“Oh, yes, they do,” again protested Hamilton.  “It must be that they don’t know.”

“How can they help but know?  There are a few that have heard what Spargo calls ‘The Bitter Cry of the Children,’ but those few are very few, an’ the misery an’ shame goes on, gettin’ worse with ev’ry year.”

“What’s going to be done?”

“The children will have to rescue the children,” the boy cried.  “If men’s hearts are cold and women’s hearts are asleep, at least the boys can hear.  There’s no power like a boy’s, an’ a boy will do anythin’ that’s big and brave and worth the doin’.  In a year from now I’m goin’ to start a crusade, like the Children’s Crusade in hist’ry, an’ march to every mill an’ fact’ry in the United States where a child is workin’, and make the owner sign a paper pledgin’ himself not to employ a child again.  Give me an army of American boys an’ I’ll sweep the country like a flight o’ locusts.”

“But who would join?”

“Every boy worth his salt.  S’pose I came to you an’ said ’In that mill at the end o’ your street, little children are bein’ slaved and driven to death because no one has the nerve to say what they think.  We’ll rescue those children.  Join us, we’re five hundred strong!’ Would you go along?”

“Guess I’d have to join,” the boy agreed, “but you’d get into all sorts of trouble.”

“Can I get into a worse trouble than any o’ those babies have?” the other asked indignantly.  “What right have I to go on, even as I do, knowin’ how they are sufferin’.  I don’t care about trouble, I’ve had nothin’ else all my life.  But if by gettin’ into trouble myself, I could get even one hollow-eyed shadow of a child to run about and play like other folks, I’d be willin’ to take anythin’ that come after.  I don’t see that carryin’ bottles is goin’ to help the world much, but if I can carry hope an’ health to some little boy or girl, I’m goin’ to do it.  How, I don’t know.  But I ain’t goin’ to die without bein’ able to remember some poor child that’s better off because lived.”

“What can I do to help?” asked Hamilton eagerly and aggressively, as though he expected instant marching orders to some distant factory.

“You can do somethin’,—­every boy can do somethin’.  If nothin’ else, you can help to wake a sleepin’ an’ selfish nation.  If the cryin’ o’ the children has ever rung in your ears, it’ll never stop till you’re doin’ somethin’ to help.  Do you think I could dream every day, as I do, o’ that ’spectral army of pygmy people sucked in from the hills to dance beside the crazing wheel’ and not do somethin’?”

“But—­”

“Could I hear trampin’ round me day an’ night, the laggin’ step of a ‘gaunt goblin army that outwatches the sun by day an’ the stars by night, an’ work an’ sleep in peace?  An’ there’s one thing more to say, an’ then I must go,—­that there’s a stain o’ shame ’pon the honor of America that’ll never be wiped away until child labor is put down!”