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said.
    â€œOh, he herds us over there, all right. The boys, the cooks, the mill hands in general. Then Hoggart he goes off to the Episcopal Church himself. Congregational ain’t good enough for him. Least that’s his story. But he don’t go. He heads on back to the mill.”
    We opened our baskets and started eating our pork and johnnycake. “How do you know, Tom?” Hetty said.
    He winked. “I don’t mind going to church in bad weather. It’s as good a place for a snooze as any, I reckon. But you take fine weather, when the sun’s a-shinin’, and the birds are singin’, and things are in bloom—it don’t suit me to be in church. I slink off to the tail end of the herd, and when old Hoggart’s got his back turned I duck behind a tree, and then scoot off into somebody’s cornfield and lie out in the sun for two or three hours until I figure the sermon’s about wound down and it’s time for dinner. Plenty of times I seen Hoggart come out of church after he’s herded everybody in, and head back for the mill. He don’t go to church at all.”
    â€œWhat if Colonel Humphreys catches him?” Hetty Brown said. “Would he discharge him?”
    â€œWell, I wish he would,” Tom said.
    Then from the direction of the door there came a shout. “Thrush.”
    Tom whipped around. Mr. Hoggart was standing there, about twenty feet away, his arms folded over his chest. He stared at Tom, and then he stared at me. Hetty and I jumped up, scared as could be. Mr. Hoggart came charging down the mill floor. Tom turned to run, but Mr. Hoggart was on him like a shot. He grabbed Tom by the ear, and gave him a smack across the head that nearly knocked him down. Tom twisted loose and jumped back, but Mr. Hoggart grabbed him, and this time he swatted Tom across the face. Tom sat down hard and wrapped his arms around his head. Mr. Hoggart kicked him in the side. Tom doubled over onto the floor, holding onto his stomach. Mr. Hoggart raised his boot again. Then he thought better of it. He put his foot down and walked away, back toward where Hetty and I were staring down at the floor, our hearts beating fast, feeling mighty scared. He walked slowly up to us. But he didn’t look at Hetty; he looked at me. He crossed his arms and roamed his eyes over me, and then he said in a low voice, “Annie, I don’t want you to be talking to that boy anymore.” He turned and went away.
    I heard a little noise behind me, and I took a quick look around. Tom Thrush was standing there. His nose was bleeding and one of his eyes was swelling up. He was holding onto his side with his bad hand, and trying to wipe his nose with a piece of wool. His breath was coming fast and trembly, in big gulps. For a minute he couldn’t speak. Then he gritted his teeth and said, low and fierce, “I’m goin’ to kill him. The first chance I git, I’m goin’ to kill him.” He limped away, holding his side.

CHAPTER FIVE
    A S MUCH AS I HATED the mill, it was hard to stay angry with Pa, for sometimes he could be mighty jolly. The best times were when there was a corn-husking or a barn-raising, and a dozen families gathered to share out the work. Pa was always at the center of such things, laughing and singing, and raising up everybody’s spirits. Not long after I started at the mill, we had a corn-husking bee. Pa and George had cut the cornstalks down at the end of August. The stalks had been lying in the field for a month now, drying. Pa and Ma and George gathered them all in, and divided them into two great piles in front of the house—six feet high, the piles were. Ma and I spent the next Sunday roasting meat, baking bread, making pies. That afternoon the people came—Robert and his family, and Hetty Brown and her family, who lived in the village on the green, and a whole lot of others. I shouldn’t wonder if there were twenty of us all