and anxieties and the telegram that morning struck him like a blow.  He had asked that he might keep the card-room prices up to where the best men could make at least six dollars and a half a week and was hoping for a straight answer, but the words on the yellow paper seemed to dance about and make him dizzy.  “Shut down Saturday 9th until times are better!” he repeated to himself.  “Shut down until times are worse here in Farley!”

The agent stood at the counting-room window looking out at the piteous, defenseless groups that passed by.  He wished bitterly that his own pay stopped with the rest; it did not seem fair that he was not thrown out upon the world too.

“I don’t know what they’re going to do.  They shall have the last cent I’ve saved before anybody suffers,” he said in his heart.  But there were tears in his eyes when he saw Mrs. Kilpatrick go limping out of the gate.  She waited a moment for her constant companion, poor little Maggie the doffer, and they went away up the street toward their poor lodging holding each other fast by the hand.  Maggie’s father and grandfather and great-grandfather had all worked in the Farley mills; they had left no heritage but work behind them for this orphan child; they had never been able to save so much that a long illness, a prolonged old age, could not waste their slender hoards away.

IV.

It would have been difficult for an outsider to understand the sudden plunge from decent comfort to actual poverty in this small mill town.  Strange to say, it was upon the smaller families that the strain fell the worst in Farley, and upon men and women who had nobody to look to but themselves.  Where a man had a large household of children and several of these were old enough to be at work, and to put aside their wages or pay for their board; where such a man was of a thrifty and saving turn and a ruler of his household like old James Dow in the cloth-hall, he might feel sure of a comfortable hoard and be fearless of a rainy day.  But with a young man who worked single-handed for his wife and a little flock, or one who had an invalid to work for, that heaviest of burdens to the poor, the door seemed to be shut and barred against prosperity, and life became a test of one’s power of endurance.

The agent went home late that noon from the counting-room.  The street was nearly empty, but he had no friendly look or word for anyone whom he passed.  Those who knew him well only pitied him, but it seemed to the tired man as if every eye must look at him with reproach.  The long mill buildings of gray stone with their rows of deep-set windows wore a repellent look of strength and solidity.  More than one man felt bitterly his own personal weakness as he turned to look at them.  The ocean of fate seemed to be dashing him against their gray walls—­what use was it to fight against the Corporation?  Two great forces were in opposition now, and happiness could come only from their serving each other in harmony.