"Sure I did. You oughta seen his face." But there was very little triumph or satisfaction in Buzz Werner's face or voice as he said it. "Course, I didn't know it was him when I done it. I dunno would it have made any difference if I had." She seemed so old and so shrunken, in spite of her bulk, as she looked up at him. The look in her eyes was so strained. The way her hand brought her apron-corner up to her mouth, as though to stifle the fear that shook her, was so groping, somehow, so uncertain, that, paradoxically, the pitifulness of it reacted to make him savage. When she quavered her next question, "What was he doin' in the mill?" he turned toward the stairway again, flinging his answer over his shoulder. "Learnin' the business, that's what. From the ground up, see?" He turned at the first stair and leaned forward and down, one hand on the door-jamb. "Well, believe me he don't use me as no ground-dirt. An' when I'm takin' the screen off the big roll--see?--he comes up to me an' says I'm handlin' it rough an' it's a delicate piece of mechanism. 'Who're you?' I says. 'Never mind who I am' he says, 'I'm working' on this job,' he says, 'an' this is a paper mill you're workin' in,' he says, 'not a boiler factory. Treat the machinery accordin', like a real workman,' he says. The simp! I just stepped down off the platform of the big press, and I says, 'Well, you look like a kinda delicate piece of mechanism yourself,' I says, 'an' need careful handlin', so take that for a starter,' I says. An' with that I handed him one in the nose." Buzz laughed, but there was little mirth in it. "I bet he seen enough wheels an' delicate machinery that minute to set up a whole new plant." There was nothing of mirth in the woman's drawn face. "Oh, Ernie, f'r God's sake! What they goin' to do to you!" He was half way up the narrow stairway, she at the foot of it, peering up at him. "They won't do anything. I guess old Hatton ain't so stuck on havin' his swell golf club crowd know his little boy was beat up by one of the workmen." He was clumping about upstairs now. So she turned toward the kitchen, dazedly. She glanced at the clock. Going on toward five. Still in the absurd hat she got out a panful of potatoes and began to peel them skilfuly, automatically. The seamed and hardened fingers had come honestly by their deftness. They had twirled and peeled pecks--bushels--tons of these brown balls in their time. At five-thirty Pa came in. At six, Minnie. She had to go back to the Sugar Bowl until nine. Five minutes later the supper was steaming on the table.