"I don't have to work; my folks keep a hotel; but I always heard so much
about Perry I thought I'd like to come up, and," she sighed, with a
flirt of the lace handkerchief and a contented glance around at the rows
of white frame houses, "I'm up now."

"Want board?" the drayman called to me. "You kin count on me for a good
place. There's Doctor Meadows, now; he's got a nice home and he just
wants two boarders."

The middle-aged woman with the glasses glanced up quickly.

"Doctor Meadows of Tittihute?" she asked. "I wont go there; he's too
strict. He's a Methodist minister. You couldn't have any fun at all."

I followed suit, denouncing Doctor Killjoy as she had, hoping that her
nervous, frisky step would lead me toward the adventure she was
evidently seeking.

"Well," the drayman responded indulgently, "I guess Mr. Norse will know
the best place for you folks."

We had come at once to the factory and the end of the boardwalk. It was
but a few minutes before Mr. Norse had revealed himself as the pivot,
the human hub, the magnet around which the mechanism of the mill
revolved and clung, sure of finding its proper balance. Tall, lank and
meager, with a wrinkled face and a furtive mustache, Mr. Norse made his
rounds with a list of complaints and comments in one hand, a pencil in
the other and a black cap on his head which tipped, indulgent, attentive
to hear and overhear. His manner was professional. He looked at us,