glimpse of day across the housetops as he turned his back on it and went in
through the factory gate. It was another day, of all the days, and all the
days were alike.

And yet there had been variety in his life--at the times he changed from
one job to another, or was taken sick. When he was six, he was little
mother and father to Will and the other children still younger. At seven
he went into the mills--winding bobbins. When he was eight, he got work in
another mill. His new job was marvellously easy. All he had to do was to
sit down with a little stick in his hand and guide a stream of cloth that
flowed past him. This stream of cloth came out of the maw of a machine,
passed over a hot roller, and went on its way elsewhere. But he sat always
in one place, beyond the reach of daylight, a gas-jet flaring over him,
himself part of the mechanism.

He was very happy at that job, in spite of the moist heat, for he was still
young and in possession of dreams and illusions. And wonderful dreams he
dreamed as he watched the steaming cloth streaming endlessly by. But there
was no exercise about the work, no call upon his mind, and he dreamed less
and less, while his mind grew torpid and drowsy. Nevertheless, he earned
two dollars a week, and two dollars represented the difference between
acute starvation and chronic underfeeding.

But when he was nine, he lost his job. Measles was the cause of it. After
he recovered, he got work in a glass factory. The pay was better, and the
work demanded skill. It was piecework, and the more skilful he was, the
bigger wages he earned. Here was incentive. And under this incentive he
developed into a remarkable worker.

It was simple work, the tying of glass stoppers into small bottles. At his