"They are legs all right," said the Interpreter, still smiling, "but
they're not much good, are they? Do you think you could beat me in a
race?"

"Gee!" exclaimed the boy.

Two bright tears rolled down the thin, dirty cheeks of the little
girl's tired face, and she turned to look away over the dirty Flats,
the smoke-grimed mills, and the golden fields of grain in the sunshiny
valley, to something that she seemed to see in the far distant sky.

With a quick movement the Interpreter again hid his useless limbs.

"And now don't you think you might tell me about yourselves? What is
your name, my boy?"

"I'm Bobby Whaley," answered the lad. "She's my sister, Maggie."

"Oh, yes," said the Interpreter. "Your father is Sam Whaley. He works
in the Mill."

"Uh-huh, some of the time he works--when there ain't no strikes ner
nothin'."

The Interpreter, with his eyes on that dark cloud that hung above the
forest of grim stacks, appeared to attach rather more importance to
Bobby's reply than the lad's simple words would justify.

Then, looking gravely at Sam Whaley's son, he said, "And you will work
in the Mill, too, I suppose, when you grow up?"