The Brimming Cup

"That's the top of the Eagle Rocks, where you see the sky," explained

his small cicerone, seeing the direction of his eyes. "The Powerses lost

a lot of sheep off over them, last year. A dog must ha' started running

them down in the pasture. And you know what fools sheep are. Once they

get scared they can't think of anything to do except just to keep

a-running till something gets in their way. About half of the Powers

flock just ran themselves off the top of the Rocks, although the dog had

stopped chasing them, way down in the valley. There wasn't enough of

them left, even to sell to the butcher in Ashley for mutton. Ralph

Powers, he's about as old as I am, maybe a little bit older, well, his

father had given him a ewe and two twin lambs for his own, and didn't

they all three get killed that day! Ralph felt awful bad about it. He

don't ever seem to have any luck, Ralph don't."

. . . How sweet it was, Mr. Welles thought to himself, how awfully sweet

to be walking in such pine-woods, on the early morning, preceded by such

a wildly happy little dog, with a little boy whose treble voice ran on

and on, whose strong little hand clasped yours so tightly, and who

turned up to you eyes of such clear trust! Was he the same man who for

such endless years had been a part of the flotsam cast out every morning

into the muddy, brawling flood of the city street and swept along to

work which had always made him uneasy and suspicious of it?

"There's the whistle," said Paul, holding up a finger. "Father has the

first one blown at half-past six, so's the men can have time to get

their things ready and start; and not have to hurry."

At this a faint stirring of interest in what the child was saying broke

through the golden haze of the day-dream in which Mr. Welles was

walking. "Where do they come from anyhow, the men who work in your

father's mill?" he asked. "Where do they live? There are so few homes at

Crittenden's."

"Oh, they live mostly over the hill in the village, in Ashley. There are

lots of old houses there, and once in a while now they even have to

build a new one, since the old ones are all filled up. Mr. Bayweather

says that before Father and Mother came here to live and really run the

mill, that Ashley Street was all full of empty houses, without a light

in them, that the old folks had died out of. But now the men have bought

them up and live in them. It's just as bright, nights! With windows

lighted up all over. Father's had the electric current run over there

from the mill, now, and that doesn't cost anything except . . ."