Now we all know that the amount of work these little ones can do is not much, and yet I have been surprised and horrified at the number of hours a day a six or a seven year old will stay at work, and this with the willing and eager consent of the parents. “Freckled Bill,” a bright lad of five years, told me that he worked, and his mother added reproachfully, “He kin make fifteen cents any day he wants to work, but he won’t do it steady.” Annie, seven years old, is a steady worker. The mother said, for her benefit, of course, “She kin beat me shuckin’, an’ she’s mighty good at housework too, but I mustn’t praise her too much right before her.” This is only one of the means used to keep the children at work. Another method is to tell the neighbors that Annie can shuck eight pots a day. Then some other child beats the record, and so the interest is kept up, and incidentally the work is done and the family income enlarged. Can we call that motherhood? Compared with real maternity, it is a distorted perversion, a travesty. The baby at Ellis Island little dreams what is in store for him. Hundreds of these children from four to twelve years of age are regularly employed, often as helpers, for the greater part of the six months if it is a good season. At three and four years of age they play around and help a little, “learnin’ de trade.” At five and six years of age they work more regularly, and at seven and eight years, they put in long hours every working day. This is the regular program for these children day after day, week after week for the six months of their alleged—“outing down South.” I remarked to one of the village people, “It’s a wonder that these youngsters live through it all.” “Yes,” she replied, “and when they _don’t_ live through it, there is a corner over in a little cemetery waiting for them, and _many of them go there_.” You see, “They’re only Hickeys.” I suppose the cemetery is one of the “conveniences” that the company does not boast about. [Illustration: CHILDREN OF THE OYSTER CANNERIES A young girl who has been shucking six years and earns a dollar a day; a little mother who alternates baby tending and oyster shucking; a ten-year-old worker has no time for school. ]