Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/26

16 into her windows, to reassure her, like some kind, understanding parent, and sing her to sleep, with their pleasant hum. Not for anything would she have mentioned to her mother or aunts the comfort the mills were to her. They did not believe in coddling. They might have changed her room to the other side of the house, where there were only the fields, and the lonely farm-house to be seen, and where, instead of the distant chorus of revolving wheels and flying belts blended into harmonious din, was nothing to be heard out-of-doors except, in August and September, the mournful drone of crickets in the grass.

Even when she was older and no longer afraid of the darkness of night, the mills teeming with life and activity could pierce through the gloom of her eventless days.

Sitting now idle and listless in her rocking-chair, Reba found exhilaration in picturing to herself the contrasting scene down there behind the mill windows. She had intended to go down to the mills to-night and watch the employees pour out of the big side doors at six o'clock. She had intended to join the noisy throng herself for a little way, and bring back to this deadly quiet little bedroom of hers bits of boisterous laughter, impetuous speech, and joyous jargon to feed her starved soul on.

If Aunt Augusta hadn't interfered, and Reba had gone down to the mills, she would have hidden herself first in a secret corner by a brick fire-wall, as she had done many times before, and, thus concealed, would have watched the mill-hands wash up at the long row of soapstone sinks in the basement. She didn't know why it fascinated her so to watch those