"
"There's a cotton seed mill up the tracks a way toward town, and we can
sleep there, if you want ... to-day's Sunday, and no one will be around,
working, to disturb us. In the South it's all right for a tramp to sleep
among cotton seed, provided he doesn't smoke there."
"Come on, then, let's find a place. I can hardly hold my head up."
We slumped along the track. A cinder cut into my foot through the broken
sole of one shoe. It made me wince and limp.
Soon we came to the cotton seed house and looked it over from the
outside. It was a four-square building, each side having a door. All the
doors but one were locked. That one, when pushed against, tottered over.
We climbed in over the heavy sacks, seemingly full of cement, with which
the unlocked door had been propped to. It also was unhinged.
It was dark inside. There were no windows.
We struck matches and explored. We found articles of heavier hardware
scattered and piled about, some sacks of guano, and about a dozen wired
bales of hay.
"I thought this was a cotton seed mill," commented Bud, "because I saw
so many niggers working around it, when I passed by, the other time."
"Well, and what is it, then?"
"Evidently a warehouse--where they store heavier articles of hardware."
"What are you going to do?"
"Twist the wires off a couple of these bales of hay, use it for bedding,
and have a good sleep anyhow.
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