“Why not?” asked the other.
“It’s too late. There is something
the matter with me. I never say anything, because
it would make mother unhappy; but I’m always
tired now, and every day I have a headache. And
I’m so very sleepy, and yet when I lie down
I can’t sleep—I keep hearing the mill.”
“Oh!” cried Samuel involuntarily.
“I don’t mind it so much,” said
the child. “There’s no help, so what’s
the use. It’s only when I hear Friedrich
play—then I get all stirred up.”
They walked on for a while again.
“He’s very unhappy,” she said finally.
“I suppose so,” replied Samuel. “Tell
me,” he asked suddenly. “Isn’t
there some other work that you could do?”
“What? I’m not strong enough for
hard work. And where could I make three dollars
a week?”
“Is that what they pay you?”
“Yes—that is—when we are
on full time.”
“Does it make all the girls sick?” he
inquired. “There’s that girl who
came in this afternoon—she seems well and
strong.”
“Bessie, you mean? But it’s just
play for her, you see. She lives with her parents
and stops whenever she feels like it. She just
wants to buy dresses and go to the theater.”
“But that girl we passed on the street to-day!”
“Helen Davis. Ah, yes—but she’s
different again. She’s bad.”
“Bad?” echoed Samuel perplexed.
There was a brief pause. It was not easy for
him to adjust himself to a world in which the good
were of necessity frail and ill, and the bad were
rosy-cheeked and merry. “How do you mean?”
he asked at last.
And Sophie answered quite simply, “She lives
with a fellow.”
The blood leaped into Samuel’s face. Such
a blunder for him to have made.
But then the flush passed, giving place to a feeling
of horrified wonder. For Sophie was not in the
least embarrassed—she spoke in the most
matter-of-fact tone. And this from a child of
thirteen, who did not look to be ten.
“I see,” said he in a faint voice.
“A good many of the girls do it,” she
added. “You see, they move about
so much—the mills close, and so a girl
has no hope of marrying. But mothers says it’s
wrong, just the same.”
And Samuel walked home the rest of the way in silence,
and thinking no more about the joys of music.
On Monday morning Samuel found that Professor Stewart
had returned, and he sat in the great man’s
study and waited until he had finished his breakfast.
It was a big room, completely walled with crowded
bookshelves; in the center was a big work-table covered
with books and papers. Samuel had never dreamed
that there were so many books in the world, and he
gazed about him with awe, feeling that he had come
to the sources of knowledge.
