wrung out of the soapy water. The woman had been washing, and the vapor was rising from the black pot of boiling suds, but, seeing their approach, she had gone to her door, her babe on her arm and the other children trooping at her heels and clinging to her skirts. They peered up from under frowzy, overhanging locks of hair like a group of ragged, bedraggled Scotch terriers.
The mother herself seemed scarcely older than the oldest, and Thryng regarded her with amazement when he noticed her infantile, undeveloped face and learned that she had brought into the world all those who clustered about her. His amazement grew as he entered the dark little cabin and saw that they must all eat and sleep in its one small room, which they seemed to fill to overflowing as they crowded in after him, accompanied by three lean hounds, who sniffed suspiciously at his leggings.
Far in the darkest corner lay the father on a pallet of corn-husks covered with soiled bedclothing. The windows were mere holes in the walls, unglazed, unframed, and closed at night or in bad weather by wooden shutters, when the room was lighted only by the flames from the now black and empty fireplace. Here, while mother and children were out by "the branch" washing, the injured man lay alone, stoically patient, declaring that his "laig" was some better, that he did not feel "so much misery in hit as yesterday."
Thryng had seen much squalor and wretchedness, but never before in a home in the country where women and children were to be found. For a moment he looked helplessly at the