“What is it you do?” I asked, and again my voice sounded strange.  “Is it a box-factory you’re in?”

“Soap and pills.”  Head thrown back, Jimmy drained the last drop of coffee from his cup, then scraped the latter with a tin spoon for its last bit of sugar.  “We are pasters, our gang is.  We paste the paper on the boxes.  There’s a boy sits next to me what’s the fastest paster in town, but I’m going to beat him some day.  I can paste almost as fast as he can now.”

“He could beat him now if he didn’t play so much.”  In his mother’s voice was neither scolding nor complaint.  “Jimmy always would play some from the time he was born.  His boss says he’s the best worker he’s got ’cepting the boy who sits next to him, and if he’d just stay still all day—­”

“Oh, can he play?” I made no apology for the interruption.  The child was undersized and illy-nourished, and to let him work ten hours a day seemed a crime for which I, and all others who cared for children, were somehow responsible.  But if he had a chance to play—­

“When old Miss High-Spy goes out the room we play.”  Jimmy gave his trousers a jerk and made effort to force connection between a button and a buttonhole belonging respectively to his upper and his lower garments.  “She’s a regular old tale-teller, but soon as she’s out the room we get down from our bench and rush around and tag each other.  Our benches ’ain’t got no backs to ’em, and if we didn’t get off sometimes we couldn’t sit up all day.  The other fellows, the big ones, don’t tell on us.  They make us put the windows down from the top when she’s out.”

“Do you mean you don’t have any air in the room?” My voice was unbelieving, and at something in my face Jimmy laughed.

“Not when we’re working.  The wind might blow the little pieces of paper off the table and we’d lose time getting ’em, she says.  Some the boys get so sick from the heat and the glue smell they heave up their breakfast and can’t eat nothing all day.  I ’ain’t fainted but twice since I been there, but Alex Hobbs keels over once a week, anyhow.  Used to frighten me at first when I saw him getting green-y, but I don’t mind it now.”

With a quick turn of his head Jimmy looked at a small clock on the shelf above the wash-tubs, and got up with even quicker movement.  “I forgot about the wood, and the papers will be ready ’fore I can get there if I don’t hurry.  Good-by to you all,” and, slamming the door behind him, he ran down the kitchen steps into the yard, where in a moment we heard him whistling as he chopped the wood that must be brought up for the morning.

It was not often Mrs. Gibbons had a listener who had never before heard of her hardships, and after explaining to me why Jimmy was at home at that time of the day, his presence being due not to trifling on his part, but to the half-time the factory was running, she gave herself up to the luxury of telling me in detail of her many misfortunes and of her inability to get through the winter unless additional help were given her.