a mountain instead of living upon
its top.

"I don't see what in the world could 'a' made me sleep so!" Johnnie
deprecated, as she made haste to dress herself. "Looks like I never had
nothing to do yesterday, except walking down. I've been on foot that
much many a time and never noticed it."

The other girls in the room, poor souls, were all cross and sleepy.
Nobody had time to converse with Johnnie. As they went down the stairs
another contingent began to straggle up, having eaten a hasty meal after
their night's work, and making now for certain of the just-vacated beds.

Johnnie ran into the kitchen to help Mrs. Bence get breakfast on the
table, for Pap Himes was bad off this morning with a misery somewhere,
and his daughter was sending word to the cotton mill to put a substitute
on her looms till dinner time. Almost as much to her own surprise as to
that of everybody else, Mandy Meacham proposed to stay and take Johnnie
in to register for a job.

When the others were all seated at table, the new girl from the
mountains took her cup of coffee and a biscuit and dropped upon the
doorstep to eat her breakfast. The back yard was unenclosed, a litter of
tin cans and ashes running with its desert disorder into a similar one
on either side. But there were no houses back of the Himes place, the
ground falling away sharply to the rocky creek bed. Across the ravine
half a dozen strapping young fellows were lounging, waiting for
breakfast; loom-fixers and mechanics these, whose hours were more
favourable than those of the women and children workers.

"It's lots prettier out here than it is in the house," she returned
smilingly, when Mavity Bence offered to get her a chair. "I do love to
be out-of-doors."

"Huh," grunted Mandy with her mouth full of biscuit, "I reckon a cotton
mill'll jest about kill you. What makes you work in one, anyhow? I
wouldn't if I could help it."

Johnnie eyed the tall girl gravely. "I've got to earn some money," she
said at length. "Ma and the children have to be taken care of. I don't
know of any better way than the mill."

"An' I don't know of any worse," retorted Mandy sourly, as they went out
together.

Johnnie began to feel timid. There had been a secret