“That will do us no good,” said Kingsley—“what he is mad about. That machine must be started at once. The others you can see afterwards.”
Carpenter jerked his slouch hat down over his eyes and went quickly out.
In half an hour he was back again. His hat was off, his face was red, his shaggy eyebrows quivered with angry determination, as, with one hand in the collar of the frightened Bud, he pulled the slubber into the superintendent's presence.
Following her husband came Mrs. Billings—a small, bony, wiry, black-eyed woman, with a firmly set mouth and a perpetual thunder-cloud on her brow—perhaps the shadow of her coarse, crow-black hair.
While Jud dragged him, she carried a stick and prodded Bud in the rear. Nor was she chary in abuse.
Jerked into the superintendent's presence, Bud's scared eyes darted here and there as if looking for a door to break through, and all the time they were silently protesting. His hands, too, joined in the protest; one of them wagged beseechingly behind appealing to his spouse to desist—the other went through the same motion in front begging Jud Carpenter for mercy.
But not a word did he utter—not even a grunt did he make.
They halted as quickly as they entered. Bud's eyes sought the ceiling, the window, the floor,—anywhere but straight ahead of him.
His wife walked up to the superintendent's desk—she was hot and flushed. Her small black eyes, one of which was cocked cynically, flashed fire, her coarse hair fell across her forehead, or was plastered to her head with perspiration.
It was pathetic to look at Bud, with his deep-set, scared eyes. Kingsley had never heard him speak a word, nor had he even been able to catch his eye. But he was the best slubber in the mill—tireless, pain-staking. His place could not be filled.