Dan listened with the flattering homage a slow, taciturn nature often
pays a quick, vivacious one. It was only when problems concerning the
factory were touched upon that his tongue lost its stiffness. Under an
unswerving loyalty to his employers was growing a discontent with certain
existing conditions. The bad lighting system, the lack of ventilation,
the employment of children under age, were subjects that rendered him
eloquent. That cruel month spent in the reformatory had branded him so
deeply that he was supersensitive to the wrongs of others, and spent much
of his time in planning ways and means to better conditions.
"Don't you ever want a good time, Dan?" Nance asked. "Don't you ever want
to sort of let go and do something reckless?"
"No; but I'll tell you what I do want. I want a' education. I've a good
mind to go to night school and try to pick up some of the things I
didn't get a chance to learn when I was a kid."
Nance scoffed the idea; school was almost invisible to her from the giddy
height of sixteen. "Let's go on a bat," she urged. "Let's go out and see
something."
So on the four following Sundays Dan took her to see the library, the
reservoir, the city hall, and the jail. His ideas of recreation had not
been cultivated.
The time in the week to which she always looked forward was Saturday
afternoon. Then they got out early, and if the weather was fine, they
would stop in Post-Office Square and, sitting on one of the iron benches,
watch the passing throng.
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