“Now, Miss Goodman, keep close to me and walk carefully,” said her guide.
“Let me hold your hand,” said the child, who already began to feel excited as the first piece of machinery came in view. Then, pausing at the threshold of floor number one, “Oh! what a noise,” she cried, “and what a host of people! Which one is Flywheel Bob?”
“Yonder he sits, miss,” replied the superintendent, pointing to the curved figure of a boy—we might better say child; for, in the two and a half years since we last met him, Bob has hardly grown a quarter of an inch. “Why doesn’t he sit straight?” asked Daisy, approaching him.
“Because, miss, Bob minds his task.”
“Well, he does indeed; for he hasn’t looked at me once, while all the rest are staring.”
“You are the first young lady that
has ever honored us by a visit,” answered the foreman.
“Am I?” exclaimed Daisy, not a little gratified to have so many eyes fastened upon her. At children’s parties, pretty as she was, she had rivals; here there were none. And now, as she moved daintily along, with her glossy curls swaying to and fro, and her sleeves not quite hiding the gold bracelets on her snowy wrists, she formed indeed a bewitching picture. Presently they arrived beside Flywheel Bob; then Daisy stopped and surveyed him attentively, wondering why he still refused to notice her. “How queerly he behaves!” she said inwardly, “and how pale he is! I wonder what he gets to eat? His fingers are like spiders’ claws. I’d rather be Rover than Bob.” While she thus soliloquized the poodle kept snuffing at the boy’s legs, and his tail, which at first had evinced no sign of emotion, was now wagging slowly from side to side, like as one who moves with doubt and deliberation. Mayhap strange thoughts were flitting through Rover’s head at this moment. Perchance dim memories were being awakened of a damp abode underground; of a baby twisting knots in his shaggy coat; of hard times, when a half-picked bone was a feast. Who knows? But while the dog poked his nose against the boy’s ragged trowsers, while his tail wagged faster and faster, while his mistress said to herself: “I’ll tell pa about poor Bob, and he shall come to Long Branch with us,” the object of her pity continued as unmoved by the attention bestowed on him as if he had been that metal rod flashing back and forth in yon cylinder.
“How many hours does Bob work?” inquired Daisy, moving
away and drawing Rover along by the ear; for Rover seemed unwilling to depart.