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The Boy With the U.S. Census

by Francis Rolt-Wheeler · English · Gutenberg #13181 · 416,444 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Boy With the U.S. Census

Author: Francis Rolt-Wheeler


        
Release date: August 15, 2004 [eBook #13181]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13181

Credits: Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY WITH THE U.S. CENSUS ***

[Illustration: THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. The welcome of New York, the
gateway of the New World, to all races and peoples of the earth.
(_Courtesy of U.S. Immigration Station, Ellis Island._)]




THE BOY WITH THE U.S. CENSUS

BY FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER

[Illustration: The Boy With the U.S. Census]

With Thirty-eight Illustrations, principally from
Bureaus of the United States Government


November, 1911




To My Son Roger's Friend

HAMILTON DAY




PREFACE

Life in America to-day is adventurous and thrilling to the core. Border
warfare of the most primitive type still is waged in mountain
fastnesses, the darkest pages in the annals of crime now are being
written, piracy has but changed its scene of operations from the sea to
the land, smugglers ply a busy trade, and from their factory prisons a
hundred thousand children cry aloud for rescue. The flame of Crusade
sweeps over the land and the call for volunteers is abroad.

In hazardous scout duty into these fields of danger the Census Bureau
leads. The Census is the sword that shatters secrecy, the key that opens
trebly-guarded doors; the Enumerator is vested with the Nation's
greatest right--the Right To Know--and on his findings all battle-lines
depend. "When through Atlantic and Pacific gateways, Slavic, Italic, and
Mongol hordes threaten the persistence of an American America, his is
the task to show the absorption of widely diverse peoples, to chronicle
the advances of civilization, or point the perils of illiterate and
alien-tongue communities. To show how this great Census work is done,
to reveal the mysteries its figures half-disclose, to point the paths to
heroism in the United States to-day, and to bind closer the kinship
between all peoples of the earth who have become "Americans" is the aim
and purpose of

THE AUTHOR.




CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
A BLOOD FEUD IN OLD KENTUCKY

CHAPTER II
RESCUING A LOST RACE

CHAPTER III
A MANUFACTORY OF RIFLES

CHAPTER IV
THE BOY LEADER OF A CRUSADE

CHAPTER V
"DON'T DEPORT MY OLD MOTHER!"

CHAPTER VI
THE NEGRO CENSUS FROM THE SADDLE

CHAPTER VII
HOBOES ON THE TRAMP

CHAPTER VIII
THE CENSUS HEROES OF THE FROZEN NORTH

CHAPTER IX
CONFRONTED WITH THE BLACK HAND

CHAPTER X
RIOTS AROUND A CITY SCHOOL


ILLUSTRATIONS

The Statue of Liberty (_Frontispiece_)
Taking the Census in Old Kentucky
Kentucky Mountaineer Family
Moonshining
Bill Wilsh's Home in the Gully
Bill Wilsh in the School
Alligator-Catching
The Census Building
Making Gun-sights True
"A Bull's-eye Every Time!"
Young Boys from the Pit
"I 'ain't Seen Daylight for Two Years"
Eight Years Old and "Tired of Working"
The Biggest Liner in the World Coming in
Immigration Station, Ellis Island
Where the Workers Come from
On a Peanut Farm
In an All-Negro Town
"'Way down Yonder in de Cotton Fiel'"
How Most of the Negroes Live
Facsimile of Punched Census Card
Tabulating Machine
Pin-box and Mercury Cups
Over the Trackless Snow with Dog-team
The Census in the Aleutian Islands
"Can We Make Camp?"
To Eskimo Settlements by Reindeer
Gathering Cocoanuts
Taking the Census in a City
Festa in the Italian Quarter
The Fighting Men of the Tongs
Arrested as the Firing Stops
Work for Americans




THE BOY WITH THE U.S. CENSUS


CHAPTER I

A BLOOD FEUD IN OLD KENTUCKY


"Uncle Eli," said Hamilton suddenly, "since I'm going to be a
census-taker, I think I'd like to apply for this district."

The old Kentucky mountaineer, who had been steadily working his way
through the weekly paper, lowered it so that he could look over the top
of the page, and eyed the boy steadfastly.

"What for?" he queried.

"I think I could do it better than almost anybody else in this section,"
was the ready, if not modest, reply.

"Wa'al, perhaps yo' might," the other assented and took up the paper
again. Hamilton waited. He had spent but little time in the mountains
but he had learned the value of allowing topics to develop slowly, even
though his host was better informed than most of the people in the
region. Although not an actual relative, Hamilton always called him
"Uncle" because he had fought with distinguished honor in the regiment
that Hamilton's father commanded during the Civil War, and the two men
ever since had been friends.

"I don't quite see why any one sh'd elect to take a hand in any such
doin's unless he has to," the Kentuckian resumed, after a pause; "that
census business seems kind of inquisitive some way to me."

"But it seems to me that it's the right kind of 'inquisitive.'"

"I reckon I hadn't thought o' there bein' more'n one kind of
inquisitiveness," the mountaineer said, with a smile, "but if you say
so, I s'pose it's all right."

"But don't you think the questions are easy enough?" asked the boy.

"They may be easy, but thar's no denyin' that some of 'em are mighty
unpleasant to answer."

"But if they are necessary?"

"Thar's a-plenty o' folks hyeh in the mount'ns that yo' c'n never make
see how knowin' their private affairs does the gov'nment any good."

"But you don't feel that way, Uncle Eli, surely?"

"Wa'al, I don' know. Settin' here talkin' about it, I know it's all
right, an' I'm willin' to tell all I know. But I jes' feel as sure as
c'n be, that befo' the census-taker gets through hyeh, I'm goin' to be
heated up clar through."

"But why?" queried the lad again. "The questions are plain enough, and
there was practically no trouble at the last census. I think it's a fine
thing, and every one ought to be glad to help. And it's so important,
too!"

"Important!" protested the old man. "Did yo' ever see any one that ever
sat down an' read those tables an' tables o' figures?"

"Not for fun, perhaps," the boy admitted. "But it isn't done for the
sake of getting interesting reading matter; it's because those figures
really are necessary. Why there's hardly a thing that you can think of
that the census isn't at the back of."

"I don't see how that is. They don't ask about a man's politics, I
notice," the mountaineer remarked.

"No," answered Hamilton promptly, "but the number of members a State
sends to Congress depends on the figures of the population that the
census-takers gather, and the only claim that any legislator has to his
seat is based on their information."

"I suppose you'd say the same about schools, too."

"Of course," the boy answered.

"But I hear the Census Bureau this year wants all sorts of information
about the crops an' the number of pigs kept an' all that sort o' stuff."

"Don't you think the food of all the people of the United States is
important enough, Uncle Eli? And then the railroads, too,--they depend
on the figures about the crops and all sorts of other things which go as
freight."

"You seem to know a lot about it," the mountaineer said, looking
thoughtfully at the boy.

"I ought to," Hamilton said, "because I'm going to be an assistant
special agent in the Census of Manufactures right away. I applied last
October and took the exam a couple of weeks before coming here on this
visit."

"What makes yo' so cocksure that you've passed the examination?" he was
asked.

"I didn't find it so hard," Hamilton replied, "figures have always been
easy for me, and when my brother was studying for that chartered
accountant business I learned a lot from him."

"Your dad, he was a great hand fo' figures, so I s'pose yo' come by it
naturally enough. An' you're jes' sure you've passed?"

"I haven't heard one way or the other," said Hamilton, "but I'm pretty
sure."

"Wa'al, thar's no use sayin' anythin' if you're all sot, but it's the
business of the gov'nment, an' I'd let them do it."

"But I'm hoping to work right with the government all the time, Uncle
Eli," the boy explained "either with the Census Bureau or the Bureau of
Statistics or some work like that. And anyway, if it's the government's
business, I'm an American and it's my business."

"Yo' have the right spirit, boy," the old man said, "an' I like to see
it, but you're huntin' trouble sure's you're born. S'posin' yo' asked
the questions of some ol' sorehead that wouldn' answer?"

"He'd have to answer," replied Hamilton stoutly, "there's a law to make
him."

"I don't believe that law's used much," hazarded the old man.

"It isn't," Hamilton found himself forced to admit. "I believe there
were not very many arrests all over the country last census. But the
law's there, just the same."

"It wouldn' be a law on the Ridge," the mountaineer said, "an' I don'
believe it would do yo' any good anywhar else. On the mount'ns, I know,
courtesy is a whole lot bigger word than constitution. Up hyeh, we
follow the law when we're made to, follow an idee backed up by a
rifle-barrel because we have to, but there's not many men hyeh that won'
do anythin' yo' ask if yo' jes' ask the right way."

"But there are always some that give trouble," Hamilton protested,
trying to defend his position.

The old Kentuckian slowly shook his head from side to side.

"If yo' don' win out by courtesy," he said, "it's jes' because yo'
haven' been courteous enough, because yo' haven' taken yo' man jes'
right. Thar isn't any such thing as bein' too gracious. An' anyway, a
census-taker with any other idee up hyeh would be runnin' chances right
along."

"You mean they would shoot him up?" asked Hamilton.

"I think if he threatened some folks up hyeh an' in the gullies thar
might be trouble."

"But the fact that he represented the government would insure him from
harm, I should think."

"I don't think much of that insurance idee," the old man said. "I can't
remember that it helped the revenue men sech a great deal. The only
insurance I ever had was a quick ear, an' even now, I c'n hear a twig
snap near a quarter of a mile away. An' that used to be good insurance
in the ol' days when, if yo' weren't gunnin' for somebody, thar was
somebody gunnin' fo' you."

"But there's no one 'gunning' for you now, is there, Uncle Eli?" asked
the boy amusedly.

"I haven't b'n lookin' out especially," the Kentuckian responded, with
an answering slow smile, "an' I reckon sometimes that I might jes' as
well leave the ol' rifle in the house when I go out."

"But you never do," put in Hamilton quickly.

"I reckon that's jes' a feelin'," rejoined the mountaineer, "jes' one o'
these habits that yo' hate to give up. I'd sort o' be lost without it
now, after all these years. Thar's no one to worry about, anyway,
savin' Jake Howkle, an' I don' believe he's hankerin' for
blood-lettin'."

"Jake? Oh, never," Hamilton replied with assurance; "why, he's only
about my age."

"That's only partly why," the old man said, "not only because he's your
age, but because he's b'n at school. Shootin' an' schoolin' don' seem to
hit it off. I reckon thar would have b'n a sight less trouble in the
mount'ns if thar had b'n mo' schools."

"There are plenty of schools in the mountains now, aren't there?" asked
Hamilton. "It must be very different here, Uncle Eli, from what it was
when you were a boy."

"Thar has been quite a change, an' the change is comin' faster now. But
thar's still a lot o' folk who a'nt altered a bit sence the war. You
city people call us slow-movin' up hyeh, an' as long as thar's any o'
the ol' spirit abroad thar's a chance o' trouble. If yo' really are
goin' in for this census-takin', I'd keep clar o' the mount'ns."

"You really would?" queried the boy thoughtfully.

"An' what's more," continued his Uncle, "I would jes' as soon that yo'
didn' have anythin' to do with it near hyeh. I don' want to see any
little differences between families, such as census-takin' is likely
to provoke."

[Illustration: TAKING THE CENSUS IN OLD KENTUCKY: Typical conditions of
an enumerator's work in the mountain districts. (_Courtesy of Art
Manufacturing Co., Amelia, O._)]

"Why, Uncle Eli!" cried Hamilton in amazement, "you talk as though the
days of the feuds were not over."

"Are yo' sure they're all over?" the Kentuckian said.

"I had supposed so," the boy replied. "I thought the Kentucky 'killings'
had stopped ten or fifteen years ago."

"It's a little queer yo' sh'd bring that up today," the old man said,
"for I was jes' readin' in the paper some figures on that very thing.
Yo' like figures, this will jes' suit you. Where was it now?" he
continued, rustling the paper; then, a moment later, "Oh, yes, I have
it."

"'During the terms of the last three Kentucky governors,'" he read,
"'over thirteen hundred criminals have been pardoned, five hundred of
them being for murder or manslaughter.' It says fu'ther on," the old man
added, "that pardonin' is jes' as frequent now as it ever was. I don'
believe it is, myself, but if thar is such a lot o' pardonin' goin' on
for shootin', thar must have been a powerful lot o' shootin'."

"But that's for all the State," objected the boy, "not for the
mountains only. That must be for crimes in the cities and all sorts of
things. You can't make the feuds responsible for those."

"Not altogether," the mountaineer agreed, "the real ol'-time feud is
peterin' out, an' it's mainly due to the schoolin'. The young folks
ain't ready fo' revenge now, an' that sort o' swings the women around.
An' up hyeh in the mount'ns, same as everywhar else, I reckon, the idees
o' the women make a pile o' difference."

"But I should have thought the women would always have been against the
feuds," said Hamilton.

"Yo'd think so, but they weren't. They helped to keep up the grudges a
whole lot."

"Aunt Ab hasn't changed much," volunteered the lad.

"She hasn't for a fact. Ab is powerful sot. She holds the grudge against
the Howkles in the ol' style. But the feelin' is dyin' out fast, an'
soon it'll be like history,--only jes' read of in books."

"What I never could see," remarked Hamilton, "was what started it all.
It isn't as if the people in the mountains had come from some part of
the world where vendettas and that sort of thing had been going on for
generations. There must have been some kind of reason for it in this
section of the country. Feuds don't spring up just for nothing."

"Thar was a while once we had a powerful clever talker up hyeh," the
Kentuckian answered, "actin' as schoolmaster for a few weeks. I reckon
he'd offered to substitute jes' to get a chance to see for himself what
life in the mount'ns was like. He was writin' a book about it. We got
right frien'ly, an' he knew he was always welcome hyeh, an' one day I
asked him jes' that question. It was shortly befo' he lef' an' I wanted
to know what he thought about us all up hyeh."

The mountaineer leaned back in his chair and chuckled with evident
enjoyment of the recollection.

"I jes' put the question to him," he said, "in the mildes' way, an' he
started right in to talk. Thar was no stoppin' him, an' I couldn'
remember one-half o' what he said. But I reckon he had it about right."

"How did he explain the feuds, Uncle Eli?" asked the boy.

"Wa'al," said the mountaineer, with a short laugh, "he begun by sayin'
we were savages."

"Savages?"

"Not jes' with war-paint an' tomahawk, yo' understan'," continued the
old man, enjoying the boy's astonishment, "but uncivilized an' wild.
Thar an't any finer stock in the world, he said, than the mount'neers o'
the Ridge, clar down to Tennessee, an' he said, too, that they were o'
the good old English breed, not foreigners like are comin' in now."

"That's right enough," Hamilton agreed, "and, what's more, they were
gentlemen of good birth, most of them; there was not much of the peasant
in the early colonists."

"So this author chap said. But he explained that was the very reason
they got so wild."

"I don't see that," objected Hamilton, "and I certainly don't see where
the 'savage' idea comes in."

"Wa'al, he said that when you slid down from a high place it was harder
to climb back than if the fall had b'n small. An' that's why it's so
hard for those who have gone down,--they can see the depth o' the fall."

Hamilton, who was of an argumentative turn of mind, would have protested
at this, but the old mountaineer proceeded.

"When the pioneers settled in the mount'ns they kind o' stuck. Those
that went on, down into the Blue Grass region, went boomin' right ahead,
but those that stayed in the mount'ns had no chance."

"I don't see why not?" objected the boy.

"They were jes' cut off from everywhar. We are to-day, for that matter.
When a place gets settled, an' starts to try an' raise somethin' to
sell, the product has got to be taken to market. But thar was no
railroad up in the mount'ns. Children were easy to raise, an' a
population grew up in a hurry, but the land was too poor for good
farmin', the roads were too bad for takin' corn to market, an' thar was
no way o' gettin' to a town."

"You are pretty well cut off," said Hamilton.

"We were more so then," the mountaineer said. "An' so, while all the
country 'round was advancin' up in the mount'ns, fifty years ago, we
were livin' jes' like pioneers. An' some, not bein' able to keep up the
strain, fell back."

"So it really isn't the fault of the mountaineers at all," cried the
boy, "but because they were sort of marooned."

"It was unfortunate," replied the old man, "but it really was our own
fault. If the mount'n country was worth developin', we should have
developed it; if not, we should have left."

"I've often wondered why you didn't, Uncle Eli," said Hamilton.

"Yo' must remember," the Kentuckian said, "that the mount'neers are a
most independent lot. They want to be independent, an' up hyeh, every
man is his own master. But, thar bein' no available market if they did
work hard, what was the use o' workin'? Some o' them, 'specially down in
the gullies, got lazy an' shif'less. But they hung on all the harder to
the idees o' the old times,--honor an' hospitality."

"I've always understood," said Hamilton, "that there was more
hospitality to be found up here in the mountains than in almost any
place on the globe."

"As yo' said," the old man continued, "we're jes' like a crew o'
shipwrecked sailors marooned on an island without a boat, without any
means o' gettin' away. If some o' the families high up in the gullies
are ignorant, it's because they've had no schoolin', not because they
haven' got the makin's o' good citizens; if they're a bit careless about
religion, it's because they've had no churchin', an' if they don' pay
much heed to law, it's because the law has never done much for them.
The ocean o' progress," went on the mountaineer, with a flourish, "has
rolled all 'roun' the mount'ns, but of all the fleets o' commerce in all
these years, thar has not been one to send out a boat to help the
marooned mount'neer."

"Didn't they ever try to get help?" queried the boy.

"We're not askin' help," the Kentuckian said, "thar's no whinin' on the
mount'ns. I jes' tell yo' that when the time comes for the mount'neers
o' Kentucky an' Virginia an' Tennessee an' Carolina to get a fair
chance, they'll show yo' as fine a race o' men an' women as the Stars
an' Stripes flies over."

"They are mighty fine right now, I think," the boy said.

"They have their good points," the Kentuckian agreed; "thar's nothin'
sneakin' in the men up hyeh, an' thar an't any lengths to which a man
won't go, to do what he thinks is the squar thing. You've heard about
the Beaupoints?"

"No," the boy answered, "what was that?"

"It was jes' an incident in one o' these feuds that you were talkin' of,
an' I'm goin' to tell yo' about it, to show yo' what a mount'neer's
idee o' honor is like. Thar was a family livin' on the other side o' the
Ridge, not a great ways from hyeh, by the name o' Calvern, an' in some
way or other--I never heard the rights of it--they took to shootin' up
the Beaupoints every chance that come along. One day Dandie Beaupoint
found a little girl that had hurt herself, an' he picked her up in his
arms an' was carryin' her home when one o' the Calvern boys shot him in
his tracks. One o' the Beaupoint brothers was away at the time, but the
others felt that the Calverns hadn't b'n playin' fair, an' they reckoned
to lay them all out. They did, too, all but one, an', although they had
a chance to nail him, they let him alone."

"Why was he let off?" queried Hamilton.

"I reckon it was because he had a young wife an' a little child," the
old man answered. "Now Jim Beaupoint, the one that had been away, he
come home after a while, an' hadn't happened to hear about the wipin'
out o' the Calverns. On his way home, he had to pass the Calvern place,
an' so he made a wide cast aroun' the hill to keep out o' sight, when
suddenly, up a gully, he saw this Hez Calvern standin' there with his
rifle on his arm, an', quick as he could move, Jim grabbed his gun an'
fired. It was a long shot an' a sure one."

"Was it--" the boy began, but the old man waved the interruption aside
and proceeded.

"Reloadin' his rifle, Jim Beaupoint rode slowly to whar Hez Calvern was
lyin', when suddenly, from a clump o' bushes close by, there come a
rifle shot, an' the rider got the bullet in his chest. Befo' fallin'
from the saddle, however, the young fellow fired at the bushes from
which smoke was driftin', an' a shrill scream told him that the
sharpshooter was a woman."

"Some one who had been with Hez Calvern?" asked Hamilton.

"His wife. Well, although Jim was mortally hurt an' sufferin'--as the
tracks showed afterwards--he tried to drag himself to the bushes in
order to help the woman who had shot him an' who he had shot unknowin';
but he was too badly hurt, an' he died twenty yards from the place whar
he fell."

"Was the woman dead, too?" asked Hamilton.

"No, but terrible badly hurt. What I was wantin' to tell yo', though,
was the result of all this. Wa'al, the Beaupoints took the woman to
their home an' nursed her night an' day for five long years. She was
helpless, only for her tongue, an' she lashed an' abused them till the
day she died, an' never once, in all those years, did any one o' the
Beaupoints reproach her in return."

"And the youngster?"

"They took the boy, too, an' reared him the bes' they knew how, jes' the
same as one o' their own. One o' the Beaupoint boys went an' lived on
the Calvern place, an' worked it,--worked it fair an' squar', an' put
aside every cent that come out o' the farm. For thirteen years the
Beaupoints looked after the farm an' reared the boy. On the day he was
fourteen year old, Jed Beaupoint--that was the father--called the lad,
told him the whole story, give him a new rifle an' a powder horn, an'
handed over the little bag o' coin that represented thirteen years o'
work on the Calvern holdin'."

"There certainly couldn't be anything squarer than that!" exclaimed
Hamilton. "And he gave the boy the farm, too?"

"Every inch of it. Jed Beaupoint was a squar' man, cl'ar through. An' he
said to the boy--he tol' me the story himself--'Johnny Calvern, thar's
yo' farm an' yo' rifle. Now, if yo're willin', I'll see that thar's no
trouble until yo're twenty-one, an' then yo' c'n go huntin' revenge if
yo've a mind to, or, if you're willin', we'll call the trouble off now,
an' thar won't be any need o' rakin' it up again.'"

"He made it up on the spot, of course?" questioned Hamilton.

The Kentuckian shook his head.

"He did not," he replied. "The boy thought a minute or two an' then said
he'd wait until he was grown up, an' let him know then."

"Although he had been brought up by the Beaupoints!" exclaimed the boy
in surprise. "But surely it never came up again."

"Well, not exac'ly. When Johnny Calvern was about nineteen he got
married, an' a few days befo' the time when he would be twenty-one, he
rode up to the Beaupoint place, an' tol' the ol' man that he was willin'
to let the feud rest another ten years, because of his wife an' little
baby, but that he would be ready to resume shootin' at that time."

"But he had no real grudge against the Beaupoints had he, Uncle Eli?
They had always been kind to him, you said."

"Not a bit o' grudge," the mountaineer answered, "they were good
friends. An' I reckon it wasn't Johnny that wanted the trouble to begin
again, but thar's always a lot o' hotheads pryin' into other folks'
business. However, ol' Jed Beaupoint didn't mind; he agreed to another
ten years' truce, an' all went on peacefully as befo'. Durin' those ten
years, however, Johnny's wife died, an' he got married again, this time
to the sister o' a wanderin' preacher, a girl who had once lived in
cities, an' she soon showed him that the ol' feud business must be
forgotten. But it is a mite unusual, even hyeh, to farm a man's land an'
bring up his child fo' thirteen years, an' then give him everythin' yo'
can with the privilege o' shootin' yo' at sight for all the favors
done."

"It doesn't sound a bit like the usual feud story," said Hamilton, "one
always thinks of those as being cold-blooded and cruel."

"Thar an't a mite o' intentional cruelty in them; it's jes' that life is
held cheap. Most o' them begun over some small thing like an election."

"There were quite a number of them, Uncle Eli, weren't there?"

"One ran into the other so easily that one feud would often look like
half a dozen, an' trouble would be goin' on in various places. But
there were really seven of them, all big ones."

[Illustration: KENTUCKY MOUNTAINEER FAMILY. In the heart of the feud
district, where the rifle is never out of reach. (_Courtesy of the
Spirit of Missions._)]

"What were they, Uncle Eli?"

"Wa'al, thar was the McCoy-Hatfield feud in Pike County, that started
over the ownership o' two plain razorback hogs, but afterwards got very
bitter, owin' to the friendship o' one o' the McCoy girls with the son
o' Bad Anse Hatfield. Then thar was the Howard-Turner feud in Harlan
County. An' then--"

"What started the Howard-Turner feud?" interrupted the boy.

"That was over a game o' cards. One o' the Howards had been winnin', an'
Jim Turner, with a pistol, forced him to give back the money he had won.
That affair raged a long time. The Logan-Tolliver feud in Rowan County
was over an election fo' sheriff. The Logans elected their candidate,
an' so the Tollivers killed one o' the Logans at the polls and wounded
three others."

"That's expressing dissatisfaction with an election with some spirit,"
Hamilton remarked.

"Then thar was the French-Eversole feud in Perry County," continued the
Kentuckian, reminiscently. "Ol' Joe Eversole was a merchant in a town
called Hazard, an' he helped Fulton French to start a little store. In
time French almos' drove Eversole out o' business. That was a strange
fight, because neither French nor Eversole ever got into the
shootin',--indeed they remained frien'ly even when their supporters were
most bitter."

"Who carried on the feud, then?" asked Hamilton in surprise, "if the
principals didn't?"

"Wa'al, I guess the worst was a minister, the Rev. Bill Gambrill. Ho ran
the French side an' kep' the trouble stirred up all the time."

"I think I've heard of the Turner war, too," said the boy. "Was that the
same as the Howard-Turner fighting?"

"All of them were mixed up in each other's feuds in that Turner family,"
the Kentuckian replied, "but the 'Turner War' or the 'Hell's Half-Acre'
feud was in Bell County, an' it started over some question o' water
rights in Yellow Creek. It was a sayin' down in Bell County that it
couldn't rain often enough to keep Hell's Half-Acre free from stains o'
blood."

"It is a fearful record, Uncle Eli, when you put them together that
way," the boy said.

"An' I haven't even mentioned the worst o' them, the Hargis-Cockrill
feud in Breathitt County. That lasted for generations, an' started over
some election for a county judge. I don' know that any one rightly
remembers the time when Breathitt County wasn't the scene of some such
goin's on."

"But they are all over now, aren't they?"

"I was jes' goin' to tell yo'. They're all over but one, an' that one is
sometimes called the Baker-Howard or the Garrard-White feud, for all
four families were mixed up in it. Not so very long ago I was talkin' to
the widow o' one o' the men slain in that fightin', an' sayin' to her
how good it was that the feelin' had all died out, an' she said--thar
was a lot of us thar at the time--'I have twelve sons. Each day I tell
them who shot their father. I'm not goin' to die till one o' them shoots
him.' I'm reckonin' to hear o' trouble in Clay County mos' any time, but
I really think that is the last o' them."

"What started that?"

"An argument over a twenty-five dollar note," was the response. "But you
don't want to think these were the real causes; they were usually jes'
firebrands that made things worse. Most o' these hyeh feuds date back to
enmities made in the Civil War an' in moonshinin'."

"But why the war?" asked Hamilton. "I thought nearly all the
mountaineers in Kentucky fought for the North--I know you were with Lee,
of course, but I thought that was exceptional."

"None o' them fought for the No'th!" exclaimed the old Confederate
soldier indignantly.

"Why, Uncle Eli!" said Hamilton, in surprise, "I was sure that most of
them went into the Union army."

"So they did, boy, so they did, but those who did it thought they were
fightin' for the nation, not for the No'th. An' the slavery question
didn' matter much hyeh. Don' yo' let any one tell yo' that the Union
army was made up o' abolitionists, because it wasn't. It was made up o'
bigger men than that. It was made up o' patriots. I thought them wrong
then,--I do yet; but thar ain't no denyin' that they were fightin' for
what they thought was right."

"But why did you join the South, Uncle Eli?" asked the boy. "I can
understand father doing it, because he was a South Carolinian."

"I was workin' fo' peace," the mountaineer rejoined "When No'th and
South was talkin' war, Kentucky, as yo' will remember havin' read,
decided to remain neutral, an' organized the State Guards to preserve
that neutrality. I was willin' to let well enough alone, but when the
No'th come down an' tried to force the State Guards to join their cause,
I went with the rest to Dixie. I don' believe," added the old man
solemnly, "that thar ever was a war like that befo', where every man on
both sides fought for a principle, an' where there was no selfish motive
anywhere."

"The Howkles were with the Federals, weren't they?" prompted Hamilton,
fearing lest the old man should drift into war reminiscences, when he
wanted to hear about feuds.

"Ol' Isaac Howkle was," the mountaineer replied "an' that was how the
little trouble we had begun. At least, it had a good deal to do with it.
Isaac an' I had never got along, an' jes' befo' the war, we had some
words about the Kentucky State Guards. But I wasn't bearin' any grudge,
an' I never supposed Isaac was. However, in a skirmish near Cumberland
Gap, I saw that he was jes' achin' to get me, an' the way he tried was
jes' about the meanes' thing I ever heard o' any one doin' on the
Ridge."

"How was it, do tell me?" pleaded Hamilton, his eyes shining with
interest.

"Howkle was with Wolford's cavalry, an' I was under 'Fightin''
Zollicoffer, as they called him," the old man began. "Thar had been a
little skirmish,--one o' these that never get into the dispatches that
don' do any good, but after which thar's always good men lef' lyin' on
the ground. We had driven 'em back a bit, an' I was comin' in when I saw
a lad--he didn't look more'n about fifteen--lyin' in a heap an'
groanin'. Knowin' a drink would do him more good than an'thin' else, I
reached for my canteen, an' stooped down. Jes' about then, a horseman
dashed out o' the scrub an', almos' befo' I could think o' what was
comin', he struck at me with his sabre."

"When you were giving drink to a wounded soldier!" cried Hamilton
indignantly. "What a cowardly trick!"

"It was ol' Isaac Howkle," nodded his uncle, "an' I s'pose he reckoned
this was a chance to get even on the ol' grudge. But I rolled over on
the grass jes' out o' reach o' his stroke, an' he missed. I grabbed my
rifle an' blazed at him as soon as I could get on my feet, but he had
reached the shelter of the trees again an' I missed him."

"That's about the meanest thing I ever heard," said the boy.

"So I thought," the Kentuckian answered, "an' so the poor lad seemed to
think too. I saw he was tryin' to speak, an' I put my ear close to his
lips, thinkin' he might have some message he wanted to give. But, tryin'
to look in the direction where Howkle had gone, he whispered, 'Don't
blame the Union.' He was thinkin' more o' the credit o' his side than of
his own sufferin's."

"That was grit," said Hamilton approvingly. "Did he die, Uncle Eli?"

"Not a bit of it. We got him back into our lines an' he was exchanged, I
believe. Anyway, I know he was livin' after the war, fo' I saw his name
once on a list o' veterans. But most o' the boys were like that--mostly
young, too--an' men o' the stripe of Isaac Howkle were very few."

"But you got him in the end, didn't you?"

The old mountaineer looked intently at the boy's excited face.

"I didn't," he said, "an' I don' rightly know that it's good for yo' to
be hearin' all these things. Yo' might hold it against Jake Howkle."

"That I wouldn't," protested Hamilton. "Jake isn't to blame for his
father's meanness."

"That's the right way to talk," the old soldier agreed. "Wa'al, if yo'
feel that way about it, I reckon thar's no harm in my tellin' yo' the
rest of it, now that I've got started. When the war was all over an' I
got back hyeh, I remembered what had happened, an' I sent word to Isaac
Howkle that I didn' trust him, an' after what he had done I was
reckonin' that he was waitin' his chance to get me, an' that he'd better
keep his own side o' the mountain."

"But, Uncle Eli," said the boy, "that didn't make a feud surely; that
was only a warning."

"I wasn't reckonin' to start a feud at all," said the old man
thoughtfully, "an' it really never was one. It was jes' a personal
difference between Isaac Howkle an' me. Thar was lots o' times that I
could have picked off either o' his two brothers, but I was jes'
guardin' myself against Isaac."

"But you said he got there first!" said the boy. "Did he shoot some one
in your family?"

"Wa'al, yes, he did," the mountaineer admitted "Yo' never knew the one.
He was my brother-in-law,--Ab's younges' sister's first husband. He had
been married jes' two months, an' was only a hundred yards from this
house when Isaac shot him."

"How did you know for sure that it was Howkle who had done the
shooting?" asked Hamilton.

"We didn't know for sure, at first. A week or two after, a boy from the
Wilshes' place come up with a message sayin' that Isaac Howkle had tol'
him to say that he'd get the ol' man nex' time."

"I shouldn't have thought a boy would have had the nerve to bring such a
message," said Hamilton thoughtfully. "Wouldn't bringing word like that
look like taking sides, and wouldn't it bring his own family into the
trouble!"

The old man shook his head in instant denial.

"Po' white trash from the gullies," he said, "no, they don't count one
way or the other."

"What happened after you got that message?" asked the boy.

"Nothin' much, for a while, though I was snoopin' aroun' the mount'ns
consid'rable. I met the brothers sev'ral times, an' I know they could
have had me. But I had nothin' against them, nor they me, an' so it was
jes' left to Isaac an' me. Once I found him over near our pasture, but
he saw me an' got into cover. At last I found him in the open near our
house again, an' in easy range."

"Did you fire right away?" asked Hamilton excitedly.

"I didn't shoot. I got a lead on him, sure, but I jes' couldn't shoot
without warnin' him. It seemed kind o' mean to shoot him unawares, an'
as I didn't want to take an unfair advantage, I shouted to him. It was
pretty far off to be heard, but I could see that he recognized me. I was
only waitin' long enough to let him get his gun to his shoulder when
some one fired jes' behin' me. Howkle's bullet went through my arm, but
he dropped in his tracks. He thought I had shot him but my gun was never
fired off."

"Who was it that fired, Uncle Eli!"

"The brother o' the young fellow he had shot befo'."

"Was he dead?" asked the boy.

"Wa'al," said the mountaineer, a little grimly, "I didn' go down to see
an' wait aroun' 'till all his friends gathered. But I reckon he was dead
when they found him later."

"And the brothers?"

"They never came into the story at all. I'm jes' mentionin' this to yo'
to show yo' that thar's reason in my advisin' yo' to keep clar o' this
district. If you're reckonin' on doin' census work, yo' go somewhar that
you're not known to any one. Thar's trouble enough even for a stranger
in the mount'ns, an' a stranger would find it easier than any one else."

"Why is that, Uncle Eli?" asked the boy.

"In the first place, yo' can't show discourtesy to a stranger, an' yo'
know that if he doesn' do things jes' the way yo' like to have 'em done,
it's because he doesn' know, an' so he's not to blame. I like your
spirit about the census, Hamilton," the old mountaineer continued, "an'
if yo' can give the gov'nment any service, I reckon yo'd better try, but
leave the mount'n districts either to popular favorites or to a
stranger."




CHAPTER II

RESCUING A LOST RACE


That same evening, as it chanced, one of the younger Wilsh boys came up
to the house on an errand from a neighbor, and Hamilton, remembering
that the messenger's father had been a go-between in the feud story he
had been hearing, noted the lad with interest. Indeed, his appearance
was striking enough in itself, with his drooping form, his extreme
paleness, and his look of exhaustion.

"How far is it from the Burtons, Uncle Eli?" asked Hamilton.

"Eight miles," was the reply.

Hamilton stared at the mountain boy. Judging from his looks he was not
strong enough to walk a hundred yards, yet he had just come eight miles,
and evidently was intending to walk back home that evening. Then
Hamilton remembered that this lad was one of the "poor whites" of whom
he had read so much, and he strolled toward the messenger who was
sitting listlessly on one of the steps.

"Howdy!" said the newcomer in a tired voice.

Hamilton answered his greeting, and, after a few disjointed sentences,
said:

"You look tired. It must be a long walk from the Burtons."

"Jes' tol'able," the boy answered. "I'm not so tired. You f'm the city?"
he queried a few minutes later, evidently noting the difference between
Hamilton's appearance and that of the boys in the neighborhood.

"Yes, New York," answered Hamilton.

But the stranger did not show any further curiosity and Hamilton was
puzzled to account for his general listlessness. He thought perhaps it
might be that the boy was unusually dull and so he asked:

"Are you still going to school?"

A negative shake of the head was the only reply.

"Why not? Isn't there a school near where you live?"

"Close handy, 'bout five miles," was the reply.

"Then why don't you go there?" questioned Hamilton further.

"Teacheh's gone."

"Funny time for holidays," the city boy remarked.

"Not gone fo' holidays."

"Oh, I see," said Hamilton, "you mean he's gone for good. But aren't you
going to have another one?"

"Dunno if he's gone for good," the mountain boy answered.

Hamilton stared in bewilderment.

"Cunjer got him," the other continued.

But this did not explain things any better.

"Cunjer?" repeated Hamilton. "You mean magic?"

The mountain boy nodded.

"Yes, cunjer," he affirmed.

"You're fooling, aren't you?" said Hamilton questioningly, "you can't
mean it. I never heard of 'cunjer' as a real thing. There's lots about
it in books, of course, but those are fairy tales and things of that
sort."

"An' yo' never saw a cunjer?"

"Of course not."

"Reckon they don' know as much in cities as they think they do," the
youngster retorted.

"Just what do you mean by 'cunjer'?" asked Hamilton, knowing that it
would be useless to argue the conditions of a modern city with a boy who
had never seen one.

"Bein' able to put a cunjer on, so's the one yo' cunjer has got to do
anythin' yo' want."

"Sort of hypnotism business," commented the older boy.

"Dunno' what yo' call it in the city. Up hyeh in the mount'ns we call it
cunjer, an' thar's some slick ones hyeh, too."

"But how did the teacher get mixed up in it?" queried Hamilton. "It
doesn't sound like the sort of thing you'd expect to find a schoolmaster
doing."

"He wasn't doin' it, it was again' him," the mountain boy explained.
"The folks hyeh suspicioned as he was tippin' o' the revenoo men."

"Who did? Moonshiners?"

"Easy on that word, Hamilton," suddenly broke in the old Kentuckian, who
had overheard part of the conversation, "thar's plenty up hyeh that don'
like it."

"All right, Uncle Eli, I'll remember," the boy answered; then, turning
to his companion, he continued "You were saying that some of the people
in the mountains thought the schoolmaster was giving information to the
revenue men."

"Some said he was. I don' believe it myself, an' most of us boys didn'
believe it, but then the teacheh was allers mighty good to us."

"Did the revenue officers come up here!"

The mountain lad nodded his head.

"Often," he said, "an' when they come to the stills they seemed to know
ev'rythin' an' ev'rybody. An' then some one tol' that it could be proved
on the teacheh. It never was, but thar was a plenty o' people who
believed the story. I didn't, but then the teacheh was allers good to
me."

"But what did the revenue men have to do with the 'cunjering'?" asked
Hamilton, desiring to keep his informant to the point.

"They didn't, it was the men on the Ridge."

"Do you know how it happened?"

"I know all about it," the lad answered, with a slightly less listless
air, "for I was in school that mornin'. For a week or more we boys had
seen ol' Blacky Baldwin sort o' snoopin' aroun' near the school, but as
we allers crossed our fingers an' said nothin' so long as he was in
hearin', we weren't afraid."

"What did you do that for?"

The younger boy looked at the city-bred lad with an evident pity for his
ignorance.

[Illustration: MOONSHINING. Revenue officers hot on the trail. (_Brown
Bros._)]

[Illustration: MOONSHINING. Revenue officers hot on the trail; the fire
is burning, the still working, and the moonshiner's coat hangs on a
tree. (_Brown Bros._)]

"So's he couldn't cunjer us, O' course," he said. "Don' yo' even know
that? Ol' Blacky Baldwin is a first-class cunjer, an' any one o' them
can cunjer you with the words he hears yo' sayin'."

"But if this 'cunjer-fellow' was hanging around the school," suggested
Hamilton, "why didn't you tell the master?"

"An' get Blacky down on us? You-all can bet we kep' quiet an' didn' even
talk about Blacky to each other. Wa'al, that went on for a week or two.
Then, one mornin', while we was all in school, a big storm come up,
thunder an' lightnin' an' all. Suddenly, jes' after a clap o' thunder
that sounded almos' as if it had hit the schoolhouse Ol' Blacky Baldwin
walked through the door an' up to the teacheh's table. He was carryin a
twisted thing in his hand, like a ram's horn, an' I knew it was his
cunjerin' horn, although I hadn't even seen it befo'."

"What did the master say when he came in?"

"Nary a word. It was awful dark an' the thunder was rumbling aroun'
among the hills. I took one look at Ol' Blacky Baldwin's face, an' then
hid my eyes. I reckon the others did the same."

"Why?"

"His face was all shiny with a queer green light, sendin' up smoke,
like ol' dead wood does sometimes after a rain."

"Phosphorus evidently," muttered Hamilton to himself, but he did not
want to interrupt the lad now that he had started, and therefore did not
discuss the point.

"He walked right up to the teacheh's table," continued the younger boy,
"an' he pointed the horn at him, accordin' to one o' the boys who says
he was peepin' through his fingers. I wasn't lookin', I wasn't takin'
any chances. And then we all heard him say to the teacheh:

"'You air goin' to have a fall an' be killed. You air goin' to have a
fear o' fallin' all your days, an' you air goin' to be drove to places
where you're like to fall. By night you air goin' to dream o' fallin',
an', wakin' an' sleepin', the fear is laid upon you.'"

"And that was all?"

"That was all," the mountain boy replied. "After a bit, I looked up and
Ol' Blacky Baldwin was gone; the teacheh looked peaked an' seemed kind
o' skeered, but he didn't say anythin'."

"Well, it was a little scary," said Hamilton. "I don't wonder it shook
him up."

"That was only the beginnin'," the storyteller went on. "About half an
hour after that, one o' the boys dropped his slate pencil on the floor
an' it broke, so he asked the teacheh for a new one. The slates 'n'
pencils was kep' on a shelf over the teacheh's chair, an' he got on the
chair to reach one down. We was all watchin' him, when suddintly he give
a groan an' his eyes rolled back so's we couldn't see nothin' but the
whites; his face got all pale, an' his lips sort o' blue; he reeled an'
was jes' goin' to fall when he sort o' made a grab at the shelf an' hung
on as though he was fallin' off a cliff.

"Two of the bigger boys, thinkin' he had a stroke or somethin', went up
an' spoke, but he didn't answer, jes' hung on to that shelf. Standin' on
the chair as he was, of course the boys couldn' make him let go, an'
they couldn' make him hear or understan' a mite. So they pulled up a
bench and one of 'em climbed up an' forced his hand open. Jes' like a
flash Teacheh grabbed him so hard that he yelled."

"Just with one hand?" Hamilton queried.

"One hand. Wa'al, they pretty soon made Teacheh let go the other hand,
an' helped him down fr'm the chair an' sat him down in it. As soon as
his feet touched the floor, he let go the feller's shoulder an' sort o'
lay back in his chair. He sat there for a bit an' then he leaned
forward, put his hands on the desk, an' stared right in front of him,
jes' as if we wa'n't there at all.

"'I thought I was fallin',' he said gruffly.

"We waited a while for him to begin agin, but he jes' sit there, lookin'
straight in front of him, an' repeatin' ev'ry minute or two: 'I thought
I was fallin'! I thought I was fallin'!'"

Hamilton shivered a little, for the mountain boy told the story as
though he were living through the scene again.

"I don't wonder you got scared," he said. "Did he come to?"

"Not right then," the boy answered. "We waited a while an' then some of
the fellers got up an' went out sof'ly. I went, too, an' the teacheh
never even seemed to see us go."

"Didn't you think he had gone crazy?"

"We all knew it was cunjerin'," the lad rejoined "an' when we got
outside the door thar was Ol' Blacky Baldwin waitin', lookin' jes' the
same as usual. As I come by, he said, jes' as smooth, 'School's out
early to-day, boys.' But I don't think any of us answered him. I know I
didn't. I jes' took and run as hard as I knew how. An' when I got to the
top o' the hill an' looked back, an' saw Blacky goin' into the
schoolhouse again, I couldn' get home fast enough."

"Was that what broke up the school?"

"Not right away," the other replied. "Thar was some that never come nigh
the place agin, but befo' two weeks most of us was back. Teacheh allers
seemed diff'rent; ev'ry once in a while, one of us would see him walkin'
on the edge of a cliff, or fin' him dizzily hangin' on to somethin' for
fear o' fallin'."

"How long did that go on?" queried Hamilton.

"'Bout a month, I reckon. An' Teacheh was in trouble more'n more all the
time, because folks wouldn' have him boardin' 'roun', same's he'd allers
done."

"Why not?"

"Wa'al, he'd wake up in the night screamin', 'I'm fallin', I'm fallin','
and no one wanted to have a ha'nted teacher in the house. An' Blacky
Baldwin, he jes' hung aroun' the school, and we-all would see him every
day, mutterin' an' laughin' to himself. Then, suddintly, Teacheh
disappeared, an' though we hunted fo' him everywhar, he wasn' found.
We-all reckoned he had fallen somewhars, but I've thought sence that
p'r'aps he jes' went away, goin' back to the city, and leavin' no tracks
so's to make Ol' Blacky Baldwin believe he'd be'n killed."

"That sounds likely enough," Hamilton said. "But even if he did get
away, I don't believe that he'd want to come back."

"I reckon not," the mountain boy agreed. "Anyway, the school's shut up
now."

"How about the revenue men?" asked Hamilton.

"They haven't be'n here sence Teacheh went away," was the reply. "An' I
reckon they're not wanted."

The boy stopped short as the old mountaineer came over to where he was
squatting and gave him a long answer to the message he had brought. The
old man read it to him from a sheet of paper on which he had penciled it
roughly. Bill Wilsh listened in a dreamy way, and Hamilton wondered at
his seeming carelessness. The old man read it twice, then, rising to his
feet, the boy repeated it word for word and without so much as a nod to
Hamilton, slouched off in a long, lazy stride that looked like loafing,
but which, as Hamilton afterwards found out, covered the ground rapidly.

"Do you suppose he'll remember all that, Uncle Eli?" asked Hamilton in
surprise.

"He? Oh, yes," the mountaineer replied, "word for word, syllable for
syllable--that is, fo' to-day."

"He must have a good memory," the boy exclaimed "I'm sure I couldn't."

"But he'll forget every word by to-morrow," the other continued, "almost
forget that he was hyeh to-day at all. That's why they're so hard to
teach, those po' whites, what they learn doesn't stick. I heard him
tellin' yo' about the disappearance o' the last teacheh."

"Yes, he was putting it down to 'cunjering.' Is there much of that sort
of idea in the mountains?"

"None among the mount'neers proper," replied the old man. "Some o' the
po' whites down in the gullies talk about it, but thar's mo' difference
between the folks in the gullies an' on the Ridge th'n there is between
the mount'ns an' the Blue Grass. They are different, an' they look
different, too."

"Bill Wilsh certainly does," agreed Hamilton, "but I thought at first it
was because he was tired out with a long walk after a day's work."

The Kentuckian shook his head.

"They're all that way," he said. "They jes' look all beaten out as if
they hadn't any life left in them at all. I reckon the most o' them have
hookworm, too, an' they just look fit to drop."

"Hookworm, Uncle Eli? What is that?" asked the boy.

"It's a queer kind o' disease," the old man answered, "that comes from
goin' barefoot. There's a kind o' grub in the soil, and it works its way
in. It's only jes' recently that it's be'n found out that the po' whites
are peaked and backward because they're sick, and now they know a cure
fo' it, why hookworm is being driven right out o' the South."

"Was there so much of it?"

"Puttin' an end to it will make useful American citizens out o'
thousands o' poor critters that never knew what ailed them."

"But where did the 'poor whites' come from, Uncle Eli? What made them
that way?"

"Whar they come from I jes' don' rightly know. I reckon I saw more o'
them when I was down in Georgia, but the Florida 'crackers' are still
worse off. Thar's not so many in the mount'ns an' those that are here
live 'way up in the gullies. The sure 'nough po' whites, or 'Crackers'
as they call them, belong to the pine belt, between the mount'ns an' the
swamps o' the coast."

"Why are they called 'Crackers'?"

"I don' know, unless because they live on cracked corn and razor-back
hog. It an't so easy to say how they begun. Thar's a lot o' French
names, an' thar's a tradition that two shiploads o' Huguenots were
wrecked off Georgia in the early days an' foun' their way inland,
settlin' down without anythin' to start with, an' not knowin' for a
generation or two whar any settlements could be foun'. An' thar's a lot
o' folks that have just drifted down, down,--livin' jes' like the
'Crackers' an' often taken to be the same. An' the slavery system made
it worse because thar was no middle white class--either rich or po',
thar was nothin' between,--that is, down in that part o' the country.
But yo' mus' remember that thar has been a great change in the last
twenty years, an' that the children o' 'Cracker' families are doin' jes'
as well as anybody in the South."

"How is that, Uncle Eli?"

"Wa'al, in the days befo' the war, the po' whites were jes' trash. The
planters wouldn' have 'em, because the slaves did all the work; they
wouldn' work themselves, an' they didn' own slaves. So they were worse
off than the negroes an' even the black race looked down on 'em. But the
war waked them up."

"They all fought for the South, didn't they?"

"Mos'ly all. They were food fo' powder, but I always reckoned they
hindered more'n they helped. For the 'Cracker,' however, the war meant
everythin'. It placed him side by side with the Southern gentleman, it
strengthened the color line, an' jes' enough o' them made good to show
the others thar was a chance fo' them, too."

"Then they started in to improve right after the war, did they?"

The Kentuckian shook his head negatively.

"No," he said, "at first they were far worse off than befo' because the
Freedman's Bureau an' the carpet-baggers made trouble right an' lef'.
The No'th had a fine chance, but the carpet-baggers were jes' blind to
everythin' excep' the negro, an' the po' white was jes' as shabbily
treated by the No'th as he had be'n by the South. Now that everybody is
seein' that yo' can't make a negro jes' the same as a white man by
givin' him a vote, thar's a chance fo' the po' white. I reckon the
'Cracker' as a 'Cracker' is goin' to be extinct pretty soon, an' the
South is goin' to be proud o' the stock it once despised. Atlanta is the
fastes' growin' city in the South, an' Atlanta is jes' full o' men whose
folks weren't much more'n 'Crackers.' The po' white, in a few years, is
goin' to be only a memory like the backwoodsman o' the time o' Dan'l
Boone."

"That promises well for the South," said Hamilton.

"The boom o' the South is jes' beginnin'," the old man said, "an' if
you're goin' to do census work this next year, yo' jes' watch the
figures an' see whar the old South comes in. It's a pity you're goin'
back to Wash'n'ton to-morrow, as I think yo' ought to see more o' this
country befo' yo' go."

"I'd like to, ever so much, Uncle Eli," the boy answered, as he got up
from the step and started for the big loft where he slept with the
mountaineer's two sons, "but, even if I don't get a chance, I've learned
a lot from you about the folk on the mountains and about the South
generally."

The mountaineer nodded a good-night as the boy disappeared.

"Now thar," he said to his wife, who had been knitting stockings during
the latter part of the conversation, and occasionally interjecting a
word, "thar is a boy that is really achin' to know things. I wish Rube
and Eph were more like him."

"Nothin' but hounds an' vittles worries them," the woman replied
sharply, "but they an't none like city boys, an' I'd ruther have 'em the
way they air than to come pesterin' with questions like Hamilton does
you. I don't set any sort o' stock in it, an' I don't encourage him in
sech nonsense."

The big Kentuckian smiled, and filled his corn-cob leisurely as he
turned the talk to other things.

Early the next morning, Hamilton and the oldest of the two boys started
on their fourteen-mile ride to the station, where the lad was to take an
afternoon train for Washington. They had gone about three miles, when
they came upon Bill Wilsh sitting on the stump of a tree by the
roadside.

"I reckoned you-all would come along this way," he said, "an' I've be'n
thinkin' more'n more 'bout Teacheh havin' likely gone to the city, an'
not bein' dead after all. Yo' goin' to the city now?"

[Illustration: BILL WILSH'S HOME IN THE GULLY. (_Courtesy of Doubleday,
Page & Co._)]

[Illustration: BILL WILSH IN THE SCHOOL. (_Courtesy of Doubleday, Page
& Co._)]

"I'm going to Washington, Bill," Hamilton answered.

"Is that the city?"

"It's one of them."

"Do yo' s'pose that'd be the city Teacheh went to?"

"I couldn't say, Bill," the lad replied, "there's no way of knowing, but
it's likely enough."

"I was thinkin'--" the mountain boy began then he broke off suddenly.
"I'm mighty partial to whittlin'," he continued irrelevantly.

"The best ever," interjected Hamilton's companion. "Yo' ought to have
shown him some of your work, Bill."

"I was allers hopin' Teacheh would come back," said the boy in his
listless, passionless way, "an' he seemed so fond o' the school that I
whittled a piece to give him when he showed up agin. But now I reckon he
an't a-goin' to come back. Does you-all reckon he'll come back from the
city?"

Hamilton looked down at the lad, and wanted to cheer him up, but he
could not see what would be likely to bring the schoolmaster back, and
so he answered:

"I'm afraid not, Bill. But he might, you know."

"I reckon not. But I'd like him to know he a'nt fo'gotten in the
mount'ns. I want yo' to tell him that thar a'nt be'n a week sence he
went away that I an't be'n down to the school an' swep' the floor an'
seen that his books was in the place he liked to have 'em be. I wouldn'
want him to come back from his wanderin', if he still is wanderin', an'
think he was fo'gotten. It an't much, I know, to sweep a floor," he
added, looking up to Hamilton, "but yo' tell him an' he'll understan'.
It's about all that I kin do. He'll understan' if yo' tell him."

Neither of the other boys spoke, and after a moment the mountain lad
went on:

"An' when yo' see him, give him this, an' tell him it comes from Bill,
his 'tryin' scholar.' He used to call me that because, although I wasn't
learnin' much, I was always tryin'. An' yo' can tell him I'm tryin'
still."

Reaching his hand into the bosom of his ragged shirt the boy pulled out
a slab of wood four inches square. It was carved as a bas-relief,
showing the schoolhouse in the foreground in high relief, with the
wooded hills beyond.

"That's great!" exclaimed Hamilton. "I don't believe I ever saw better
carving than that anywhere."

A momentary gleam of pleasure flashed into the boy's dull eyes, but he
went on again in the same lifeless voice.

"Thar's the schoolhouse jes' as it was when he was here last, but it's
never looked the same to me sence. I want yo' to give this to him an'
show him, if yo' will, that I whittled it with the door open, jes' to
show him we're lookin' for him back."

"But supposing I shouldn't meet him in the city?" queried Hamilton
gently. "Washington is a large place and there are many other cities."

"I reckon you-all have mo' chance o' findin' him thar than I have hyeh.
I reckon he an't goin' to come back hyeh, an' then he'd never know that
we an't fo'gotten him, an' he'd think we was ungrateful. But yo'll try
an' find him?"

Hamilton was conscious of a lump in his throat at the simple
faithfulness of the mountain boy, and he said gently:

"Very well, Bill, if you feel that way about it, of course I'll try.
But you haven't told me his name as yet."

"I was thinkin' o' that," the boy answered. Then he took from his pocket
a home-made gum-wood case, and opening it, took out a small piece of
paper and handed it to Hamilton.

"Be keerful of it," he said, "that paper tears mighty easy."

Hamilton smoothed the paper out on the palm of his hand, and looked at
it carefully. It was a "copy," merely of pothooks, done in lead pencil,
the strokes wavering and of differing slopes, and the whole so smudged
as scarcely to be recognizable But, down in the corner, written in ink,
in a firm, bold hand, were the words, "Very Good, Gregory Sinclair."

Hamilton copied the name into his notebook and, refolding the paper as
carefully as possible in the same folds, he handed it to the barefooted
boy standing on the road beside his horse's head.

"Did you-all read it?" he asked.

"Yes," said Hamilton.

"Did you-all see that he said 'Very Good'?"

"'Very Good' was what was written," agreed Hamilton, thinking of the
wavering and smudged pothooks.

"I c'n do better now," the boy said quietly, "an' I've been tryin' jes'
as hard as though Teacheh was in yonder schoolhouse. But thar's no one
to write 'Very Good' on 'em any mo', an' I reckon thar an't goin' to be.
But I'm trustin' that you'll fin' him an' you'll tell him that he an't
fo'gotten."

Without a word of farewell, the boy struck into the woods and was lost
to sight. The two lads started on their way, but they had not ridden a
hundred yards when they heard a hail; looking back, they saw the
mountain boy standing on a point of the ridge; and echoing down to them
came the lonely cry:

"Fin' him, an' tell him he an't fo'gotten."




CHAPTER III

A MANUFACTORY OF RIFLES


Settling himself comfortably in the train for his long journey to the
capital, one of the first things that Hamilton did was to take from his
pocket the little carving that had been given him by the mountain lad
and put it away carefully in his grip. Examining it closely as he did
so, the boy was astonished to note the fineness of the work, and he
realized that it must have taken Bill Wilsh all the spare moments of a
long winter to finish it. The work was all the more surprising, Hamilton
thought, since it had been done just with a single tool, a common
pocketknife, and was yet as fine and delicate as though carved with a
set of costly tools. He made up his mind to buy a set and send them to
Bill Wilsh with the first pay that he got from his Census Bureau work.

Seated across the aisle from him was another lad about his own age, with
whom Hamilton rather wanted to make acquaintance, but the opportunity
did not arrive until the first meal, when, by chance, they found
themselves on opposite sides of one of the small tables in the dining
car. The usual courtesies of the table led to conversation, in the
course of which Hamilton's companion dropped the word "census" in a
manner which showed his familiarity with the progress of the work of
preparation.

"Are you interested in the census?" asked Hamilton promptly.

"Rather," the other replied. "I'm going to work in the Bureau. As a
matter of fact, I'm just going to Washington to get my appointment now."

"You are!" exclaimed Hamilton. "Why, that's exactly what I'm doing. It's
queer we should meet this way."

"Are you going as an assistant special agent, too?" his new friend
asked.

"I'm going to start in that way," the boy replied

"How do you mean 'start'?" the other queried. "I understand that work on
the manufactures will last three or four months, and by that time all
the other census-taking will be over."

"I'm going to try to get some of the population work as well," Hamilton
explained. "I think it will be even more fun than the manufactures end,
and I heard that they're going to put on a few population enumerators
from those who have been on the manufactures work, admitting them
without an exam. I think the population census gathering will be fine."

The other boy shook his head.

"I don't think I'd want it," he said, "at least not in a city, and I'm
going to do the manufacturing work, of course, in a city."

"Where are you going to be?" asked Hamilton.

"I took the exam in 'Frisco," the older boy replied; "that's my home
town, and I expect to work out there."

"That's quite a walk from here!" exclaimed Hamilton.

"I had to come to Washington," the boy answered "and so my people wanted
me to go and see my sister down in Florida. She married a fellow who's
busy reclaiming some swamp land down there, and he promised me a try at
alligator hunting."

"That sounds prime," suggested Hamilton, "and I should think that in
that reclamation work there would be lots of chance for it. It would
be worth watching, too, just to see how they got at that work. I should
think they would find themselves up against a pretty stiff job,
engineering down in those swamps. And then there must be barrels of
snakes, too?"

[Illustration: ALLIGATOR-CATCHING. The sport at its best; tackling a
fair sized reptile with bare hands. (_Courtesy of Outing Magazine._)]

"Water moccasins and copper-heads mostly," said his friend cheerfully,
"but you soon get so used to them that you don't mind them. It's very
seldom that you ever hear of any one being bitten by a snake. They all
seem more anxious to get out of your way than you out of theirs."

"And you're anxious enough, too!" remarked Hamilton.

"That's pretty good security, don't you think?" queried the older boy
with a laugh. "When both sides want to get away, there's not much chance
of a meeting."

"But how about the alligators?"

"That was real good sport," the other rejoined. "But I kept down to the
smaller chaps most of the time. I don't suppose there's really very much
danger, even in the big fellows, as long as you know just how to handle
them."

"I don't think I'm particularly keen about handling them," answered
Hamilton. "I shouldn't think the big ones would want more than about one
bite to put you out of business."

"That's all right," the older boy admitted, "but what's the use of
giving one that chance? Anyway, so I learned down there, it's not so
much the bite that the hunters are afraid of as the stroke of the tail.
It doesn't take such a big alligator to break your leg like a pipestem
with a sweep of that long, scaly tail of his."

"But how do they catch them?"

"With a noose, when they're sunning themselves. An alligator lies on a
bank, half in and half out of the water, most of the time, with his eyes
shut. Sometimes he really is asleep, and sometimes he isn't. That's
where the fun comes in. Of course, if you can get the boat right up to
where he is, close enough to slip the noose over his jaws, you've got
him all right. There's a knob on the snout that keeps the noose from
slipping off, and he sort of strangles when you tow him through the
water. But if you can't get there with the boat you have to go it on
foot."

"You mean you have to get out of the boat and walk right up to his
jaws?"

"Yes, just that."

"It doesn't sound particularly good to me," Hamilton remarked.

"It isn't nearly as bad as it sounds," the other replied. "As long as
you don't make too much noise, and keep out of reach of his tail, you're
all right. If you slip up, you want to jump out of the way about as
lively as you know how. But he'll never come after you, or mighty
seldom. If you get a slip-knot over his snout, and can throw a
half-hitch over his tail, why, the biggest of them is easy enough to
handle."

"But what are they caught for?"

"There's quite a steady sale. The big fellows are sometimes sold alive
to parks and aquariums and circuses, but most of them are killed and the
whole skins dressed and used for hanging on the walls of dens, like
trophies. The real market is for the skins of the little fellows, which
are made up into all sorts of alligator leather bags. Most of that stuff
is imitation, but still quite a lot of it is real. It's plenty of fun
catching the little 'gators, because even the smallest of them can give
you quite a nip and a reptile three feet long is a handful. I did well
enough out of it, because in addition to the sport I had, my
brother-in-law let me have the skins of all those I caught myself. Some
people, too, want to have baby ones as pets, but I don't think I'd want
to have them around, myself, after they grew to any size," he added, as
the boys rose and went back to the Pullman.

By the time the train had reached Washington the two had become
thoroughly friendly, and Hamilton liked his new acquaintance so much
that he would gladly have seen more of him than merely as a traveling
companion. But as the other lad was going out to San Francisco, there
was no likelihood of their being thrown together at all. Indeed, on his
arrival, Hamilton found that he had been assigned to an Eastern city, so
he had to bid his new-made friend "Good-by."

The exterior of the Census Bureau building was a disappointment to
Hamilton, by reason of its unimposing appearance. Indeed, it was
altogether too small for the purposes of the census, and during the rush
of the decennial work, there were departments of the census scattered
through various other buildings, adding no little inconvenience to the
work. Accustomed to the New York structures, towering tens of stories
into the air, the two-story red brick building of the census looked
small to Hamilton, though comfortable and pleasant to work in. It was
deceiving in its size, however, for the floor space was big and not
much broken, and there seemed to be plenty of room. But it was not until
the boy returned after his population work some months later, that he
saw this building as the center of unparalleled activity.

[Illustration: THE CENSUS BUILDING. Where Hamilton learned the immense
importance of this great function of the government. (_Walden
Fawcett._)]

"I understand," said the chief of the manufacturing division to him,
"that you are desirous of coming to the Census Bureau as one of the
permanent force, not just for the decennial period only?"

"Yes, Mr. Clan," was the boy's reply, "that is, if the Bureau is
willing."

"That will depend entirely on the work you do. I didn't see your papers
personally, but I understand you received a high rating, and that you
have had a good deal to do with figures.--That is, for a youngster," he
added, noting the youthfulness of the lad standing before him.

"Yes, sir, I have," answered Hamilton.

"What made you think of taking this work up?" was the next question.

"Because I like it, sir."

The divisional chief leaned back in his chair, put his fingers together
in characteristic attitude, and smiled.

"Eh," he said, "you are sure you will like the work?"

"Quite, sir," said Hamilton in his decided way. "I looked it all over,
and I know."

"You will be less sure of the future when you are older," the Scotchman
said, "but if you 'know,' there's nothing more to be said. I'm going to
put you under the care of Mr. Burns, and he will instruct you further in
the work."

"But, Mr. Clan--" began the boy.

"Well?"

"Where am I going, sir?"

"New Haven, Connecticut--a good town, and one that will give you plenty
of work. You'd better start for there to-night. I hope you will like it
as much as you expect."

"Thank you, sir," Hamilton replied, seeing that his superior deemed the
interview at an end. "I'll do the very best I can."

On arriving in New Haven the following day, Hamilton made his way to the
local Census Office opened by his new leader. He found Mr. Burns to be a
typical statistician, to whom figures had a meaning beyond themselves,
but to whom little was of value unless it could be expressed in figures.
Hamilton introduced himself briefly.

"You're Noble," the other said abruptly. "When will you be ready to
begin?"

"Any time," answered Hamilton. "Right after lunch, sir, if you want me
to make a start."

"There's a portfolio," the census agent answered, "take it along and you
can begin just as soon as you're ready."

"What instructions have you to give me, sir?" asked Hamilton.

"I save eleven and a half per cent of the time given to instructions by
writing them. You'll find a copy in there," he said, pointing to the
portfolio.

"Very well, sir," the boy replied, "I'll go ahead, and if I find
anything I don't understand, shall I come and ask you?"

"Telephone!" the census agent said. "Quicker to 'phone even if only in
the next room. Average conversation, six minutes; average telephone
conversation, two minutes; average value of my time for six minutes,
eighteen cents; average cost of 'phone for two minutes, one cent; direct
saving to me seventeen cents, not counting time of your traveling to
come and talk. No! Telephone!"

"All right, sir," Hamilton answered, "I'll 'phone," and realizing that
his new chief had the question of the valuation of time down to a fine
point, he hurried away.

On reaching the hotel he examined his portfolio with a great deal of
curiosity. The schedules were familiar, for one of the features of the
examination he had taken had been the filling out of such a census
schedule from financial statements of a group of factories. The written
instructions, however, were thoroughly characteristic of the man, and
percentage figures were scattered around like punctuation marks. But the
explanations were clear as crystal, none the less, and gave no
opportunity even for telephoning.

An old New England center, and a college town, New Haven proved a most
interesting field in which to work. By far the larger number of people
with whom the boy came in contact were of old American stock and gave
him every assistance possible.

"The census-taker?" one old man said, when Hamilton called. "Come right
in the office and sit down. Now tell me what I can do for you," and when
the boy mentioned the principal items of the schedule, the manufacturer
spent a good hour working over the books with his office force to get
out the figures desired. When Hamilton thanked him, he replied:

"I'm an American, Mr. Noble, and one of the stones they moved from the
old churchyard of the Old Center Church and that bore the date 1681 was
the tombstone of my direct ancestor. I think you'll find most of the New
England stock proud of the United States and only too glad to do
anything they can to help the government in its census or anything else
for the good of the country."

"I'm sure of it," the boy said heartily, "but there's mighty few of that
old type left. There's not ten per cent of the people in the country now
that are real bred-in-the-bone Americans."

"It is a pity," the old man said, shaking his head, "and the worst of it
is that even that ten per cent lives principally in the country. It's
the cities that influence the progress of the nation. We talk about
making these foreigners over into our idea of what Americans should be,
and we forget that all the time they are influencing us to become the
kind of Americans they think we ought to be."

"I guess that's true," the boy said, "because in New York, where my
folks live, the old New Yorkers seem entirely strange and out-of-place
in the dash and glitter."

"Of course," the New Englander replied. "The real Americans are plain,
solid people; it's the Jewish strain in New York that has brought about
the display of wealth, and to the large number of Southern Europeans are
due the colors, the lights, the music, the public dining, and all the
rest of it. It may be the American of to-day, but it isn't what
Americanism meant a few years ago."

"A good deal of New York life does seem foreign in a kind of way," said
Hamilton, "and I'm glad," he added, as he closed his portfolio, "that
the Census Bureau put me at work in one of the old-fashioned towns
first."

As the boy went on in his work he came to find how thoroughly the spirit
of Yale was felt in the town. Almost all the leading business men were
Yale graduates, and instead of displaying the "town and gown" hostility
of some university places, New Haven was inordinately proud of its
college. Of course, even in such a town, there was quite a proportion of
foreign-born manufacturers but the boy found that the Jewish
establishments were even easier to tabulate than those owned by
Americans, the Hebrew understanding of the details of business being so
thorough.

"That's not so very detailed!" one of these remarked to Hamilton when
the boy had come to the end of his list of questions.

"It's a relief to hear somebody say that," answered the young
census-taker with a laugh, "because I hear a dozen times a day the
complaint that no one could be expected to know as much about a business
as these schedules require."

It was not to be expected that the work would proceed without an
occasional hitch, and Hamilton had one such with a firm of Italian
marble-cutters in which the bookkeeping had been of so curious a
character that it was next to impossible to get out the kind of figures
the government wanted. Another was in a small Chinese place, where they
made little trinkets to sell to tourists in the "Chinatown" districts of
the larger cities, representing them to be imported articles of value.
Another was with a small place run by two brothers, Persians, making
fringes and tassels for fraternal order badges and matters of that kind.
It was interesting to the lad, for he had the chance to see the works in
a number of cases, and he learned a lot about the way many queer things
were made.

But Hamilton's hopes were set on visiting one especial manufacturing
plant in New Haven, and he had determined to ask that he be allowed to
go over it before he left the town. This was the great sporting gun
works. Hamilton was passionately fond of sport, and had owned a
Winchester ever since he was twelve years old. Indeed, he had read up on
guns a good deal, and it was one of his hobbies.

His delight was great, therefore, when at the end of a long day, after
he had turned in his schedule to his chief, the latter said:

"Noble, your work is good. Johnson is faster. Up to last night he had
turned in one, decimal five-two per cent more establishments than you,
but your proportion of capital invested is larger, showing that the
works you went to took more time. Your schedules are better. This takes
a little over one-fifth more of my own time than I had figured at first.
I was going to do the Winchester works myself. I think you can do it.
You had better go ahead. It's complicated, but they'll help you all they
can. There's not much time left."

"Very well, Mr. Burns," said Hamilton decisively with the
characteristic raising and lowering of his eyebrows, "I'll get all there
is, all right."

The next morning, about ten o'clock, Hamilton presented himself at the
general offices of the company on the outskirts of the town, about a
mile from the college. He asked to see the business manager, and was
granted an interview.

"Mr. Arverne," said the boy, "I called with regard to securing the
figures for the census of nineteen hundred and ten."

"But you are not the special agent surely?" said the manager, looking at
him sharply.

"No, sir," the boy answered, "Mr. Burns is the special agent, and I am
one of his assistants."

"I should have thought Mr. Burns would have come himself," the man said;
"you are young for this work, aren't you?"

Hamilton flushed at this reference to his boyish appearance, but he
answered steadily: "Yes, sir, I believe I am younger than most of the
assistant special agents, but I have had a good deal to do with
figures."

"Burns is a good man," the manager continued. "If the government has
men of that stamp all over the country, the statistics will be
invaluable. You know Mr. Burns?" he added suddenly.

"Only just since this work began, Mr. Arverne," the boy replied.

"Queer chap. I don't believe he eats a bit of food or drinks a glass of
water without mentally figuring the nutritious percentage in the food,
and the effect of his drink upon the water supply of the world."

Hamilton laughed.

"He is a little that way, sir," he said.

"A little!" the manager exclaimed. "But to return to the point. You
didn't tell me why Mr. Burns didn't come himself."

"He said that the office work was piling up, sir," answered the boy,
"and--if you don't mind my saying so, Mr. Arverne--he spoke of it as an
opportunity for me, since it was the largest plant in the city and my
schedules had been the most complete of those turned in to him."

The manager eyed the boy keenly.

"Mr. Burns doesn't make many mistakes," he said, after a moment, "and if
he has confidence in you, he knows what he is talking about. This is a
country of young men anyway, and it seems to be getting younger all the
time. Where is the schedule?"

Hamilton handed him the paper and sat back, waiting. Several minutes
passed, while the manager went over the questions item by item.

"Yes," he said at last, "I think our books can answer every question
there without difficulty. We keep very complete books. I am not so sure,
Mr. Noble," he continued, "that I can give you those figures immediately
in just exactly that form."

"In what points do your books differ?" asked Hamilton quietly.

"Not in any essentials, but in a few minor points," the manager replied.
"For example, you want to know here the exact number of employees on our
pay roll on December 15th. Now I could have the pay roll department--we
keep it as an entirely separate department here--turn up instantly the
payments for the week in which that date occurs, but in order to
separate that one day from the week, reference will have to be made to
the Employment Bureau to find out what workers left, and how many were
added, and the day of the week on which each of these left or began
work in that week, and to add or to deduct such sums from the weekly
pay roll."

"That difficulty has come up several times," said Hamilton, "because not
many people pay their employees by the day. But in nine cases out of
ten, an average for that week is usually struck, figuring in some cases
by the days and in others by the hours. I suppose you noticed that the
schedule itself states that what is sought is 'a normal day'?"

"I saw that," was the reply, "but it seems to me that when possible it
is better to have all the details carried out to the full. However, even
that is not the most serious difficulty of these questions."

"No," said Hamilton, "that one hasn't given much trouble. The hitch
usually comes just at the point you're looking at now--the cost of
materials."

"That's just exactly it. Our non-productive departments consume a great
deal of material, mill-supplies and fuels, but if we include those with
all the rest of it, our figures will not show a right proportion."

"What do you mean by your non-productive departments?" asked the boy.
"That seems rather a curious phrase."

"Those in which the work done is not directly a part of the making of
guns or ammunition. For example, we have a large force of draughtsmen
working on new models of rifles and mechanisms and on machinery to
enable us to make the new types. We make all the machinery that we use,
right here in the plant. We make our own tools, too, so that there is a
great deal of designing."

"Those are not non-productive," commented Hamilton.

"We call them so," was the reply.

"I don't think the Census Bureau considers them as such," said Hamilton,
feeling rather proud of this opportunity to explain some of the workings
of the Bureau; "it seems to me more satisfactory to consider that these
works not only manufacture guns, rifles, and ammunition, but also
machinery and tools."

"But those are for our own use!" objected the manager.

"Yes, of course, I see that," said the boy. "But even if you do use them
yourselves, you make them yourselves. If you leave them out in the
schedule it would make the figures all wrong."

"How would it?"

"Well, the schedule wouldn't show anything paid out for machinery, and
you've got to have machinery, and you'd seem to be paying wages, without
getting anything for it. It seems to me that even if you do use the
machinery yourselves you really sell it to yourselves, only at cost
price or at whatever figure you name."

"I suppose in a sense we do," said the business manager, "but that seems
a very roundabout way of getting at it."

"I don't think it is," Hamilton replied. "If you bought the machinery
you would have to pay the manufacturer his profit. Instead of that you
make the profit yourselves. The value, of course, should also be carried
to the capital account."

"Well," the older man said, "I'm willing to put it down either way, and
in that light these departments might be called productive, although not
directly productive. You seem to have figured this sort of business out
pretty well for a youngster," he added.

"I suppose that's natural," Hamilton answered, "because I've been doing
nothing else for the past two weeks."

"Then how about advertising," the manager suggested; "perhaps you can
tell me where that is usually listed? As part of the sales force?"

"No, sir," was the prompt reply; "it is reported as a miscellaneous
expense."

"Very well," the official said, "if you come back at four o'clock this
afternoon I will have the schedule ready for you." Then, seeing that the
boy hesitated, he said, "Did you want it before then?"

"Oh, no, Mr. Arverne, thank you," the boy answered "that wasn't what I
had in mind at all. I was wondering whether, if I came back at three
o'clock, I would be allowed to see something of the works. In quite a
number of places I have been shown through the plant, sometimes because
I had to get figures from managers of different departments, sometimes
because I had a few minutes to spare while a clerk was filling up the
schedule. But I've always been so interested in guns, and especially in
Winchesters, that I really should like to find out how they're made."

The business manager shook his head dubiously.

"We very rarely show any one over the plant," he said, "because there
is very little to be gained by it. And in any case, there are some
portions of the works where visitors are never allowed, such as
ammunition rooms where there are quantities of powder about, and similar
places."

"I'd like to be able to say that there was a desire on the part of the
Census Bureau for a report," said Hamilton, "but honestly I haven't the
right to say so. I'm only asking as a favor. At the same time I have
seen special reports on selected industries issued by the Bureau, and
possibly my information might chance to be of value to the special agent
who was getting it up."

"Come back at two o'clock, then," said the manager. "One of the members
of the Board, Mr. Nebett, is here to-day, and if he has no objection
I'll try to find some one to show you round."

Promptly at the appointed hour, Hamilton handed his card to the doorman,
who showed him into a waiting-room. In a few minutes the door opened,
and a keen-looking, well-set-up man appeared who came forward and held
out his hand.

"I've been hearing about you from Mr. Arverne," he said, "and he tells
me that you want to look over the works."

"Mr. Nebett?" queried the boy, and in response to an affirmative nod,
he continued, "Yes, sir, I'm very anxious to see part of it at any rate.
I can see that it's a huge place, but gun-making must be so interesting
that I'd like to see how it's done."

"I think Mr. Arverne said something to me about your writing up a
special report, a summary or something of that kind."

"That was just a suggestion, Mr. Nebett," the boy replied. "I told Mr.
Arverne that the Census Bureau did issue special bulletins on selected
industries, and that perhaps I might have an opportunity to make use of
some information. But that's a personal idea of mine only, because most
of those bulletins are written by experts in the Bureau."

"Well," was the reply, "I don't see that it can do us any harm, anyway,
and if you are so interested you can come along with me. I like to go
through the works every once in so often, and perhaps I can tell you
more about these things than any other man in the place, because I get a
chance to see it as a whole."

"If you would," began the boy.

"Come along, then," said the official, without further parley, and he
led the way out of the general offices and across the street to the
first of a huge group of buildings. Walking through the yard the two
came presently to a long structure running alongside the railroad
sidings. "This," Hamilton was informed, "is just the storeroom for raw
material as it comes off the cars."

He turned half round as though to leave the building, but Hamilton
stopped him with a question.

"Steel, principally?" he asked.

"Steel."

"What kind of steel?" persisted Hamilton.

"Oh, different kinds."

"Why different kinds?" continued the boy, working his eyebrows, as was
his habit when in earnest. "For different kinds of guns?"

"Yes," answered the older man, evidently deciding that he would have to
go into the matter thoroughly with Hamilton, and passing on into the
storehouse. "We get mostly three kinds of steel, nickel steel, carbon
steel, and soft steel, with a small proportion of other forms. We do
that for the very reason you mentioned, that they are used for different
kinds of work. Nickel steel we do not use for the cheaper grades of
guns, because it is so much harder, and costs so much more to work.
Indeed, very few gun-makers use nickel steel for barrels at all, but we
do on all our high-grade work."

"I notice," Hamilton said, "that all the steel here is stored in bars
and rods. Do you buy it that way, or have you a rolling mill in
connection with the plant?"

"Buy it," the other said immediately. "You can't run a rolling mill at a
profit except on a large scale, and, anyway, this is too far from the
source of supply. We get our copper in ingots, but not our steel."

"I notice," the boy continued, fingering a long ticket attached to a
bundle of steel rods by a wire, "that you say here, 'Do not disturb
until report from laboratory is received.'"

"Certainly," said the other, "every order as it comes in is tested. We
have two laboratories, a physical and a chemical, and not a scrap of
material is used until it is found to be fully up to the specifications.
There's no guesswork there, but the most rigid scientific tests. That
keeps any poor material from slipping through.

"Now," he continued, "I'll show you what happens to those bars."

He led the way to a small building where the bars were cut into certain
recognized lengths for the men at the drop forges to handle.

"This forging shop," the manufacturer said, entering it as he spoke, "is
where most of the metal parts of the gun are first roughly shaped, and
this man is working on part of a cartridge ejector. Watch him now," he
went on, following the action of the workman; "he takes a piece of steel
out of the furnace behind him, lays it on the die, touches a lever, and
the big drop-hammer comes down,--once, twice. He turns it over, brings
the drop-hammer down again, once, twice, and the piece is shaped. It has
rough edges all round, of course, and so he takes it, while it is still
glowing red, to a more exact die, and brings the drop-hammer down once,
and turns it over, then brings down the hammer again once. Now the shape
is almost perfect but for that fringe of metal all round. He picks it
up, puts it on that die on this next machine close by his hand, touches
a lever, and a knife, exactly the shape of the die comes down, crunch!
shaving off the iron clean all round, and there is your forging done,
and all with the one heating. Of course it isn't finished off, but you
can see for yourself that the rough work is done, and all in the space
of a few moments."

Hamilton found it hard to tear himself away, for while the principle was
the same, all the different forges were turning out different parts, and
it was a fascination to the boy to see those glowing lumps of steel come
out of the furnace and with the few strokes of the drop-hammer, fall a
few seconds later, the shaped part of a rifle. Some of the machines were
making receivers for the stock, the largest piece of metal, and other
small parts like the trigger or the hammer, while still others were
preparing the barrels of the gun for drilling.

"It is not likely to occur to you," said his guide, "that it would not
do to let all those various parts cool off by chance. For example, in
winter they would cool more rapidly than in summer, and those near the
door more quickly than those in the inner part of the forging house.
That would make them of varying hardness. So, in order to make sure that
they shall be the same, all those pieces you have seen being made are
annealed."

"How is the annealing done?" asked Hamilton.

"That is simple enough," was the reply. "All that has to be done is to
heat them again all to the same degree of heat, then let the oven cool
at a certain rate. Here are the annealing ovens."

"This is certainly a hot place," said the boy, as he stepped into the
next building. "Whew! I wonder any one stays in here."

"No one does," his conductor answered. "We have this arranged so that
all the furnaces are filled in the morning, when they are cold, and
there are pyrometers to tell when the right heat is reached. All the
ovens, you see, are managed by these switches near the door. Look
here--"

He slipped one of the switches into place, and the pyrometer needle
swung around and pointed to the degree of heat in the oven which it was
supposed to register.

"What are those little clocks for?"

"One for each oven," Mr. Nebett answered; "the keeper of the furnaces
sets them when an oven is up to the required heat. Then, you see, it is
easy to tell when they have been cooling long enough."

"I should think," said Hamilton, "that making the barrel was the most
important part of a gun, because, after all, that is the only part a
bullet touches, and it must have to be exact. I've often thought of
that, how the tiniest difference at the mouth of the barrel would at a
thousand yards range cause it to be away off the mark."

"It does have to be exact," his guide answered, "but that is a matter of
care rather than of difficulty. In this next building we bore the
rifle-barrels, just a simple boring process, as you see, but there are
all sorts of precautions taken to insure absolute steadiness. As soon as
a barrel is taken from the boring machine it is put through a test, to
determine whether it is correct in size to the one-half of
one-thousandth of an inch in diameter. If it is not as exact as that, it
is set aside. That is only the first of a long series of tests, too. You
would be surprised at the number of barrels that are rejected from the
time of the first selection until the gun is completed. Here, for
example, is perhaps the most sensational one."

He led the boy to a small building, standing by itself in the middle of
the yard, heavily built, and looking almost like a log cabin of the old
type, made of great timbers. It was just a bit of a place, divided into
two parts by a heavy timber wall.

"What in the wide world is this for?" asked the boy.

"I'll show you in a minute, I think we're just in time," the official
said, as he led the way in. Hamilton followed him into the inner
chamber. A long row of gun barrels was the first thing the boy noticed,
the barrels all lying in slots. A gray-haired man was filling a heavy
charge of powder behind each one. The guns were pointing into a bank of
sand.

"If you notice," said his guide, "you'll see that a little device, like
the old percussion cap is right by each of those charges of powder. Are
you all ready, Jim?" he queried, as the old man straightened up.

"Yes, Mr. Nebett," was the reply.

"All right," the other said, "we'll go into the room." He pointed out to
Hamilton, as they passed from one part of this little building to the
other, that each of these percussion caps was attached to a wire which
ran through the wall to the little room into which they were going.

"Look out, Mr. Nebett," said the old man, after he had closed and
fastened the heavy door, "and you, young sir, don't be frightened," and
he pulled the wire hanging overhead.

There was a terrific explosion and a roar, and though Hamilton had been
half expecting it, he jumped. Then he laughed.

"I guess I did jump, after all," he said. "What was that for?"

"To test the strength of the barrels," said his friend, as the old
workman slid back the heavy door. "There, you see," he added, "one of
them did burst." He pointed to one of the gun barrels rent at the side.
"Once in a while," he continued, "they just go up in pieces, and if you
look at the walls and the ceiling you'll see any number of bits of metal
driven in deeply."

"But he seemed to be putting in an awfully heavy charge," said the boy.

"We do that in order to be sure that we shall not expend a great deal of
labor on a barrel which in the end would fail to pass inspection, and
also to safeguard against accident," the other explained. "We do use a
very heavy charge because our guns sell all over the world, and in some
countries--England, for instance--the test is extremely severe. It's a
costly process, as it spoils a lot of barrels, but it is better to lose
material than to put out a piece of work which might not be
trustworthy."

Hamilton looked around the proof-room carefully. Certainly it seemed to
have gone through the wars. From the thick wood huge gashes had been
rent, and the entire interior was jagged and splintered.

"How much of a charge do you put to each barrel?" he asked; and when the
formula was given him for each of the different styles of rifle, the boy
whistled in amazement.

"I should think that any barrels that stood that test could stand
anything afterwards," he said admiringly.

"Well, they do," the other said. "It's very seldom that you hear of a
first-class gun exploding. I don't recall a case of one of ours for
years and years. And even if by some chance flaw they did, the good
ones, being nickel steel, would just make a hole in the barrel,--not fly
to pieces. But, as a matter of fact, any barrel that has been through
that 'proof-room' will have been subjected to the greatest strain it
will ever have to undergo, for there is no cartridge made that would
have one-half the power in proportion to the size of the barrel."

From the proof-room Hamilton's guide led him through different parts of
the works, where various machines were employed in preparing and
finishing the rough forgings he had seen made and annealed. Thus, for
example, in a receiver for a gun stock, one machine worked a bevel edge
on it, another bored it to the size of the gun barrel, accurate to the
thousandth part of an inch, another pierced the tiny screw holes, and
yet other machines made even the minute screw, done, as was explained to
Hamilton, so that the threads in each should fit with absolute
exactness.

"But do you really mean to say," queried Hamilton in surprise, "that
every one of these fifty or more parts of each gun is inspected and
tested?"

The official led him to a number of long rows of tables.

"Here," he said, "are girls doing nothing else all day long. Here is a
testing die for a part of the ejector of one of our 1911 models. You see
that there are two spaces for all of them. It must fit into this one, it
must not fit into that, which is a thousandth of an inch smaller. If too
big, you see it won't fit into either, if too small, it would fit into
the one where it ought not. Every tiny piece is gauged on all its sides
and in every hole and at all points with this double gauge system."

"That doesn't leave much for guesswork," said Hamilton. "But there is
something that's been puzzling me."

"What is that?" asked his guide.

"I've always heard a lot about gun-metal," Hamilton answered, "and yet
all the way through, these parts have been nothing but steel. And all
the guns I ever saw had that bluish look, as gun-metal has. For example,
my watch is what they call gun-metal," and he took it from his pocket
and showed the back of it.

"Gun-metal," said the other, "is an alloy of copper and tin and once was
used almost exclusively for cannon and big guns generally. But you're
right about all guns having a bluish tinge. That is all steel, but it is
treated by a process called coloring or bluing. I'll show you--both the
old way and the new."

Going down the stairs and crossing the yard, he took Hamilton into a
small building where there were a couple of open charcoal furnaces, in
which the charcoal was intensely hot, but not hot enough to catch fire.
The pieces of finished steel were buried in this charcoal, and every
few minutes the men in charge would draw them out, wipe them over with a
bunch of oiled waste, and thrust them back into the fire. It was about
the dirtiest, blackest, grimiest work the boy had ever seen.

"That is the old way," Hamilton was told, "and although it is handwork
instead of machine work it is not a bit better in its results than the
new way. The modern system, besides, is much simpler and cleaner."

In the next building was a row of charcoal ovens, revolving in such a
way that the parts to be blued were alternately covered and released
from the superheated charcoal, the effect of the greasing also being
done at every automatic revolution Each furnace door bore an asbestos
clock.

"What are those clocks for?" asked Hamilton. "The same as those others,
I suppose, so that the man in charge can put in a number of certain
parts of a gun and leave them in for a regular length of time at a
certain heat, and pull them out all done?"

"Just that," was the reply. "The only gain in the old style is that each
part being handled separately, if there is ever so little difference in
the metal, the bluer can give it a shorter or a longer time, whereas
the machine treats all alike."

"Then when the gun is assembled, all the work is done?" queried
Hamilton, who was becoming a little tired from his long tramp through
the works and among the furnace-heated shops.

"No," said the other. "That wouldn't do at all. A gun has not only got
to shoot, but it has got to shoot straight."

"But how in the world," said Hamilton, "can you tell whether a gun will
shoot straight or not?"

"One of the most important ways," said his informant, "is to let an
expert look through the barrel. One of our best men, for example, has
done nothing else all his life; his father before him was a
barrel-sighter and his son has just entered the works. He does it this
way--here, you try," and he handed a barrel to Hamilton. "Rest the
barrel in this crotch," he continued, "and look at the window. You see
there is a piece of ground glass with a thin black line running across
it. Point the barrel so that it is aimed just below that line, and if
you get it right, you will see a reflection of that line running
lengthways up the barrel."

[Illustration: MAKING GUN-SIGHTS TRUE. Marksmen firing new-made rifles
and adjusting the sights until every weapon carries perfectly.
(_Courtesy of Winchester Repeating Arms Co._)]

Hamilton put the barrel up and looked and looked, but for a minute or
two he could not get the direction, then he caught the line. But the
reflection in the barrel was confusing, and it seemed to him that he saw
several lines.

"It's awfully hard just to get that straight," the boy said, "and it's
dazzling, too."

"That man you saw there," answered his guide, as they moved away, "can
tell almost to the width of a thread of a spider's web if a barrel is
straight. Here, too, is another barrel test going on. You see this man
is pushing a soft lead slug which fits the barrel snugly through the
barrel by means of a brass rod. It takes a certain amount of pressure to
push the lead slug through the barrel. Such slight variations in
diameter of the bore as one-tenth of a thousandth can be readily
detected, for if the barrel is smaller at any point than where it
entered, the slug will stick, and if it is the least bit larger at any
point, the slug will slide through too easily. Men accustomed to this
class of work can readily detect an increase or decrease in diameter of
one ten-thousandth part of an inch."

"You certainly have it down fine, Mr. Nebett," Hamilton commented.

"We try to," responded his guide. "Then when the barrel experts have
had their turn, the gun is assembled and goes to the action men."

"Who are they?" asked the boy.

"They test the trigger pull, the cartridge ejection, the fall of the
hammer, the filling of the magazine, and all such points. They have two
sets of dummies, such as were used for testing the parts. One must fit,
the other not, and so any fault in the mechanism is detected. The same
with ejection,--we must be sure that a cartridge will not stick. Then
after that--"

"Still more tests!"

"Didn't I tell you that we had to be sure that a gun could be made not
only to shoot but to shoot straight? Our crack shots get the guns next."

"What do they do?" asked the boy, "fire at targets?"

"Yes. But first a man, incased in an armored barricade, shoots a few
extra heavy cartridges in each rifle, in order to make sure that no
weakness has been caused by the various processes through which all the
parts have passed. Then he turns it over to the crack shots. They fire
half a dozen shots at a target, then look at the target through a
telescope. Those men know that they can hit the bull's eye every time,
so that if the shots are wide of the mark, either there is a defect in
the gun or the sights are not true. In nine cases out of ten it is the
fault of the sights, and they file them true."

"Then really every gun has been fired before being sold?"

"We turn out about sixteen hundred guns a day, and each one has been
fired several times."

"Shotguns, too?"

"The same standard of accuracy is needed in those. It is just as
important that a shotgun should throw a certain percentage of its shot
within a certain radius as it is that a rifle bullet should go straight.
Down in this little room," he continued, "a man stands all day shooting
down this gallery, forty yards range, and each target is brought back
and measured. In a circle with a fifteen-inch radius a boy counts the
numbers of holes made in the paper by the tiny shot. There should be
300. If there are 290 the gun is passed, but if less it is rejected.
Sometimes you get very queer shot patterns without knowing why."

"Do all shotguns throw as evenly as that?"

"All good ones should. It is astonishing to see how regularly the
'scatter' of a barrel will work out. Every barrel, of course, is stamped
with the number of shots it has put into the fifteen-inch circle."

"And you make cartridges, too, don't you?" Hamilton asked.

"That's one of the largest branches of our business," his guide replied,
"but there's not very much in that to show you, except of course the
making of the metal caps, and this is simply the punching of circular
pieces of copper or brass, turning up the edges, or 'cupping' them, as
it is called, drawing them to length, inserting the primer pocket and
heading--the filling is done in a building perpetually closed to
visitors. We think too much of our visitors," he added with a smile, "to
risk blowing them up. I don't suppose really, that there would be any
danger,--we have not had an accident for years,--but it's a business in
which accident is only prevented by extreme care, and we believe in
being thorough."

Chatting pleasantly, Mr. Nebett showed Hamilton through the various
general offices, the payroll department, and the draughting and
designing room, and finally returned to the business manager's office,
where they found the schedule awaiting him, filled out in almost every
detail. A few spaces had been left blank until the boy's return, some
trifling explanation being readily answered by him.

[Illustration: "A BULL'S-EYE EVERY TIME!" The expert looking through
telescope at target which he has fired at with new guns to test their
accuracy. (_Courtesy of Winchester Repeating Arms Co._)]

"I must thank you ever so much," said the boy, turning to the director
of the company who had taken so much trouble in showing him around, "it
has been one of the most interesting afternoons I have had in all my
life. I feel quite as though I had been witnessing the equipping of the
world's armies on the eve of a great war."

"That would be all right," said the business manager, "if we were making
military rifles, but ninety-five per cent of our work is for sporting
purposes."

"But how about your cartridges?"

"There, perhaps," Mr. Nebett said, "The Hague tribunal would look
askance at us."

Hamilton had his portfolio under his arm, but at the door he turned.

"How many cartridges do you put out?" he asked.

"Six million a day," was the reply.




CHAPTER IV

THE BOY LEADER OF A CRUSADE


So long as Hamilton's work dealt with the larger manufactories of the
district he encountered comparatively little trouble, as he knew enough
of the desires of the Census Bureau to be able to help those business
men whose books did not specifically divide receipts, expenses, and so
forth in the same order as the government required. Indeed, he made
several very pleasant acquaintanceships during the weeks in New Haven,
and it was not until he was "checking up," going to all the small places
that had not been listed, that he really found himself in difficulties.
He anticipated trouble with the dressmakers, and consequently his
delight was great when he learned that this had been omitted from the
census since 1904 because it is a "neighborhood industry." But the
milliners proved just as bad.

In the first place, Hamilton could not work up any enthusiasm over a
millinery establishment, and although he had definite instructions that
each one was to be considered as a factory and entered upon the
schedules as one, he thought such an idea was stretching the point a
little far. Fortunately he had covered a large number of them during the
first weeks of the work, visiting the places in the early morning and in
the evening when the offices of the larger factories were closed. His
worst clash occurred at almost the very last one to which he went.

It was a little after five o'clock, just as it was beginning to get
dark, that Hamilton, having ascertained from the Business Telephone
Directory the address of a milliner not down on his lists, who did work
for wholesale as well as retail trade, went up the steps of a really
handsome house, and rang the bell. He did so reluctantly, for there was
no plate on the door, and he did not wish to annoy strangers. But the
address seemed straight enough.

The door was opened by a becapped maid, and Hamilton was shown into a
handsomely furnished drawing room. On a table in the corner, the boy
caught sight of a pile of fashion magazines, and he was sure that he was
on the right track. After a few moments' delay, a richly dressed little
Frenchwoman bustled in. She seemed surprised to see the boy, and halted
on the threshold. Hamilton rose.

"I understand, Madame," he said, "that you are an 'exclusive' milliner?"

The woman looked bewildered.

"You make hats?" Hamilton continued, perceiving at a glance that the
woman was foreign-born.

"Is it a hatter zat you want?" she asked.

"No, no," the boy replied, "I just want to know if you are a milliner?"

The Frenchwoman, not at all enlightened by this explanation, answered:

"I do not make ze hats; I design zem, and ze ozzers make zem."

"Oh, I thought you were the proprietor," said Hamilton; "then you don't
own this place!"

"I am ze proprietor, but I do not own ze house," she said; "I pay ze
rent. But why you ask? I pay my rent!"

"Oh, of course," answered Hamilton, "but that has nothing to do with it.
I did not wish to trouble you that way. I come from the census, and
wanted to make sure that this was the place I was looking for."

"What is zat--ze census?"

"That is the way the government finds out about all the people in the
country," explained Hamilton, "their names and how old they are, what
they work at and how many people they employ, the wages they pay or are
paid, and all sorts of things."

The Frenchwoman's eyes had been getting bigger and rounder at every
sentence, and when Hamilton had finished, she said with an air of
regretful surprise:

"An' they tol' me zere was no police spy in America!"

"There isn't, so far as I know," the boy answered.

"But you--"

"I'm not a police spy," the boy said, a little nettled at being
misunderstood.

"No? Zen zat is all ze more strange. In my country zose are ze questions
ze gendarmes ask. An' if you are not policeman, why do you wear badge?"
she queried, pointing to the little census shield on Hamilton's coat.

"That has nothing to do with the police," the boy insisted, "that's a
census badge. Madame," he added, "do I look like a policeman?"

The Frenchwoman, remembering the military appearance of the gendarmes
of her native land and the burly make-up of the American policeman,
shook her head.

"Perhaps you are disguise'?" she said, with a smile.

"No, I'm not disguised," Hamilton responded, "and the badge is just to
show that I have the right to ask you these questions."

"I do not know anyzing at all about it," the milliner objected, "but if
you say you have ze right!" she shrugged her shoulders and sat down.

Hamilton promptly picked up his portfolio, opened it on his knee, and
began to put some of the queries required. He got along well enough
while the formal questions about name, address, nature of work, and so
forth were in hand, but the question about the number of hours worked
during the year made the woman most indignant.

"What is ze good of a question like zat?" she asked. "What does it
matter if ze girls work all ze night to finish ze hat for ze gr-rand
occasion, ze wedding, ze garden party? When zey work more, zey get more
pay!"

"Of course," said Hamilton diplomatically, "with such a number of
society people as you deal with that must happen very often."

It was a successful move. The Frenchwoman beamed on him.

"In ze season, yes, perhaps twenty or thirty evenings, but even zen ze
girl go home by twelve o'clock."

Hamilton smiled to himself as he did a little figuring and filled up the
schedule to show the prevailing practice followed in the establishment
during the year. He was a little dubious about asking the questions
concerning the wages paid, but he found no trouble.

"In your kind of work," he said, "I suppose the girls get good wages."

"Ze very best," the woman answered, and Hamilton found that this was
true. Indeed, so anxious was she to impress on him how much better were
the wages paid by her than those in other establishments that the boy
secured a large amount of unexpected valuable information. But he came
to a dead stop on the question of raw material used during the year. For
the material used in wholesale work the figures were easily secured, but
the retail trade was another matter. This the milliner really could not
give, for, as she pointed out, most of the few especial customers she
had, brought the materials to her to be made up, and she had no means
of knowing what had been paid for them. Nor would she even try to make
an estimate.

"But I must know," said Hamilton, in despair. "See for yourself,--here
it says that every factory must state the total cost of all material
used during the year and the value of the products."

"Factory!" the milliner jumped to her feet. "What you say--a factory!
Zis establishment a factory! And me, one of ze designers of ze great
Maison Chic in Paris! Zis is insult!"

For a moment Hamilton was amazed at the tempest he had so suddenly
evoked; then he tried to pacify the woman.

"That's just a general word," he said, "and it is used for every place
where things are made."

"No, no, no," she cried, "I know bezzer zan zat. A factory has chimney,
high, high, and smoke, an' nasty smells, an' machines. I have seen zem!"

"That's one kind of factory," answered the boy, "but it is only one
kind. But if you like we won't use the word at all."

This time, however, Hamilton's persuasions were of no avail. The
milliner had taken offense at the word "factory," and not another word
could the boy get out of her on any subject; the deadlock had become
absolute when the door opened and the maid showed in a young girl,
evidently a customer. The proprietress immediately greeted her in
voluble French, recounting as nearly as Hamilton could judge from her
gestures her sorrows and trials at the boy's hands.

As soon as there was a lull, Hamilton said to the newcomer:

"I beg your pardon, but since you seem to know French, would you mind
explaining to Madame what the census is? She seems to think I am a
police spy, or something."

"Oh, the census!" the girl exclaimed. "I could not make out what it was
all about. I thought it must be some question of taxes."

"No," Hamilton explained, "it is the Census of Manufactures, and
millinery places have to be counted. I got along all right, and have
finished my schedule but for one thing, and that I cannot get hold of.
If you would just ask her the cost of the materials in the hats she made
last year, I'll be through and then I won't be delaying you."

But not even the girl's fluent French could bring any light on this
subject, and laughingly she had to admit to the boy that her success
had been no greater than his own.

"I'll tell you," said Hamilton; "I've got an idea how we could get at
it."

"How?" asked the girl interestedly, for having taken a part in it, she
was American enough to be unwilling to give up; "what have you to
suggest--what is your plan?"

"You are one of Madame's customers?"

"Yes."

"And, of course, whatever kind of books are kept here, there must be
some sort of ledger, so that your bills can go to you every month."

The girl made a little grimace.

"The bills certainly come," she assured him.

"Well, then," said Hamilton triumphantly, "if we can find out from
Madame what proportion of all her trade your account is, and if you can
make a guess as to what the material you have brought her cost you, we
shall come pretty close to being able to make an estimate on the cost of
goods of all her customers."

"That's an excellent scheme," the girl said. "I don't know that I can
give very exact figures, but you want just a rough idea?"

"I'd like it exact, of course," the boy answered, "but since that
doesn't seem easy to get, the next best thing is a close estimate."

With this device in mind, very few minutes elapsed before the required
information was secured, a rough guess made at the result, and the
schedule finally filled out. As Hamilton rose to go, the girl said
laughingly: "I think I should at least receive 'honorable mention' in
the dispatches as a census-taker, the same as soldiers do in war."

"Very well," said Hamilton, smiling in return, "I'll bear it in mind,"
and thanking her heartily, he went on his way, greatly relieved that the
difficulty was over.

In a piece of extra territory that Mr. Burns had assigned to the boy,
there were several factories in which there had been some difficulty in
securing properly filled schedules, partly because much of the work was
done on the night shift. Because of this, Hamilton had got in touch with
some of these factories--they were principally glass works--on the night
side first. He frequently found it necessary to work thus in the
evenings, especially after this added work, which was given him because
the district proved too large for the agent having it in charge.

Little by little he worked these down until but one remained, owned by
Germans, where the boy experienced great difficulty in securing any sort
of attention. The night superintendent, however, was ready to help, and
Hamilton went to him constantly in the endeavor to have the schedule for
that factory filled. This was the easier, as the night superintendent in
question had recently been promoted to that position from head
bookkeeper.

One night, waiting for the superintendent to work out these figures, he
sauntered through the works. A phrase from Edwin Markham's "The Hoe-Man
in the Making" kept ringing through his head. It ran as follows--"It is
in the glass-factory perhaps, that the child is pushed most hopelessly
under the blind hammer of greed," and the boy wondered whether this
especial works was one of those which the poet-author had visited. Owing
to the number of times Hamilton had been forced to go to this factory,
two or three of the men had come to know him by sight, and they nodded
now as he passed through. Noticing a boy that looked even younger than
himself,--for unconsciously his eye was seeking that of which he was
thinking,--he turned to one of the men who had nodded to him, and said
casually, and with an air of surprise:

"Why, that chap there doesn't look any older than me!"

"I don't suppose he is so very old," the man replied, "sixteen, maybe."

"Seems a shame to have to start in so young," Hamilton went on, with an
assumed air of carelessness, "and I suppose he's been here some years."

"Probably about four or five," was the reply.

"You know," continued Hamilton, in a conversational tone, "I should
think it would be hard for a boy to start in working like that, and at
night especially."

The man paused in his work an instant, and looked at the lad, passing
his hand over his forehead as he did so.

"I was just ten years old when I began," he said. "I'm only thirty now.
I look fifty, don't I?"

"You certainly look over thirty," Hamilton admitted.

"Oh, I look fifty all right, I know that, and I'm as nearly played out
as a man of fifty. And it's all due to work when I was a youngster.
Every year that a boy is put to hard physical work before he is sixteen
is equal to five years taken off his life."

"I wonder that any employer does it, and that any State permits it,"
said Hamilton.

"There's not as much of it in Connecticut as in other States, although
the figures show that it is growing here," was the reply. "But you talk
as though you had been having a session with 'the crusader,'" the
workman continued.

"Who's the crusader?" asked Hamilton.

"Haven't you seen him, then? With your ideas, you ought to get along
well together. And," he added, more seriously, "'the crusader' will be
heard of yet."

"Why?"

"He's a boy who started at work in this place when he was only seven
years old," the workman answered. "He's been here eight years now, and
he's an odd genius. He taught himself to read and write, but he doesn't
read anything except about labor conditions all over the world, and he
knows all there is to know, I guess, about this business of children
working. All the labor union people and the socialists know 'the
crusader,' young as he is, and they send him, free, nearly every book
and paper that's published."

[Illustration: YOUNG BOYS FROM THE PIT. A group of workers in a coal
mine during dinner-time. Many even younger work on the night shift.
(_Courtesy of the Ridgway co._)]

"But why do you call him 'the crusader'?" asked Hamilton.

"Because he has some crusade idea on the brain,--thinks he can start a
revolution or something that will put a stop to child labor, and he
talks all the time of getting ready for this 'crusade' as he calls it.
But everybody likes him just the same, and he's a good worker--when he's
not talking."

"Which is he?" asked Hamilton. "I'd like to talk to him, if I might."

"No reason why you shouldn't," the other answered "he's kept busy of
course, but there are minutes in which he can talk, and 'the crusader'
is given special favors, anyway. That's the boy, 'carrying in' over
there."

Hamilton looked with interest at the boy thus pointed out. He would have
been noticeable, even without the knowledge of his peculiar position,
but with it, his difference from his fellows became most marked.
Hamilton had a couple of large apples in his pocket, and he thought this
might be a good opening. Taking one of them out of his pocket, he
started to eat it, and sauntered leisurely over to where the boy was
working. He watched him for a minute or two; then, when the boy looked
up, he said casually:

"Have an apple?"

Almost wolfishly the work-boy took the fruit from Hamilton and commenced
to devour it. It was clear either that he was hungry or that such a
luxury as an apple seldom fell to his lot. A few sentences passed, and
then Hamilton asked:

"How long have you been in the factory here?"

"Eight years," 'the crusader' replied.

"You must have been just a youngster when you first came, then?"

"Seven years old," was the answer, "and small at that!"

"It's a shame to let little children work like that, I think," said
Hamilton, wondering whether this would have the effect of rousing the
other, "it must do them harm."

But even though expecting some fiery retort, Hamilton was unprepared for
the transformation in the lad. A moment before he had been a stooped
childish figure with an old and weary face, carrying trays of hot glass
from furnace to bench and bench to furnace, but at the word he turned.
The air of weariness fell from him, his back straightened, life and
passion flamed into his eyes, and despite the grime and sordidness of
his surroundings, despite the rags in which he was clothed, under the
dull glow of the furnaces and the flickering violet play of a distant
arc light he seemed the bearer of some high message as his boyish
treble, rich in the tones of a familiar despair, rang through the
factory.

"The land is filled with the voice o' cryin'," he began, "an' no one
seems to hear. Tens o' thousands o' children cry themselves to sleep
every night, knowin' that the mornin' only brings another day o' misery.
Think of a little boy or girl o' ten years old, sufferin' already so
much that hope is gone, an' tired enough to die! There are twenty-five
thousand children less than ten years old in the fact'ries of America."

"Perhaps the people who could help don't know about it," suggested
Hamilton.

"They know," the other continued, "but they don't care. They stop their
ears to the cryin' o' the children an' talk about America as the land of
opportunity. It _is_ the land of opportunity--opportunity for the
children to starve, opportunity to suffer, opportunity to die wretched
an' to be glad to die. There's no country in the world where children
are tortured as they are in the fact'ries of the United States."

"Oh, surely it can't be as bad as that," protested Hamilton.

The objection only increased the "crusader's" vehemence.

"There don't any children have to work anywhere as they do here," he
fairly shouted, "here where they rob the cradle for workers, where the
little voices become sad and bitter 'most as soon as they can lisp,
where the brightness o' childhood fades out before its time, an' where
its only world is the mill, the shop, an' the fact'ry. Their tiny bones
unset, they make them stand in one position all day long until you hear
the children moanin' hour after hour, moanin' and no one hears, or
hearin', cares.

"They send missionaries to China," cried the lad further, "but there's
no child labor there; they try to reform the 'unspeakable Turk' but
there's no atrocity upon the children there; they call the heathen lost,
though in the worst an' wildes' tribes the children have a home an'
lovin', if savage care; Russia cries shame on what goes on in our
fact'ries here, an' even an Indian chief that they were showin' the
sights of our great cities to, when asked what had surprised him most,
answered, 'Little--children--workin'.'"

"You mean it is peculiar to America? That there is really more of it
here than in Europe?" asked Hamilton incredulously.

"More? There's none there like there is here. An' it's gettin' worse all
the time, worse this year than last year, worse last year than ten years
ago. 'Child-labor,' somebody says, 'has about it no halo of antiquity.
It is a thing of yesterday, a sudden toadstool in the infernal garden.'
It is all our own," he laughed harshly, "let us be proud of it."

"How many children did you say?" asked Hamilton tersely, staggered and
shocked by this statement of the facts of the case.

"Enough to sink the land in shame," the speaker declared. "There were a
trifle over a hundred thousand children between the ages of six and
fourteen workin' in the fact'ries of America last year. The figures
showed that over half of 'em were workin' more'n eight hours a day, that
a large percentage were workin' twelve to sixteen hours, an' twenty-two
thousand of 'em are at night work."

As he said the last words, the "crusader" hurried away in response to a
call from one of the men. He resumed his carrying in of the red-hot
bottles from the benches where the men had been molding them, to the
annealing oven, and for a time Hamilton watched him. The work was a
fearful strain. Sitting where he was, Hamilton could see all the way to
the annealing oven. Counting the number of steps the "crusader" had to
take, Hamilton found the distance to be about one hundred feet, and
watching another boy, who was working regularly, not intermittently as
was the city lad's new acquaintance, he found that seventy-two trips an
hour were made, making the distance covered in eight hours nearly
twenty-two miles.

The red-hot bottles were carried in asbestos shovels, and these had to
be kept fairly straight, imposing a terrific strain upon the back. In
addition to this, the boys were compelled to face the furnace each time
they came back, passing from the heat of the melting oven, in front of a
draughty open door, to the heat of the annealing oven.

In order to keep up with the work, the boys had to run, for it could not
be done at a walk, and thus were alternately greatly overheated and
chilled with icy draughts.

Seeing that the "crusader" would be busy for a while, but wanting to
take the matter up with him further, Hamilton strolled over to where the
glass-blowers were working. This particular factory was turning out
cheap glass bottles, and there was little of the fascination that exists
in factories where high-grade glass is made into many curious shapes and
blown with great skill into marvelous thinness. In the middle of the
room was a large round furnace containing a number of small doors not
quite four feet from the ground, and a glass-blower was stationed before
each of these. With long iron blowpipes these men, by giving the
blowpipe a little twirl as they thrust it into the semi-molten metal,
drew out on the end of it a small mass of glass, of about the
consistency of nearly melted sealing wax, and holding this mass on the
end of the blowpipe by keeping it in motion, they blew it into balls and
rolled the ball of soft, red-hot glass on their rolling boards. Then
they lifted the blowpipe and blew again, sharp and hard, forcing the
soft glass to its proper form. The now cooling glass was broken from the
end of the blowpipe with a sharp, snapping sound, and the blowpipe was
plunged in the furnace again for another bottle. The whole had taken
but a few seconds.

"Why do they have so many boys around these places?" queried Hamilton of
the workman he had been watching.

"Have to, they say," the glass-blower replied, "cheap bottles mean cheap
labor. No one ever expects to pay anything for a bottle--that is thrown
in with everything liquid you buy. The manufacturer's got to make his
little profit somewhere an' in a cheap bottle he makes it by employin'
young boys cheap an' workin' 'em till they drop."

"Is it done this way everywhere?"

The workman shook his head.

"No need to do it even here," he said. "It takes money, though, to put
in an endless belt to carry the bottles to the annealin' oven. The big
fact'ries mostly have 'em, but there are plenty o' places like this in
small towns where everythin' is done on a cheap scale, an' a boy's labor
is about the cheapes' thing in the United States--unless it's a girl's."

Seeing that the glass-blower was being delayed in his task, Hamilton
sauntered away, and went back to the place where the "crusader" worked.
The latter broke out again as soon as he saw the boy coming.

"I've been talkin' to you about children workin'," he said, "but you
haven't thought of babies bein' made to work?"

"Babies!"

"Of four an' five years old."

"But they couldn't do any real work!" exclaimed Hamilton.

"Do you know what one factory owner in the South said, not knowin' he
was talkin' to a member o' the child-labor commission? He said 'A kid
three year old can soon learn to straighten out tobacco leaves for
wrappers, and a little worker of four is good help in stripping.'"

"In a cigar factory?"

"Of course,--an' the children find it so hard to keep up that they are
taught to chew snuff--as a stimulant--before they are six year old. Jane
Addams, writin' o' the torture chambers they call cotton mills in parts
o' the South, said she saw on the night shift, with her teeth all
blackened and decayed from excessive snuff chewin', a little girl o'
five year old, busily and clumsily tyin' threads in coarse muslin, an'
answerin' a question she said she had been there every night throughout
the hot summer excep' two, when 'her legs and back wouldn't let her get
up.' An' what do you suppose the fact'ry owner did--send a physician?
No, he docked her the two days' wages for the time she'd been away ill,
an' another day's fine as a punishment."

"That's brutal!" cried Hamilton. "Didn't the parents protest?"

"The parents? That's where the mill-owners have their strongest help.
They threaten to discharge the parents if the children don't work an'
work hard, and they force the father or mother into whippin' the child
to compel it to stay at the loom. The whole country went to war once
over the question of a negro havin' to work under compulsion,--or at
least, that had quite a bit to do with the war,--but you can enslave
white children, you can starve 'em, you can shut 'em up in rooms without
air, you can surround 'em with dangerous machinery, you can force 'em to
be whipped, you can snatch 'em from their cradles in their homes, you
can snap your fingers at the schools, an' you can fill churchyards with
a worse Massacre o' the Innocents than history ever tells about, an' the
men and women of America don't care."

[Illustration: "I 'AIN'T SEEN DAYLIGHT FOR TWO YEARS." Trapper boy
working a twelve-hour day below ground, often too tired to go up in the
cage at the end of the day and sleeping on the ground beside the track.
(_Courtesy of the Ridgway Co._)]

"Oh, yes, they do," again protested Hamilton. "It must be that they
don't know."

"How can they help but know? There are a few that have heard what Spargo
calls 'The Bitter Cry of the Children,' but those few are very few, an'
the misery an' shame goes on, gettin' worse with ev'ry year."

"What's going to be done?"

"The children will have to rescue the children," the boy cried. "If
men's hearts are cold and women's hearts are asleep, at least the boys
can hear. There's no power like a boy's, an' a boy will do anythin'
that's big and brave and worth the doin'. In a year from now I'm goin'
to start a crusade, like the Children's Crusade in hist'ry, an' march to
every mill an' fact'ry in the United States where a child is workin',
and make the owner sign a paper pledgin' himself not to employ a child
again. Give me an army of American boys an' I'll sweep the country like
a flight o' locusts."

"But who would join?"

"Every boy worth his salt. S'pose I came to you an' said 'In that mill
at the end o' your street, little children are bein' slaved and driven
to death because no one has the nerve to say what they think. We'll
rescue those children. Join us, we're five hundred strong!' Would you go
along?"

"Guess I'd have to join," the boy agreed, "but you'd get into all sorts
of trouble."

"Can I get into a worse trouble than any o' those babies have?" the
other asked indignantly. "What right have I to go on, even as I do,
knowin' how they are sufferin'. I don't care about trouble, I've had
nothin' else all my life. But if by gettin' into trouble myself, I could
get even one hollow-eyed shadow of a child to run about and play like
other folks, I'd be willin' to take anythin' that come after. I don't
see that carryin' bottles is goin' to help the world much, but if I can
carry hope an' health to some little boy or girl, I'm goin' to do it.
How, I don't know. But I ain't goin' to die without bein' able to
remember some poor child that's better off because lived."

"What can I do to help?" asked Hamilton eagerly and aggressively, as
though he expected instant marching orders to some distant factory.

"You can do somethin',--every boy can do somethin'. If nothin' else, you
can help to wake a sleepin' an' selfish nation. If the cryin' o' the
children has ever rung in your ears, it'll never stop till you're doin'
somethin' to help. Do you think I could dream every day, as I do, o'
that 'spectral army of pygmy people sucked in from the hills to dance
beside the crazing wheel' and not do somethin'?"

"But--"

"Could I hear trampin' round me day an' night, the laggin' step of a
'gaunt goblin army that outwatches the sun by day an' the stars by
night, an' work an' sleep in peace? An' there's one thing more to say,
an' then I must go,--that there's a stain o' shame 'pon the honor of
America that'll never be wiped away until child labor is put down!"

Thoughtful and subdued in spirit, Hamilton strolled back to the night
superintendent's office, where he found the figures done at last and the
completed schedule awaiting him. He gratefully accepted the offer of a
cup of coffee, from some which had just been sent in, and sat down
beside the desk.

"I've been talking with the 'crusader,'" he remarked.

The night superintendent looked up interestedly.

"What do you think of him?" he asked, a little sharply, Hamilton
thought.

"I think there's no question about his being sincere," the boy answered,
"but I can hardly believe that the figures he gives and the facts he
talks about are true."

"They're true enough, I'm sorry to say," said the older man, sighing,
"but the 'crusader' usually isn't fair to the South. He blames the South
for the cotton mill horrors, when, as a matter of fact, a very large
proportion of the mills in which the worst conditions were found are
owned by New England capitalists. I'm a New Englander by birth myself,
'naughty-two' at Yale, but I'm able to see the mistakes of the North
just the same."

"I've always been taught that the North was more or less mixed up in
it," answered Hamilton. "It was shown to me a long time ago that the
slavery in the South wasn't started by the plantation owners. There were
no Southern vessels in the slave trade, they were all New England
skippers and New England bottoms. The shame of the slave traffic belongs
originally to the North."

"And now a large share of the child labor, too," the other agreed. "But
you've got to remember that it was the easy shiftlessness of the South
that made such conditions possible. I guess the blame is about even."

"But is nothing being done on this child-labor business?" asked
Hamilton. "I tried to find that out from the 'crusader' but he didn't
answer."

"Yes," said the superintendent heartily, "a great deal is being done.
The Bureau of the Census has been of immense service, and other bureaus
of the Department of Commerce and Labor are working on it, largely
through information gathered for them by the census. Then there have
been thorough Congressional investigations, and the States are being
checked up hard to insure that factory inspection shall be real, not
nominal. Don't let the 'crusader' persuade you that everybody is asleep
and that nothing is being done; the government is doing a good deal,
although the country as a whole is unaware of it."

"Yet it is increasing?"

"In spite of all that is done to prevent it, it is increasing," the
other said quietly, "that is the sad part. If it could be thought of as
a passing thing, it would be bad enough, but to know that every month
hundreds of children die from enforced labor and that greater numbers
fill their places, is a sad reflection on the industrial life of
to-day."

"Well, as the South progresses, that will probably take care of itself,
won't it?" queried the boy.

The superintendent looked at him curiously.

"I think you told me last evening that you were a New York boy," he
said.

"Yes, Mr. Wharton," answered Hamilton.

"I suppose you consider New York a fairly progressive city?"

"Greatest on earth!" affirmed the boy in true Gotham style.

"Yet that same progressive city," the older man declared, "is the
headquarters of several forms of industry in which large percentages of
the workers are children under fourteen years of age."

"What kinds of business can those be?" asked Hamilton in surprise.

"Making ostrich plumes and artificial flowers. It's not factory labor,
of course, but that doesn't alter the point that at least half the
output of artificial flowers is made by the cramped fingers of children,
generally after school and far into the night. They are not officially
reported, of course, but less than twenty per cent is done by men. The
disgraceful fact that the New York schools are so crowded that many of
them can only give 'half-time' to the children and consequently teach
them in two sections is a great help to the sweat-shop managers. But
every city has its own share of this child labor in the homes, although
in some of the smaller places, civic associations and municipalities
have taken the matter in hand with considerable success. Even that is
but a drop in the ocean."

"Your 'crusader' will have to lead his crusade then, it seems," the boy
suggested.

"Poor lad!" sighed the superintendent.

"Why?" asked Hamilton.

"He will never lead that crusade," the older man replied pensively.

"Why not?"

The man tapped his chest significantly.

"He is incurably ill," he said, "partly glass-blowers' disease from
breathing the particles of glass dust. Men don't mind it so much, but it
is fatal to children when the lungs are not yet strong. We keep the
'crusader' here in order to help him as much as we can, although he
gives a lot of trouble in the works with his revolutionary theories. I
haven't the heart to send him away; he couldn't get other work, and
being all alone in the world, he might starve."

"You mean--"

"That he will not live six months. That army of boys of which he speaks
so often will never go on the march, the banners he has designed for it
will wave over no other battalions than those he has seen in dreams, and
the drums will sound the final 'taps' for him before they roll for the
advance. And in that sleep, the cries of the children shall all be happy
ones."

[Illustration: EIGHT YEARS OLD AND "TIRED OF WORKING." Boy in Southern
cotton mill who has been employed "two summers and a winter before
that."]




CHAPTER V

"DON'T DEPORT MY OLD MOTHER!"


The "crusader's" talk on the child-labor question set Hamilton's mind
working, and as soon as he got back to Washington and was busy
tabulating the manufacturing statistics which had been gathered and sent
in, he tried to learn something about the employment of children. He
chanced to meet one of the photographers who had been with the
Congressional commission, and the tales this man told were even more
detailed. Hamilton found that the figures quoted had not been
overstated, and he determined that just as soon as he grew old enough he
would do all he could toward correcting this abuse.

But Hamilton found the actual statistical work not a little tedious,
although it was work which usually he enjoyed, and this sense of the
time dragging was largely due to the fact that the boy had not heard a
word about his being considered in line for the population work. It was
therefore a considerable relief to him when Mr. Burns said to him
suddenly one morning:

"So you're going over to the population side, I hear?"

"Am I? I didn't know," Hamilton replied. "I had wanted to go, but not
hearing anything about it, I was afraid the plan had been shelved."

"The Director told me this morning that you were going to be
transferred."

"The Director himself?"

"Yes. I had a talk with him about the figures for the manufactures of
the New England States, and we happened to mention you; he knew your
name, so I told him that your schedules had averaged six and a third per
cent better than those of any one else in that section. So he said,
'That reminds me, I had almost forgotten that I had decided to put Noble
on the population work. I'll see that arrangements for that transfer are
made,' and he scribbled something on a pad."

"That was awfully kind of you, Mr. Burns," said Hamilton, "to mention me
to the Director in that way."

The statistician looked at him curiously.

"I wasn't dealing in kindness," he said dryly, "I was dealing in
percentages. If that turned out well for you, it is yourself you have
to thank, not me. I merely stated the figures, and they read in your
favor."

The boy laughed outright.

"I believe, Mr. Burns," he said, "that you would more easily forgive a
man who attacked you personally than one who gave you an incorrect list
of figures."

"Certainly I would," the statistician replied. "I could hit back in the
first case, but in the second who can tell how far I might be led
astray!"

"Well," the boy answered, "I'm glad at any rate that my figures tallied
up all right."

"I don't want to seem inquisitive," said the older man, "but when did
you get in the population examination?"

"There was some talk of my being accepted without going through the
exam," said Hamilton, "because of the fact that I was doing census work
of a more difficult character already, but I thought I would rather feel
that everything had been done in the usual manner. I took the exam at
New Haven, one afternoon."

"But are you going to do the population work there?"

"No, Mr. Burns," the boy explained. "The Director wrote to me that I
would be allowed to send in a formal application in the regular way
through the supervisor of the enumeration district to which I had asked
to be assigned. The supervisor of that district had said beforehand that
he would be willing to appoint me, as the section was so sparse that
enough qualified enumerators were hard to get."

"Well, where are you going, then?"

"I don't know, for sure yet, of course," the boy explained, "whether
everything will go through as planned, but if so, I shall be going to
Kentucky."

"In the mountains where you had been visiting?"

"Oh, no," the boy answered, "in another part of the State
entirely,--down toward the black belt of Kentucky."

"Kentucky isn't a black belt State," his friend objected.

"No, Mr. Burns, but there are parts where the negroes are tolerably
thickly settled. The supervisor is a friend of my older brother, and he
says that is an interesting part of the country."

"But can a Board of Examiners in one district look over the papers for
the supervisor of another district?"

"No, sir," explained the boy, "but they can allow the examination to be
taken before them and have the papers sent to the supervisor of the
other district. It was a little irregular, I suppose, but the Director
knew all about it and it was for the good of the census, he thought, as
he had been told there were not enough enumerators in the district to
which I hoped to go."

"Well," the statistician replied, "if you're headed for Kentucky I
should think you'd like to see your folks before going."

"I had planned to go up on Saturday afternoon," Hamilton said. "I can
get to New York by evening and spend Saturday night and all day Sunday
there, catching the midnight train back. It brings me in early enough
for office hours."

"And this is Friday," said the other thoughtfully. "I'll tell you what
to do. I can arrange for you to be off Saturday morning; it is only a
half day, and you can catch the first train out after business hours
to-day."

"That would be bully!"

"I estimate," the statistician said, rapidly dotting down some figures
on a pad, "that the fractions of overtime you have worked recently,
cumulatively considered, enable me to do that fairly, so that you've
earned it."

"That's fine," said Hamilton, "for the family is going to Europe for the
summer, and I shouldn't see any of them at all unless I ran up to New
York now."

The older man nodded his confirmation of the suggested arrangement, and
returned to his figures. During the noon hour Hamilton hurriedly packed
a grip, and was back at the office without a minute lost, for he found a
train leaving at a most advantageous hour, and by calling a taxi he was
just able to catch it.

At breakfast the following morning, the conversation turned upon
immigration, and Hamilton read in a newspaper the statement that two
large liners were in New York harbor and would dock that morning, that
each carried a record passenger list of immigrants, and that Ellis
Island was making preparations for a busy day.

"I've never seen Ellis Island," the boy announced "Father, do you know
if visitors are allowed over there?"

"I'm fairly sure of it," his father replied, "but in any case there
ought to be no trouble for you, since the Bureau of the Census is a
part of the Department of Commerce and Labor, just as is the Bureau of
Immigration."

"I think I'd like to go."

"I think you ought to go," his father said. "Taking up the population
business, you ought to try to get hold of all the information you can,
ahead of time. I have been there several times, on business, and it is a
most interesting place."

Accordingly, the eleven o'clock boat from the Barge Office, New York,--a
pier near Castle Garden, the historic immigration station,--carried
Hamilton to the famous Ellis Island. Preferring his request, the lad
speedily found himself in the presence of the Commissioner. He stated
his wants briefly.

"Mr. Commissioner," he said, "I'm an assistant agent of the Census
Bureau in Washington, and I'm just going to my station as an enumerator
for the population. I have two days in New York and I'd like to learn
how things are done on the Island here. May I have a pass?"

The Commissioner answered briefly.

"Read this," he said, taking a sheaf of manuscript out of the drawer of
his desk, "and here's a short review for the use of visitors, and I'll
send you in to the Chief Clerk to get a pass, and if there's anything
more you want, let me know." He touched a bell. "Show this gentleman to
Mr. Tuckman, and let him be given a special pass," he said,--and
Hamilton was ushered out promptly, thinking as he went that this was
evidently one place where time was not wasted.

The Chief Clerk was equally ready to assist the lad, and armed with his
special pass he started round the building, finding himself practically
free of the island. Hamilton possessed the capacity of making friends
readily, and with his alert manner and direct appeal, he usually secured
attention. Walking sharply through the place he soon found himself down
in what was called the Information Division. For the moment one of the
clerks was not busy, and Hamilton, stepping up to him, began to ply him
with questions. A tall young fellow, who was standing nearby, listened
for a few moments, then turned to Hamilton.

"See here," he said, "you can't learn much about Ellis Island just by
asking questions, you've got to go around and see for yourself."

"That's just what I propose doing," Hamilton answered, "but I thought it
wouldn't be such a bad plan to get an idea of things first, and then I
should understand what I saw. There's not much use in watching things
unless you understand just what's going on. I have some knowledge of it,
of course, because the Commissioner gave me some reading matter to look
over, and I've got a special pass, so that I want to make the best use
of it."

"Suppose you come along with me, then," said his new acquaintance, who
was none other than the Chief of the Information Division, "and I'll
show you round myself as far as I can spare the time. It so happens that
there are a lot of scattering things I want to look after through the
building to-day, and if you don't mind my leaving you alone, once in a
while, I'll take you through systematically. Where do you want to
begin?"

"Right at the very start," rejoined Hamilton "I always think the
beginning is the most important part, and I'd hate to lose any of it."

"All right," said his conductor good-humoredly; "if you want it all, you
shall have it. I notice, too," he said, as they walked along the hall
and out of the door to the well-kept lawns that stretch between the main
building and the sea wall, "that you're in good time, for there's a
barge just pulling in."

"The barge is from one of the liners that came in this morning, I
suppose?" queried the lad.

"Yes, one of the Hamburg boats," his guide replied.

"Are those barges run by the immigration authorities?"

"No," was the answer, "those are owned or managed by the steamboat
companies. They bring all the steerage passengers who can't show that
they are citizens, and all the cabin passengers who are being detained."

"Cabin passengers," echoed Hamilton in surprise; "I didn't think any
cabin passengers came to Ellis Island. All second cabin, I suppose?"

"Not a bit of it," answered the immigration official; "there's quite a
sprinkling of first-class passengers as well. Why, during a period of
three months recently, nearly three thousand cabin passengers were
detained on the island here, and I suppose twenty per cent of them had
come over in the first-class saloon."

"But why should any first-class passengers be stopped and shipped to
Ellis Island?" queried the boy. "I don't understand. I thought Ellis
Island was to keep out people who were paupers, or diseased, or were
undesirable citizens!"

[Illustration: THE BIGGEST LINER IN THE WORLD COMING IN. Ocean steamship
with thousands of immigrants on board entering New York harbor; the
Statue of Liberty in the distance. (_Brown Bros._)]

"That's just exactly what it is for," the other replied, "but the United
States government doesn't think that having money enough to pay for a
first-class passage makes every man a desirable citizen! A first-class
berth is no insurance against an incurable disease, for example, and
there's nothing to prevent a criminal from coming over in the first
cabin." He laughed. "Most of them do, I think," he said.

"It really never appealed to me just that way," the boy remarked; "I
supposed always that first-class passengers went right through if they
passed quarantine."

"That would mix things up," the older man said. "Why, in that case we
should have all the mentally deficient, all the paupers, and all the
freaks landing here in shoals. Any group of friends, or any government,
for that matter, would find it cheap and easy to dump all the public
charges of Europe on our shores for the price of a first-class ticket.
Oh, no, that would never do. Once in a while, you hear passengers on the
big liners complaining of the inquiries made before they land, but it's
got to be done. You can see for yourself what would happen if we
didn't."

"But if they bring plenty of money, they would not become public
charges."

"No, and we can't exclude them on that ground. But money, for example,
has nothing to do with crime or anarchism or things of that sort. I tell
you, there's a big slice of our work done before ever a vessel reaches
her dock at a New York pier. Of course, problems do come up nearly every
day, such as circus freaks, for instance."

"You mean the living skeleton, the tattooed lady, the fat baby, the
giant, and so forth?" asked Hamilton.

"Exactly. Are those people to be considered desirable citizens, or not?
There is no question as to their inability to make a living by any
customary kind of work, but on the other hand it is very difficult to
prove that they could not get good money at a sideshow. If, however,
they are able to show that they have been engaged in Europe by an
American circus manager, they can come under the alien contract labor
law."

"Then this string of people," said Hamilton, pointing to those who had
just been unloaded from the barge, "may be from all classes of the
ship."

"They might be," his guide replied, "but the chances are that they are
all steerage. Cabin passengers that are detained usually come on the
last boat, with the inspector. We have quarters here with a little more
privacy for them, and they are kept together. But now watch this line.
Suppose we go this way," and stepping over a low iron railing, the
official, followed by Hamilton, walked briskly up beside the line. A few
yards from the door of the building, this line of people passed into a
long barred lane. At the entrance of this stood an inspector who checked
off the large ticket each immigrant had pinned on him to show his
identity, in order to prevent confusion further on. Passing before the
inspector at brief but regularly measured intervals, the immigrants
walked one by one up this barred lane to where it made a right angle.

"There's the first inspecting doctor," said Hamilton's conductor,
pointing to a man standing just at the angle and watching carefully each
immigrant as he walked up. After a moment Hamilton turned to his
companion in surprise:

"But he isn't doing anything!" he said.

"Doctor," said the chief of the division, with a laugh, "I am afraid we
shall have to investigate this matter. Here is a lad who says that
you're doing nothing. He's watched you for a couple of minutes and you
haven't made a move."

Hamilton began to protest, but the big doctor only laughed in reply,
without taking his eyes, however, from the procession of figures which
one by one walked up to him and made the turn round the angle.

"If he'll wait a minute or two more," he said, "perhaps I'll have a
chance to do something, and save my reputation."

There was a pause; then the doctor continued:

"I think there's something doing now; watch this man coming up."

"He seems to limp just the merest trifle, that's all I can see," the boy
replied.

"Bone disease of some kind, or maybe joint," the doctor said,
"tuberculous hip, like as not," and as the man passed by he leaned
forward and chalked a big "B" on the shoulder of his coat. "'B' for
Bones," the doctor explained to Hamilton.

"What will happen to him?" asked the boy of the immigration official.

"Because of that mark?"

"Yes, sir."

"It simply means that he will be held for 'special inquiry.' He may be
all right, but before he is passed, he will have to be examined
physically--a thorough physical examination, I mean. Now here, you see,
is another doctor."

Eight or ten yards further on stood another man, all in white as the
first had been, who took up the inspection where the judge of bone
malformations had left off. A sunken chest, he explained to Hamilton, a
hectic flush, a pinched nostril, an evident difficulty in breathing, a
certain carriage of the head, a blueness of the lips, certain types of
pallor, all these and a number of little points which experience had
shown to be symptoms of organic disease his trained eye could detect at
a glance, and he, too, every few minutes, stooped forward and chalked
upon the coat of the man or the blouse of the woman, as the case might
be, a letter which told of a suspected disease.

"I suppose I ought not to say anything," said Hamilton, "but that looks
a little 'hit-or-miss' to me. It's hard on an immigrant to be detained
on the basis of a medical examination that barely takes ten seconds."

"If that were all," said the official, smiling, "it surely would be a
hardship. But you don't quite get the point. All these passengers really
are detained, and this arrangement is only a way to render the detention
shorter by letting those go through unchecked who do not need further
examination. This is not to delay the suspects, but to cause less
trouble to the others. Here, however is where most of them get stopped."

He pointed to another doctor, standing close to the last, who examined
the eyes quickly and deftly (principally for a chronic and contagious
disease called "trachoma"), scrupulously cleansing fingers and
instrument between each immigrant.

Passing the eye doctors the immigrants came to an inspector who stood at
a place where a large grating was built midway in the passage, dividing
it into two parts. All those who had been marked by any of the doctors,
and, in the cases of families, all those in the party of any one so
marked, passed up the right hand passage which led to the Special
Inquiry; the others were guided to the left hand side of the grating,
which led directly into the main primary inspection room.

"Do you suppose they understand anything of the meaning of that
division," asked Hamilton, "why some go on this side and some on the
other!"

"They don't at all," was the reply. "You will notice that there are no
signs up, and that no attempt is made--at this point--to talk to the
immigrant or to try to make him understand anything. Then, too, since
all the members of a family or party are kept together, there is no
reason why they should make a disturbance. They simply go where they are
sent. If we separated the families, sending some on one side and some on
the other, then there would be trouble!"

"That's true," said Hamilton, "in many cases they couldn't read the
signs, and they don't know at all what the doctors' marks mean."

"Exactly, and once past the inspector, there is no getting out or coming
back, for the two passages lead directly into two series of rooms from
which there is no outlet except in a given direction."

"But the others who are all right,--where do they go?" asked the boy.

"They're not safe yet," his conductor answered "They have only passed a
preliminary looking over. All that this first group of doctors does,
remember, is to detect the questionable or to pass the obviously
unquestionable--whichever way you like to put it, and thus avoid delay
in the primary inspection room."

"Which group are we going to see first?"

"Those who have been passed," was the reply, "because most of them will
go right out, and you can follow that more easily."

Going up the stairs, Hamilton found himself in an immense room all
divided up into little lanes by bars and gratings. Each of these lanes
bore a large number suspended over its entrance, corresponding to the
number of one of the manifest sheets of the vessel, and likewise to the
number pinned on the clothing of every immigrant while he was still on
the vessel, when his name was tallied with the manifest sheet.

"I see the reason of those numbers they have pinned on them now," said
Hamilton, "it's all the same principle, to avoid talk and questioning."

"Certainly," his friend said, "and if you look a little closely, you
will see that in addition to the big number on the card that is pinned
on, there is also a smaller number."

"I had noticed that," Hamilton answered, "and I was going to ask you
what it was for."

"That is the number of the name on the manifest sheet," the other
replied. "Thus, for example if Giordano Bruno is the tenth name on the
seventh manifest sheet, this man at the top of the stairs will guide him
into aisle number seven. Then, when his turn comes and he has moved up
to the desk at the end of the line, the inspector doesn't have to waste
time questioning him, and finding the place on the manifest sheet. He
looks at the number, runs his finger down to the tenth name, and has him
at once."

"It's a great system," said Hamilton admiringly.

"Why you're right at the start of it," said the official with a laugh;
"wait till you get further on, if you want to find system."

"Here I see, too, the questioning begins," remarked Hamilton.

"Yes, some of the inspectors at the desk know several languages, and
they are assisted by interpreters when necessary. They hold a
responsible position, because they can decide to let an alien land. You
see they ask the immigrant the same questions that are on the manifest
sheet. If the answers tally all the way through, if the man understands
and gives an apparently straight story, if he has a sufficiency of funds
to keep him until he has a chance to get work, and especially if he has
already a railroad ticket to friends at some inland point, he is given a
blue ticket and allowed to pass directly through to the right into the
railroad waiting rooms."

"But if he hasn't?"

"Then he goes down this passage which leads again to the special inquiry
rooms where you saw the others going. He is given a different colored
ticket, in accordance with the expected objection. You see, the
inspector does not attempt to pass upon the merits of the case. He just
affirms that the passenger has not made his title clear. Just as before,
the aim is to enable the desirable immigrant to land as quickly and
easily as possible. Supposing there were no crowd, an immigrant could
land on the wharf, be looked over by the doctors, pass through the
primary inspection, answer all questions, and be in the railroad waiting
rooms ready for his train in less than four minutes. That's not much of
a hardship!"

"It certainly isn't," Hamilton agreed. "And I notice that most of them
seem entitled to land."

"That varies a great deal," his guide said. "I think it averages about
ninety per cent. In a few ships, especially those handling little of
the Continental traffic, those held for special inquiry drop as low as
five per cent, while for the vessels bringing immigrants from southern
and eastern Europe, the proportion held will rise to nearly one-third of
the entire passenger list."

"All right," said Hamilton in a satisfied tone, "I guess I have that
straight. But I notice there is a third stream of people. One, you say,
is going to the railroad waiting rooms, one down to special inquiry, but
how about the third?"

"That's the 'temporary detention' group. I'll take you there in a
minute, but let us finish up with the man who is to be admitted. Here is
the railroad waiting room."

A few feet further on Hamilton found an immense room, like a railroad
ticket office, where tickets could be bought for any railroad or
steamship route to any point in the United States or Canada. A
money-changing booth was in the place, where foreign money could be
turned into United States currency at the exact quotation for the day,
even down to the fractions of a cent.

"Why are they pinning on more tickets?" asked Hamilton. "I thought when
they took off the tickets upstairs that would be the end of it."

"That also is to make it easier for them," the other said. "Most of
these people are poor, and we try to make traveling as cheap for them as
possible. Nearly all the railroads run one train each day that carries
special cars for the immigrant service. They give, accordingly, a
cheaper rate to the government. Supposing, for example, that the regular
number of the Lehigh Valley train was always numbered '9,' then every
man who purchased a ticket for a point on the Lehigh Valley would be
given the ticket '9.' Then, when the boat that was taking the passengers
for Lehigh Valley points left Ellis Island, all the 9's would be
gathered together and no one would be left behind."

"Nothing seems to have been forgotten," said Hamilton, "even food, for I
see there's a big counter over there."

"That's quite a thing, too," the other said. "A man can get two days'
food, six meals, for a dollar, or a little over sixteen cents a meal."

"And what in the wide world can he buy for that price?" exclaimed the
boy.

"Here's a sample of the contents of one box," the other said; "read it,
it tells you what there is. 'Four loaves of bread, two pounds of cooked
beans, twelve ounces of sausage, one can of beef, one can of sardines,
six ham sandwiches, three pies, and four oranges.' I'm sure you wouldn't
starve on that."

"No," said Hamilton, "I think I could get along if I ate it all. But why
is it that most of the immigrants here are men? Have the women been lost
in the shuffle?"

The immigration official laughed.

"They're not lost," he said, "most of the women pass through the
'temporary detention' rooms. We're going to visit there now. Of course
there are some women who will be able to take the train directly, but we
try to see that they go with some one, or that their being met is
assured. The tickets pinned on them are not given until an inspector has
seen their railroad tickets, and they do not land in New York streets at
all. A boat takes each group to the railroad pier, and they are escorted
to the train by an inspector, who places them in charge of the conductor
who is responsible for their arrival at their destination. Nearly all go
West or South and start from the Jersey side. It is an entirely
different matter with women and children who want to land in New York
City. In every case they are detained until called for by some relative.
And that relative has to prove to us that he really is the relative in
question."

"How do they meet?"

"I'll show you right now. In this room," he continued, entering another
large waiting room, "are all the people 'temporarily detained.' Most of
them will he released shortly. If you listen you can hear just how it is
done, because that clerk who has just come in has a list."

As he spoke a young fellow stepped forward and read a list of nine
names. Seven of the nine were in the room and came to the front, the
clerk ticking off their names on the sheet.

"Can we go on?" asked Hamilton. "I would like to see just how this
works!"

"All right," responded his guide, smiling at the boy's eagerness, "go
ahead."

As they reached the next room, Hamilton saw the clerk ushering the seven
immigrants behind a grating. Outside the grate was a narrow open space
and then a desk. On the farther side of the desk the friends of the
seven in question were waiting. There was one lad, just about his own
age, among the friends, and Hamilton waited curiously to see whom he was
to meet. Among the immigrants was a sweet-faced old Frenchwoman, and
Hamilton hoped that she might be the lad's relative. As it chanced, this
boy was the first to come up.

[Illustration: IMMIGRATION STATION, ELLIS ISLAND. The greatest center of
racial activity in the world, where a million aliens yearly pass through
to American citizenship. (_Courtesy of U.S. Immigration Station, Ellis
Island._)]

"For whom are you calling?" he was asked.

The young lad answered clearly and promptly, and the clerk nodded
approvingly as the questions proceeded.

"You say you have an older brother," the clerk said, "and the two of you
are able to keep your grandmother?"

"Yes, indeed, sir," was the reply.

"You are young to have come. Why didn't your brother come instead?"

"He has been a waiter in a French hotel," answered the boy, "and has not
learned much English He asked me to come."

A few short, sharp queries established the relationship without question
and the boy was released from the desk. The door in the grating was
opened, and to Hamilton's delight it was the old Frenchwoman who came
out. After a most affectionate greeting, they went off together, the boy
coming back to thank the clerk profusely, with true French courtesy.

"I suppose all that is necessary," said Hamilton "but I'll admit I don't
see why. No one would be likely to call for some one else's
grandmother!"

"We want to be sure that women who land here are really with their own
people," said the official, evading a more direct statement, "and
sometimes if the chief of the 'temporary detention' work is not
satisfied, the immigrant is sent back to 'special inquiry.'"

"How long are they detained?"

"Nearly all go out the same day. A few, however, have to telegraph for
their friends to meet them, and we look after that on their behalf. They
are never temporarily detained over five days, except in the case where
a child has been held in quarantine and some member of the family has to
remain until the patient is released in order to take charge of him.
That covers, you see, all those who come here except the 'special
inquiry' cases."

"May I see those?" asked Hamilton.

"That's not so easy," his friend replied, "and you wouldn't get much out
of it. They are handled, one by one, in Courts of Special Inquiry, each
court consisting of three inspectors, an interpreter, and a
stenographer, while doctors are always on call. Special Inquiry,
remember, does not mean that there is any reason for excluding the
immigrant, merely that his inclusion is not self-evident. In most cases,
answers to a few questions settle all difficulties, and the decisions to
exclude are rare. In doubtful cases, a Court of Special Inquiry takes
great pains to investigate the whole condition closely. When a decision
to exclude is reached, the immigrant is given an opportunity to 'appeal'
to the Commissioner, and these appeals vary from fifteen to seventy a
day. Further appeals may be taken in rare cases."

"And when all appeals are lost?"

"Then the immigrant must be deported at the expense of the steamship
company that brought him."

"What are the usual grounds for deportation?" asked Hamilton.

"Principally persons of unsound mind, insane, diseased, paupers likely
to become a public charge, criminals, anarchists, contract laborers, and
those who by physical defect are unable to make a living."

"It seems to me that you go to a great deal of trouble here," Hamilton
said, "and it must be a big expense keeping and looking after such a mob
of people."

"We don't pay for their keep," the official answered; "we make the
steamship companies do that. They are expected to bring desirable, not
undesirable immigrants here, and if they bring people whom we cannot
accept, they must take the consequences and bear the expense of
deporting them. Our deporting division looks after that, and it is one
of the hardest parts of our work. We've a pathetic case there now."

"You mean that Bridget Mahoney case," said an inspector, who had just
stepped up. "I beg your pardon for interrupting, but I was just going to
ask you to come and see about that case. There are some new
developments."

"I'll go right in," said Hamilton's guide interestedly. "I think you
might come along, too," he added, turning to the boy.

"Who is Bridget Mahoney?" Hamilton asked. "That's a good old Irish
name."

"And she's a good old Irish soul," the other answered. "She landed here
about three weeks ago, fully expecting her son to meet her, but during
the five days when she was in temporary detention he failed to show up."

"But why didn't you telegraph to the son?" asked Hamilton, who was
beginning to feel as though he knew all the ropes.

"We couldn't find his right address."

"Was he a traveling man?"

"It wasn't that. The woman said she knew he lived in a town called
Johnson, or Johnston, or something like that, but she didn't know in
what State. Now there are nearly forty post-offices with that name in
America, and we sent telegrams or letters to every one of these. But we
never received a definite reply."

"Well, if she's all right, as you say she is," said Hamilton, "why can't
she land and wait until her son is reached?"

"Bridget's over seventy," the chief replied, "and not very strong; she'd
be a public charge, sure."

"And yet she's all right?"

"Oh, perfectly," he said as soon as they reached the building.

"We got this telegram yesterday and I took it to your office this
morning," the newcomer answered, "to talk it over with you, but you
weren't there."

The chief of the Information Division glanced at the telegram and then
turned it over to Hamilton.

"Read that," he said. "That's the way it came, without signature or
anything."

Hamilton read it eagerly, and as soon as he had finished, "that's from
Bridget Mahoney's son," he announced, with as absolute assurance as
though it had been signed.

The deportation official looked up in surprise, but Hamilton's guide
made a hasty explanatory introduction.

"We should like to be as sure as you are," said the deportation chief,
"although I think we all rather hope it is from him. But you see it
isn't dated Johnstown or anything like that, and it isn't signed. Just
simply the words:

"'Don't--deport--my--old--mother.'"

"If you notice," he continued, "it comes from away out West, and it
might apply to any one of thousands of cases. 'My Old Mother' might have
been deported weeks ago."

"But this is yesterday's wire," Hamilton's friend interjected, "you said
there were new developments in the case."

"There are," Farrell replied, drawing another telegram out of his
pocket. "This one came this morning, and it's just about as intelligent
as the one you have. Notice, though, that it's dated from Chicago early
yesterday evening."

"What does it say?" burst out Hamilton, too eager to wait until it was
read.

"It's very short," was the answer, "it just reads:

"'--Hold--Mother--'"

"Unsigned?"

"Unsigned, just as before."

"It must be from the same person," Hamilton suggested.

"I think there's little doubt of that," the deportation chief agreed.

"Whoever sent it must be traveling fast," the boy remarked, "that last
one was from Montana."

"I've been doing my best to persuade myself that I have the right to
keep Bridget longer. Twice I've begged an extra stay from the
Commissioner, and he's been willing to consent, but he thinks she's got
to go back now. There's really no valid reason that I can give against
it."

As they walked toward the desk in the deporting division, one of the
clerks called the chief. He came back a moment or two later with a
telegram in his hand.

"A third one," he said, "it must have come while I was out at lunch. The
same person wrote all three, for this is almost the same as the first;
it reads:

"'--Don't--deport--my--old--Mother--I--have--plenty--to--support--her--'"

"Where's it dated from?" asked the boy.

"I hadn't noticed," the deportation chief replied. "Oh, yes, why it's
from Albany!"

"That's pretty near here!" Hamilton said excitedly. "Oh, Mr. Farrell,
what time was that sent?"

"Quarter to twelve."

"Whoever sent it ought to be here by now! Mr. Farrell, I'm just as sure
as can be that is from Bridget Mahoney's son."

"If it is, he may reach here in time," the other answered, "but it will
mean a great deal of trouble, because the boat sails early in the
morning long before the office here is open, and the deported aliens go
on board to-night. Indeed they are going now---if they haven't gone."

"And Bridget with them?"

"Yes, I'm sorry to say Bridget is with them." He strolled to the
window. "No," he continued, "they haven't gone yet, but they will in a
few minutes."

"Could I see her before she goes?"

"What for?"

"Just to cheer her up a bit," pleaded the boy.

The two men looked at each other, and Hamilton's new acquaintance
nodded.

"You won't say anything about these telegrams," the chief warned him.

"No--very well," said Hamilton, "but it seems a shame that she doesn't
know."

The three passed through the door to the yard beside the lawns, and
there Hamilton encountered one of the most desolate groups he had ever
seen, sitting and standing in all attitudes of dejection. Among them was
a little old lady with snow-white hair, walking with a stick, but
clear-eyed and brisk-looking.

"You're Mrs. Mahoney?" the boy asked.

"I'm Bridget Mahoney, young masther," the old Irishwoman answered, "at
your service, sorr."

"I hear you haven't found your son yet," Hamilton said; "did you write
to him before you left the old country?"

"I did, dear, but I intoirely disremember what I did wid the letther. I
know I intinded to give it to Mickey O'Murry, but I'll niver tell ye
whether I did give it to him, an' if I did, there's no knowin' av he
posted it. 'Tis a difficult thing to remember, this letther-postin' and
maybe he forgot."

"But what did you write on the envelope? Can't you remember what you
wrote?"

"'Tis I that am the poor hand for writin', young masther, but there was
no schoolin' when I was a gurrl such as there is now. Jim, that's me
son, he makes shift to read me writin', but he always sinds me a written
envelope to put me answer in so that the postman can read it. An' so I
niver learnt the address. I thought, av course, he'd be here. But he
isn't, dear, an' so I must thravel all the weary way home again."

"But you don't sail till morning," said Hamilton, as cheerfully as he
could, "and maybe he'll come by then. I have a feeling, Mrs. Mahoney,
that he's just surely going to come."

"I'm not thinkin' it," the old woman said bravely, "but I take it
kindly, young masther, that ye should thry an' make the goin' easy. But
it isn't easy, 'tis a hard returnin'. An' me so proud that me son should
send for his ould mother. 'Tis a great country this America, but it's
too big. I'd niver 'ave lost me Jim in the ould country. I see they're
callin' us, an' I wish ye an ould woman's blessin', young masther, for
your cheerin' me at the last."

With a certain dignity, the old woman turned away and shook hands with
all the officials, with whom she had become a favorite during the three
weeks of her stay. Hamilton just ached to be able to do something, to
tell the Commissioner of the later telegrams, to appeal to the
department, to make some wild effort, but the actuality of the group for
deportation slowly making their way to the barge showed him the folly of
any such ideas. He roused himself, just as the friendly official who had
been his guide turned round with outstretched hand.

"I think you have seen it all now," he said, "and as the boat from New
York is just pulling in, you'll have plenty of time to board her."

Hamilton thanked his conductor warmly, and with a final look at the
group about to be deported, the last few stragglers of whom were making
their way toward the barge, he started along the wharf in the direction
of the New York boat. He was on the opposite side of the ship and had to
walk round, but, as his friend had said, there was plenty of time. He
had a good view of the boat as she landed.

The minute the bow touched the quay, before the mooring chains were on,
a middle-aged man who had been standing in the front of the boat, leaped
the light chain that runs waist high across the bow, and started on a
dead run up the bridge to the shore. One of the inspectors tried to stop
him, but he cried, as he went past:

"I'm going to the Commissioner's office. Don't stop me. I'm in a hurry."

Hamilton could just hear him, and it struck the boy as unnecessary for
the man to say he was in a hurry, for he showed it clearly enough. But
just before the runner reached him a sudden thought flashed into the
boy's mind.

"Are you Jim Mahoney?" he called, just as the man swept by.

"Yes," answered the other, scarcely slackening speed and passing him.

Hamilton wheeled on the instant, and caught up to him in a few steps,
for the other man was older, not in training, and getting out of breath.

"You'll do it, don't worry," the boy said, as he overtook him, running
along beside him. "I was talking to your mother a few minutes ago and
she was all right. But she was just starting for the steamer then.
There's not a second to lose."

"What shall I do?" puffed the other.

"Go in there, by that door marked 'Information.' Tell them who you are
and they'll fix things up in a hurry. Then go up and see the
Commissioner. I'll go on and tell them at the boat."

Then, seeing that the man hesitated, he shouted:

"Go in there," and nudged him in the direction of the door.

As the man turned, Hamilton settled himself down to run. In a second he
was at the landing. The tender had just cast off her ropes and was
moving out.

"Bridget," he cried, and his voice rang high and clear above the
dripping of the water from the cable, the creaking of the wheel as it
swung round, and the churning of the screw. "Bridget, Bridget Mahoney,
Jim's here!"

The captain came to the window of the pilot house and called back:

"What's that?"

"Bridget!" he shouted again. "Bridget Mahoney's Jim's here!"

There was a pause, the captain not seeming to understand the situation,
but a cheer went up from the deportation officials on board and from
some of the tender's crew who knew; and the cry ran along the decks:

"Bridget, Bridget Mahoney! Jim's here!"

[Illustration: WHERE THE WORKERS COME FROM. Family of German
immigrants, passing through Ellis Island on their way to the Middle
West. (_Courtesy of U.S. Immigration Station, Ellis Island._)]




CHAPTER VI

THE NEGRO CENSUS FROM THE SADDLE


Leaving New York the next day after his visit to the Immigration Station
on Ellis Island, Hamilton stayed only a few hours in Washington to
receive final instructions before proceeding to the southwestern part of
Kentucky where his work as a population census-taker was to begin.

At the appointed place he found the supervisor awaiting him.

"I suppose you know," remarked his brother's friend, shaking hands,
"that I've given you a fairly well scattered district to cover. You said
you wanted to get a chance to see Kentucky as it really is, and this,
together with your mountain experience, ought to give you variety
enough."

"They told me in Washington that it was largely a negro district?" the
boy said questioningly.

"It is about as much of a black district as any in Kentucky," was the
reply, "but it isn't solid black by any means. Therein lies its
interest. The negroes are of all varieties, from old-time slaves who
have never left the plantation on which they were piccaninnies during
the war, to progressive negroes owning fair-sized tracts of land, most
of them still living in the one-room shacks that you see all over the
country, but a few having bought what used to be the 'big house' in
antebellum days."

"That's just exactly what I was after," Hamilton said with delight. "How
do I cover it, sir? In the saddle?"

"You can drive, if you want to," the supervisor replied, "and if it
wasn't for the agricultural schedules, I think it would be easier to do
the work from a buggy. But with the field work to consider, and in a
district as scattered as yours is, the saddle might work out better."

"I had been thinking of that," Hamilton said, "if a farmer was on the
other side of a plowed patch, I'd have no way of getting to him in a
buggy except by tying the horse and walking, while in the saddle I could
easily take short cuts. And I imagine, in a countryside such as you say
this is, I'll probably need to see every one on the place in order to
get anything like accurate figures."

"It's not at all unlikely," the supervisor rejoined. "Well, I thought
you would be needing a horse, and I've been looking round for one for
some time. I think I have the very one you will want. I told the owner
to hold back sale until you had a chance to look at her."

"Then the quicker I see the owner, the better?" suggested the boy.

"I think I had better go with you," the supervisor said, "and then they
won't try any over-clever work. Horse-dealing isn't always the most
guileless business, you know."

"So I've understood," Hamilton said, "and I really don't know enough to
judge the fine points of a horse."

"I was born and bred in the Blue Grass," his friend remarked, "and so
I've been around horses pretty much all my days. The census work is
quite a change from that."

"I hope you didn't have any bother over my coming in this somewhat
irregular way?" asked Hamilton, remembering what Mr. Burns had said to
him in Washington.

The supervisor laughed.

"Nothing serious," he said, "but there were several people who tried to
cut you out,--one of them especially. There were three applicants for
this district, and the one who was most resentful about an outsider
coming in wouldn't have been appointed under any circumstances. Indeed,
the best of the three undertook to describe the other two. His letter
was a wonder," he added, picking up one of the files; "I think I saved
it.--Yes, here it is. Read it, while I get ready to go out with you,"
and he handed the letter to Hamilton.

The letter was as follows in every detail:

     "MR. ----

     "Dr. Sir I made out the Blank for a Job taking Census was a going
     to make it & when I Got to the Postoffice there was such an a ray
     of aplicants I concluded not to do so

     "in the first Place there is two of these aplicants are Habichual
     Drunkards one Professor A---- the other Mr. P---- A---- was born in
     Canaday & has NO Interest here Except to be Suported by his wife &
     the Publick & has had his Last School to Teach in this Town. he is
     so Imoral People will not Tollerate him any Longer the Wrighter has
     seen him on a Saturday SO Drunk he would Fall against People he met
     if that is the Kind of Man you are looking For I don't want a Job I
     can get along without

     "I will send in my application Just the Same

     "Mr. P---- is Not fare behind and is Dealer in Coal & Feed & his
     Father has to take Cair of the Business for him.

     "Dont concider him for a moment Mr

     "as to my self this is the Firste time I ever aske for Publick
     Buisness & I am an Indipendent Belever of mans Privlages & always
     lived in this County

     "you have this Information Without feer of any of above statements
     Being Denide

     "I remain Resptfully

     "------"

Hamilton laughed as he returned the letter to the supervisor, who had
just come back with his hat and gloves as the boy finished reading the
epistle.

"I don't think I need have been afraid of any of those three as rivals,"
he said, "that is, if our friend is right. His information, however, may
not be any more correct than his spelling."

"It's exaggerated, of course," the supervisor answered, "that's easy to
see, but setting aside the question of jealousy there's a good deal of
truth in what he says. Selecting and teaching enumerators was no light
job, let me tell you. You take seventy-five to a hundred absolutely
green hands, who have never done anything like it before, and it is a
hard proposition to make them understand. When you have to try and teach
them in a few weeks just how to do what is really difficult to do well,
you have a heavy task on your hands."

"You didn't appoint any colored enumerators, I suppose?" Hamilton
questioned.

"No," the supervisor answered decidedly. "My judgment was against it to
start with and I couldn't see that any of my districts warranted it. It
may be different in counties where the proportion of colored population
runs as high as eighty and ninety per cent, but there are none like that
in Kentucky."

"Just in Georgia and Mississippi?"

"Alabama, South Carolina, and Arkansas have a few scattering 'black'
counties too," the supervisor answered, "for I wrote to several places
about this very colored enumerator question. I found the supervisors
over those districts about evenly divided for and against. I have been
able to get suitable men all through, I think, though I might have had
difficulty in securing a good appointee for your district."

"It's pretty wild out there evidently," Hamilton said anticipatorily.

"Not so much wild as isolated. Kentucky is scarcely a railroad center,
you know. Out of twenty-one counties in my district, fourteen possess
neither railroad, telegraph, nor telephone connection with the rest of
the world at all."

Hamilton whistled softly.

"I hadn't realized that there was any part of Kentucky as isolated as
that," he said, "even in the mountains. But I'm glad, just the same,
because these isolated communities are much more fun than the places
where everybody seems to be cut out by the same pattern."

"You'll find all the variety you want," the supervisor remarked, as he
turned into a big stable building, "and you'll need four legs more
beside your own two." He led the way to a stall near the far end of the
building, and brought out the little mare of which he had been speaking.

"What a beauty!" exclaimed the boy.

The supervisor laughed.

"That's no way to buy a horse," he said, turning to the stableman; "it's
a good thing I arranged the price before he came, or you'd have tacked
on another twenty dollars."

"Easy, and more than that," said the owner, with a grin.

"Well, Noble," said his friend, "I don't hear yon raising any
objections."

"I haven't any," the boy replied promptly. "And the price is what you
said to me?" he queried, turning to the supervisor.

"Yes, that stands," his friend replied.

"All right, then," said Hamilton, "I'll take her."

The supervisor pulled out his pocketbook.

"I had an idea," he said, "that you were just boy enough to want the
mare when you saw her and to want her right away. I made out a check for
the amount, and you can make one out to me when you get ready," and he
handed the slip to the boy.

Hamilton started to thank him, but the supervisor cut him short.

"If you'll come to the office this afternoon," he said, "the clerk will
give you the schedules and papers all ready made out for your district.
Here's a typewritten copy of the lectures I've been giving to the
enumerators, and while I don't suppose you really need to, you had
better read it over and return it to me when you're through with it. Now
I'm going to leave you here with this gentleman," he added, nodding to
the owner of the horse, "and you can arrange with him about getting a
saddle and so forth for the mare. Drop in at the office in the morning
as you start out and I'll make sure that nothing has been forgotten. See
you later," and with a nod to Hamilton, he stepped out of the stable.

To the boy the afternoon fairly seemed to fly, there were so many things
to do; and it was not until just before closing hours that he reached
the office and secured his portfolio. He had a brief chat with the
clerk, and went back to his hotel to study carefully the map of his
district and the route suggested, and to make sure that he thoroughly
understood the population and agricultural schedules he would have to
use. They were different in form, of course, from the manufacturing
schedules which the boy knew by heart, but the essential principles were
the same, and Hamilton found that in half an hour's time he saw plain
sailing.

"It's a mighty good thing I had that manufacturing work," he said half
aloud, "or I'd find this pretty tricky. I should think it would be hard
for any one not at all used to it."

By supper time--they kept to old-fashioned ways in the little
hotel--Hamilton felt himself perfectly sure of his ground on the work,
and he went to bed early, knowing he had a long ride and a hard day
before him.

The following morning, an early breakfast over, Hamilton started on the
journey to his enumeration district, stopping at the office for a
moment's chat with his friend the supervisor, and receiving his
good-luck wishes before he went. The mare was a delight, being
well-paced, and the horseman from whom Hamilton had bought the animal
had taken a great deal of pains to get him a saddle tree that fitted
him, so that the boy enjoyed every minute of the ride. He reached the
first point in his district about one o'clock, and after a hasty dinner
started to work. The place was a tiny village, containing about forty
houses.

The population work, as Hamilton had expected, proved to be
comparatively simple, and the first house he visited was a fair sample
of the greater number of those he tabulated all through the month. As a
typical example it impressed itself upon his memory. He began next door
to the house where he had eaten dinner. The natural privacy of a home
was quite different from the public nature of a factory, and Hamilton
felt a little strange as he walked up to the door and knocked.

"Good-morning," he said, as soon as the door was opened, "I'm the
census-taker and I called for the paper that was sent for you to fill
in."

"Yo' mean dat ar big sheet o' paper, jes' noth'n but quest'ns?" answered
the young negro woman, who appeared at the door.

"That's it," the boy answered, "is it all filled out and ready?"

"Lawsy, no! Why, it would take me fo' eveh to do all that writin'. Ah'm
no school-teacheh. An' besides, that's fo' fahmers. An' yo' have anotheh
jes' like it!" she continued, noting the portfolio the boy carried. "Ah
jes' know I can't eveh tell yo' all dose things."

"This is different," Hamilton pointed out. "Those other questions are
about farms, just as you say, but these are all about your own family."

"Yes, sah, yes, sah. Ah tol' mah husban' so when we were talkin' about
that yar farm business. The paper in the town gave a list o' questions,
an' Ah thought Ah would get mah Steve to help me get ready so's Ah sh'd
be able to answer yo' rightly when yo' come aroun', but he jes' said he
was too tiehed to do anythin', an' dat ar census list is the
confusin'est thing Ah eveh saw. Ah thought Ah ought to do somethin', an'
so Ah jes' took a big sheet o' wrappin' paper an' started to write the
answers to the quest'ns on that, thinkin' some o' the neighbors'
children would copy it on the sheet fo' me. But, I tell yo', sah, that
befo' I was half way through tellin' what the newspaper said we had to
tell, I was so mixed up that I was writin' mahself down as mah own
daughter and provin' that the baby was twice divo'ced."

"Then you really haven't got anything ready at all," said Hamilton.

"Nothin', sah."

"Then I'll just have to ask you the questions, and put the answers down
myself," the boy said cheerfully. "We might as well start right now."

"Won't yo' come in, sah?" the woman suggested. "Yo'll need a table, an'
pens an' ink."

"I have a fountain pen," the lad answered, "but it would be easier
writing on a table. I guess I will come in. Now," he continued, as soon
as he was seated, "has this house a number?"

"Yas, sah," the woman replied, "seventeen, High Street."

"And this is the first family I've seen, and the first house," said
Hamilton, entering a "1" in both columns. "Now for the head of the
family. I think you said something about your husband?"

"Yas, sah, Steve, he's my husban'. We done been married six years."

"You say his name is Stephen? What is his other name?"

"Lawson, sah."

"He's colored, I suppose."

"Yas, sah, he's quite dark complected."

"And you're his first wife?" queried the boy, as he wrote "Lawson,
Stephen," in the name column, the word "Head" in the relation column,
and the letter "B" for black, under the color or race column.

"Ah reckon Ah'm his first wife," the woman replied, "he was jes'
twenty-one when Ah married him."

"And you've been married six years," the boy went on, entering Stephen
Lawson's age as 27, the number of years married as "6," and "M. 1," to
show that he was married, and married only once. "But you look like a
girl still," he added, "you must have been married very young."

"Ah was jes' sixteen," she answered; "we was married on mah birthday."

"And your name is--?"

"Lily, sah."

"Any other name?"

"Mariamne, sah."

For a moment or two Hamilton wrote busily, filling in "Lily M.," "Wife,"
"F" for female, "Mu" for mulatto, "22" for present age, "M. 1" for first
marriage, and "6" for the number of years in wedlock.

"You have children?"

"One li'l boy, sah, but he's deaf an' dumb. An' so quick an' clever,
sah, in other ways, yo' wouldn' believe!"

"That's hard luck," said Hamilton kindly, "but they do such wonderful
things to help them now, you know. And he can learn a lot by reading."

"Yas, sah, it's hard enough. But we're glad he ain't blind."

"And what is his name?"

"Edward Habberton, sah, an' he's jes' fo' years old, near five."

Hamilton entered the name of the little deaf and dumb boy, whom he
could see sitting in an inner room, and noted down in the schedule his
age, his color, and the nature of his affliction.

"Now, Lily," he continued, "were you both born in Kentucky?"

"No, sah," she r

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