I stood for a moment looking up at the everlasting hills when suddenly a little boy ran screaming up to me, crying, “Oh Mother Jones! Mother Jones! Did you come to stay with us?” He was crying and rubbing his eyes with his dirty little fist.
“Yes, my lad, I’ve come to stay,” said I.
A guard was listening.
“You have?” says he.
“I have!” says I.
The little fellow threw his arms around my knees and held me tight.
“Oh Mother, Mother,” said he, “they drove my papa away and we don’t know where he is, and they threw my mama and all the kids out of the house and they beat my mama and they beat me.”
He started to cry again and I led him away up the creek. All the way he sobbed out his sorrows, sorrows no little child should ever know; told of brutalities no child should ever witness.
“See, Mother, I’m all sore where the gunmen hit me,” and he pulled down his cotton shirt and showed me his shoulders which were black and blue.
“The gunmen did that?”