"That he will not live six months. That army of boys of which he speaks so often will never go on the march, the banners he has designed for it will wave over no other battalions than those he has seen in dreams, and the drums will sound the final 'taps' for him before they roll for the advance. And in that sleep, the cries of the children shall all be happy ones."
EIGHT YEARS OLD AND "TIRED OF WORKING." Boy in Southern cotton mill who has been employed "two summers and a winter before that."
CHAPTER V
"DON'T DEPORT MY OLD MOTHER!"
The "crusader's" talk on the child-labor question set Hamilton's mind working, and as soon as he got back to Washington and was busy tabulating the manufacturing statistics which had been gathered and sent in, he tried to learn something about the employment of children. He chanced to meet one of the photographers who had been with the Congressional commission, and the tales this man told were even more detailed. Hamilton found that the figures quoted had not been overstated, and he determined that just as soon as he grew old enough he would do all he could toward correcting this abuse.
But Hamilton found the actual statistical work not a little tedious, although it was work which usually he enjoyed, and this sense of the time dragging was largely due to the fact that the boy had not heard a word about his being considered in line for the population work. It was therefore a considerable relief to him when Mr. Burns said to him suddenly one morning:
"So you're going over to the population side, I hear?"