<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_214'></SPAN>214</span>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
<p>Margaret did not sleep well in her
lavender-scented sheets that night. Always
she heard the roar and the click-clack
of the mills, and everywhere she saw the
weary little workers with their closely-bound skirts,
and their strained, anxious faces.</p>
<p>She came down to breakfast with dark circles
under her eyes, and she ate almost nothing, to the
great, though silent, distress of the family.</p>
<p>The Spencers were alone now. There would
be no more guests for a week, then would come
a merry half-dozen for the Christmas holidays.
New Year’s was the signal for a general breaking
up. The family seldom stayed at Hilcrest
long after that, though the house was not quite
closed, being always in readiness for the brothers
when either one or both came down for a week’s
business.</p>
<p>It was always more or less of a debatable question—just
where the family should go. There
was the town house in New York, frequently
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_215'></SPAN>215</span>
opened for a month or two of gaiety; and there
were the allurements of some Southern resort, or
of a trip abroad, to be considered. Sometimes it
was merely a succession of visits that occupied
the first few weeks after New Year’s, particularly
for Mrs. Merideth and Ned; and sometimes it was
only a quiet rest under some sunny sky entirely
away from Society with a capital S. The time
was drawing near now for the annual change, and
the family were discussing the various possibilities
when Margaret came into the breakfast-room.
They appealed to her at once, and asked her
opinion and advice—but without avail. There
seemed to be not one plan that interested her to
the point of possessing either merits or demerits.</p>
<p>“I am going down to Patty’s,” she said, a little
hurriedly, to Mrs. Merideth, when breakfast was
over. “I got some names and addresses of the
mill children yesterday from Mr. McGinnis; and
I shall ask Patty to go with me to see them. I
want to talk with the parents.”</p>
<p>“But, my dear, you don’t know what you are
doing,” protested Mrs. Merideth. “They are so
rough—those people. Miss Alby, our visiting
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_216'></SPAN>216</span>
home missionary, told me only last week how
dreadful they were—so rude and intemperate and—and
ill-odored. She has been among them.
She knows.”</p>
<p>“Yes; but don’t you see?—those are the very
people that need help, then,” returned Margaret,
wearily. “They don’t know what they are doing
to their little children, and I must tell them. I
<em>must</em> tell them. I shall have Patty with me.
Don’t worry.” And Mrs. Merideth could only
sigh and sigh again, and hurry away up-stairs to
devise an altogether more delightful plan for the
winter months than any that had yet been proposed—a
plan so overwhelmingly delightful that
Margaret could not help being interested. Of
one thing, however, Mrs. Merideth was certain—if
there was a place distant enough to silence the
roar of the mills in Margaret’s ears, that place
should be chosen if it were Egypt itself.</p>
<p>Patty Durgin hesitated visibly when Margaret
told her what she wanted to do, until Margaret
exclaimed in surprise, and with a little reproach
in her voice:</p>
<p>“Why, Patty, don’t you want to help me?”</p>
<p>“Yes, yes; you don’t understand,” protested
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_217'></SPAN>217</span>
Patty. “It ain’t that. I want ter do it all. If
you have money for ’em, let me give it to ’em.”</p>
<p>Margaret was silent. Her eyes were still hurt,
still rebellious.</p>
<p>“I—I don’t want you ter see them,” stammered
Patty, then. “I don’t want you ter feel so—so
bad.”</p>
<p>Margaret’s face cleared.</p>
<p>“Oh, but I’m feeling bad now,” she asserted
cheerily; “and after I see them I’ll feel better. I
want to talk to them; don’t you see? They don’t
realize what they are doing to their children to let
them work so, and I am going to tell them.”</p>
<p>Patty sighed.</p>
<p>“Ye don’t understand,” she began, then
stopped, her eyes on the determined young face
opposite. “All right, I’ll go,” she finished, but
she shivered a little as she spoke.</p>
<p>And they did go, not only on that day, but on
the next and the next. Margaret almost forgot
the mills, so filled was her vision with drunken
men, untidy women, wretched babies, and cheerless
homes.</p>
<p>Sometimes her presence and her questions were
resented, and always they were looked upon with
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_218'></SPAN>218</span>
distrust. Her money, if she gave that, was welcome,
usually; but her remonstrances and her
warnings fell upon deaf, if not angry, ears. And
then Margaret perceived why Patty had said she
did not understand—there was no such thing as
making a successful appeal to the parents. She
might have spared herself the effort.</p>
<p>Sometimes she did not understand the words
of the dark-browed men and the slovenly women—there
were many nationalities among the operatives—but
always she understood their black
looks and their almost threatening gestures. Occasionally,
to be sure, she found a sick woman or
a discouraged man who welcomed her warmly,
and who listened to her and agreed with what she
had to say; but with them there was always the
excuse of poverty—though their Sue and Bess
and Teddy might not earn but twenty, thirty,
forty cents a day; yet that twenty, thirty, and
forty cents would buy meat and bread, and meant
all the difference between a full and an empty
stomach, perhaps, for every member of the family,
at times.</p>
<p>Margaret did what she could. She spent her
time and her money without stint, and went from
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_219'></SPAN>219</span>
house to house untiringly. She summoned young
McGinnis to her aid, and arranged for a monster
Christmas tree to be placed in the largest hall in
town; and she herself ordered the books, toys,
candies, and games for it, besides the candles
and tinsel stars to make it a vision of delight to
the weary little eyes all unaccustomed to such
glory. And yet, to Margaret it seemed that
nothing that she did counted in the least against
the much there was to be done. It was as if a
child with a teaspoon and a bowl of sand were
set to filling up a big chasm: her spoonful of
sand had not even struck bottom in that pit of
horror!</p>
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