The Portion of Labor

nd the great broadside of the front windows had been set with faces of the workers, a distracted figure came past. A young fellow at a

?" growled Jim Te

s against the shoulders of the young men. "We come in here to see if that was Eva Loud," said one, a sharp-fa

coiffure and a noticeable smartness in the tie of her neck-ribbon and the set of her cotton waist. "

hrough this seamed and discolored face, with thin grayish hair drawn back tightly from the temples, one could discern, as through a transparent mask, a past prettiness and an

ister's husband died," said the pretty girl. "Only look how Eva's waist bags

r. That's the difference between being a worker and

etty young one," s

h a familiar air of proprietorship as she spoke, but the young man did not seem to heed her. He was looking o

utting-knife with a hard clutch, his left held the piece of leather firmly in place, while he stared out with that angry and anxious scowl at Eva, who had paused on the street below, and was staring up at the windows, as if she meditated a wild search in the factory for the lost child. There was a curious likeness between the two faces; people had been ac

er force than love, if not as overwhelming, and it may

rt is in the right place," said the man who had spoken first. He spoke with a guttural drawl, and kept on with his work

with a curious and careful precision, very different from the hurried, slurring intonations of the other men. He had been taught the language by a philanthropic young lady, a college grad

brown-coated muscles under his loose-hanging gingham shirt. He plied feverishly his cutting-knife with his lean, hairy hands as he spoke. He was accounted one of the best an

," said th

id the Swede, with a

an evident point of malice in her tone, and a covert look at the pretty girl at Jim T

" said the first girl. "There's a good many out

the first ma

ut all day yester

and me were out t

r little young one is alive? Do

he sobbed, she waved her lean hands frantically out of the window, leaning far over the bench. "Look at there!" s

r the sheets of leather, but the tears ran down his cheeks. Lloyd's emptied itself into the street, and

he thought they wanted to rob her of the child. Even when a great cheer went up from the crowd, and was echoed by another from the factory, with an accompaniment of waving bare, leather-stained arms and hands, that expression of desperate defiance instead of t

Jim, I lost you, and then I t

as upon them at the sight of the girl's grief, and another cheer from the factory echoed it. Then came another sound, the great steam-whistle of Lloyd's; then the whistles of the other neighboring factori

but she followed him, little Ellen's g

he's got her!" sh

s gyrated, the cheers went up

on Eva's arm, pushed hi

ly shamelessness of grief and joy. "Let me see her! let me see her! Oh, the dear little thing, only look at her! Where have you been, precious? Are you hungry? Oh, Nellie, she is hungry, I know! She looks thin. Run over to the bak

horse and buggy-for he lived at a distance from his work, and drove over every morning. He pointed to a chair which a hostler had occupied, tilted against the wall, for a morning smoke, after the horses were

, the senior partner of the firm, who seldom touched his own horses of late years,

ted Jim Tenny. "I tell you the child is foun

know yet?

im was backing out h

e Jim ran out the buggy. When Mr. Clarkson lifted Eva and Ellen into the buggy

lls rang out. They were signalling the other searchers that the child was found. Jim and Eva and Ellen made a progress of triumph down the street. The crowd pursued them with cheers of rejoicing; doors and windows flew open; the