“Why, what do you mean, Alice?” asked her mother, surprised.
“Just this, mother, and I have been thinking of talking to Richard about it for some time.”
Travis took his cigar out of his mouth and looked at her quizzically.
She flushed under his gaze and added: “If I wasn't saying what I am for humanity's sake I would be willing to admit that it was impertinent on my part. But are you satisfied with the way you work little children in that mill, Richard, and are you willing to let it go on without a protest before your directors? You have such a fine opportunity for good there,” she added in all her old beautiful earnestness.
“Oh, Alice, my dear, that is none of our affair. Now I should not answer her, Richard,” and Mrs. Westmore tapped him playfully on the arm.
“Frankly, I am not,” he said to Alice. “I think it is a horrible thing. But how are we to remedy it? There is no law on the subject at all in Alabama—”
“Except the broader, unwritten law,” she added.
Travis laughed: “You will find that it cuts a small figure with directors when it comes in conflict with the dividends of a corporation.”
“But how is it there?” she asked,—“in New England?”
“They have seen the evils of it and they have a law against child labor. The age is restricted to twelve years, and every other year they must go to a public school before they may be taken back into the mill. But even with all that, the law is openly violated, as it is in England, where they have been making efforts to throttle the child-labor problem for nearly a century, and after whose law the New England law was patterned.”