Page:Poor White.djvu/129

 in the streets, the dark spaces between the walls rumble with strange and appalling noises. The mice are terribly afraid. Now and then a single mouse for a moment escapes the general fear. A mood comes over such a one and a light comes into his eyes. When the noises run through the houses he makes up stories about them. ' The horses of the sun are hauling wagon loads of days over the tops of trees," he says and looks quickly about to see if he has been heard. When he discovers a female mouse looking at him he runs away with a flip of his tail and the female follows. While other mice are repeating his saying and getting some little comfort from it, he and the female mouse find a warm dark corner and lie close together. It is because of them that mice continue to be born to dwell within the walls of the houses. When the first small model of Hugh McVey's plant- setting machine had been whittled out by the half-wit Allie Mulberry, it replaced the famous ship, floating in the bottle, that for two or three years had been lying in the window of Hunter's jewelry store. Allie was inordinately proud of the new specimen of his handi- work. As he worked under Hugh's directions at a bench in a corner of the deserted pickle factory, he was like a strange dog that has at last found a mas- ter. He paid no attention to Steve Hunter who, with the air of one bearing in his breast some gigantic se- cret, came in and went out at the door twenty times a day, but kept his eyes on the silent Hugh who sat at a desk and made drawings on sheets of paper. Al- lie tried valiantly to follow the instructions given him and to understand what his master was trying to do,