CHAPTER XVII
THE WHIPPER-IN
When the mill opened the next day, there was work for Jud Carpenter. He came in and approached the superintendent's desk briskly.
“Well, suh, hu' many to-day?” he asked.
Kingsley looked over his list of absentees.
“Four, and two of them spinners. Carpenter, you must go at once and see about it. They are playing off, I am sure.”
“Lem'me see the list, suh,”—and he ran his eye over the names.
“Bud Billings—plague his old crotchety head—. He kno's that machine's got to run, whether no. Narthin's the matter with him—bet a dollar his wife licked him last night an' he's mad about it.”