“Three to four,” he answered.
“How much do you make?”
“About $2.40 a week.”
Then hastily I put the question: “How old are you!”
“Goin’ on tweayulve,” he responded. “I’ve been workin’ about four years. I come in here when I was seayvun.”
“Ever been to school?”
He shook his head. “No, meayum. I don’t know if I would like it. I reckon I’d as soon work here as be in school.”
“How many hours do you work here a day!”
“From six until six.”
The noise of the machine was distracting, and as I bent over him to catch his answer piped in a shrill, nasal voice, I could not but notice how fine and delicate his features were; the deep eyes, the high arched nose, the slender lips were placed in the oval face as features only can be placed by the unerring mold that breeding casts. Observing, also, the miniature shoulders that seemed to have been oppressed by some iron hand, I said: