E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE TANGLED THREADS

ELEANOR H. PORTER

New York
The Christian Herald
Bible House

Contents

A DELAYED HERITAGE THE FOLLY OF WISDOM CRUMBS A FOUR-FOOTED FAITH AND A TWO A MATTER OF SYSTEM ANGELUS THE APPLE OF HER EYE A MUSHROOM OF COLLINGSVILLE THAT ANGEL BOY THE LADY IN BLACK THE SAVING OF DAD MILLIONAIRE MIKE'S THANKSGIVING WHEN MOTHER FELL ILL THE GLORY AND THE SACRIFICE THE DALTONS AND THE LEGACY THE LETTER THE INDIVISIBLE FIVE THE ELEPHANT'S BOARD AND KEEP A PATRON OF ART WHEN POLLY ANN PLAYED SANTA CLAUS

The stories in this volume are here reprinted by the courteous
permission of the publishers of the periodicals in which they first
appeared,—Lippincott's Magazine, The Metropolitan Magazine, McCall's
Magazine, Harper's Magazine, The American Magazine, Progress Magazine,
The Arena, The Christian Endeavor World, The Congregationalist and
Christian World, The Housewife, Harper's Bazar [Transcriber's note:
Bazaar?], Judge's Library Magazine, The New England Magazine, People's
Short Story Magazine, The Christian Herald, The Ladies' World.

The Tangled Threads

A Delayed Heritage

When Hester was two years old a wheezy hand-organ would set her eyes to sparkling and her cheeks to dimpling, and when she was twenty the "Maiden's Prayer," played by a school-girl, would fill her soul with ecstasy.

To Hester, all the world seemed full of melody. Even the clouds in the sky sailed slowly along in time to a stately march in her brain, or danced to the tune of a merry schottische that sounded for her ears alone. And when she saw the sunset from the hill behind her home, there was always music then—low and tender if the colors were soft and pale-tinted, grand and awful if the wind blew shreds and tatters of storm-clouds across a purpling sky. All this was within Hester; but without—

There had been but little room in Hester's life for music. Her days were an endless round of dish-washing and baby-tending—first for her mother, later for herself. There had been no money for music lessons, no time for piano practice. Hester's childish heart had swelled with bitter envy whenever she saw the coveted music roll swinging from some playmate's hand. At that time her favorite "make-believe" had been to play at going for a music lesson, with a carefully modeled roll of brown paper suspended by a string from her fingers.

Hester was forty now. Two sturdy boys and a girl of nine gave her three hungry mouths to feed and six active feet to keep in holeless stockings. Her husband had been dead two years, and life was a struggle and a problem. The boys she trained rigorously, giving just measure of love and care; but the girl—ah, Penelope should have that for which she herself had so longed. Penelope should take music lessons!

During all those nine years since Penelope had come to her, frequent dimes and quarters, with an occasional half-dollar, had found their way into an old stone jar on the top shelf in the pantry. It had been a dreary and pinching economy that had made possible this horde of silver, and its effects had been only too visible in Hester's turned and mended garments, to say nothing of her wasted figure and colorless cheeks. Penelope was nine now, and Hester deemed it a fitting time to begin the spending of her treasured wealth.

First, the instrument: it must be a rented one, of course. Hester went about the labor of procuring it in a state of exalted bliss that was in a measure compensation for her long years of sacrifice.

Her task did not prove to be a hard one. The widow Butler, about to go South for the winter, was more than glad to leave her piano in Hester's tender care, and the dollar a month rent which Hester at first insisted upon paying was finally cut in half, much to the widow Butler's satisfaction and Hester's grateful delight. This much accomplished, Hester turned her steps toward the white cottage wherein lived Margaret Gale, the music teacher.

Miss Gale, careful, conscientious, but of limited experience, placed her services at the disposal of all who could pay the price—thirty-five cents an hour; and she graciously accepted the name of her new pupil, entering "Penelope Martin" on her books for Saturday mornings at ten o'clock. Then Hester went home to tell her young daughter of the bliss in store for her.

Strange to say, she had cherished the secret of the old stone jar all these years, and had never told Penelope of her high destiny. She pictured now the child's joy, unconsciously putting her own nine-year-old music-hungry self in Penelope's place.

"Penelope," she called gently.

There was a scurrying of light feet down the uncarpeted back stairs, and
Penelope, breathless, rosy, and smiling, appeared in the doorway.

"Yes, mother."

"Come with me, child," said Hester, her voice sternly solemn in her effort to keep from shouting her glad tidings before the time.

The woman led the way through the kitchen and dining-room and threw open the parlor door, motioning her daughter into the somber room. The rose-color faded from Penelope's cheeks.

"Why, mother! what—what is it? Have I been—naughty?" she faltered.

Mrs. Martin's tense muscles relaxed and she laughed hysterically.

"No, dearie, no! I—I have something to tell you," she answered, drawing the child to her and smoothing back the disordered hair. "What would you rather have—more than anything else in the world?" she asked; then, unable to keep her secret longer, she burst out, "I've got it, Penelope!—oh, I've got it!"

The little girl broke from the restraining arms and danced wildly around the room.

"Mother! Really? As big as me? And will it talk—say 'papa' and 'mamma,' you know?"

"What!"

Something in Hester's dismayed face brought the prancing feet to a sudden stop.

"It—it's a doll, is n't it?" the child stammered.

Hester's hands grew cold.

"A—a doll!" she gasped.

Penelope nodded—the light gone from her eyes.

For a moment the woman was silent; then she threw back her head with a little shake and laughed forcedly.

"A doll!—why, child, it's as much nicer than a doll as—as you can imagine. It's a piano, dear—a pi-a-no!" she repeated impressively, all the old enthusiasm coming back at the mere mention of the magic word.

"Oh!" murmured Penelope, with some show of interest.

"And you're to learn to play on it!"

"Oh-h!" said Penelope again, but with less interest.

"To play on it! Just think, dear, how fine that will be!" The woman's voice was growing wistful.

"Take lessons? Like Mamie, you mean?"

"Yes, dear."

"But—she has to practice and—"

"Of course," interrupted Hester eagerly. "That's the best part of it—the practice."

"Mamie don't think so," observed Penelope dubiously.

"Then Mamie can't know," rejoined Hester with decision, bravely combating the chill that was creeping over her. "Come, dear, help mother to clear a space, so we may be ready when the piano comes," she finished, crossing the room and moving a chair to one side.

But when the piano finally arrived, Penelope was as enthusiastic as even her mother could wish her to be, and danced about it with proud joy. It was after the child had left the house, however, that Hester came with reverent step into the darkened room and feasted her eyes to her heart's content on the reality of her dreams.

Half fearfully she extended her hand and softly pressed the tip of her fourth finger to one of the ivory keys; then with her thumb she touched another a little below. The resulting dissonance gave her a vague unrest, and she gently slipped her thumb along until the harmony of a major sixth filled her eyes with quick tears.

"Oh, if I only could!" she whispered, and pressed the chord again, rapturously listening to the vibrations as they died away in the quiet room. Then she tiptoed out and closed the door behind her.

During the entire hour of that first Saturday morning lesson Mrs. Martin hovered near the parlor door, her hands and feet refusing to perform their accustomed duties. The low murmur of the teacher's voice and an occasional series of notes were to Hester the mysterious rites before a sacred shrine, and she listened in reverent awe. When Miss Gale had left the house, Mrs. Martin hurried to Penelope's side.

"How did it go? What did she say? Play me what she taught you," she urged excitedly.

Penelope tossed a consequential head and gave her mother a scornful glance.

"Pooh! mother, the first lesson ain't much. I've got to practice."

"Of course," acknowledged Hester in conciliation; "but how?—what?"

"That—and that—and from there to there," said Penelope, indicating with a pink forefinger certain portions of the page before her.

"Oh!" breathed Hester, regarding the notes with eager eyes. Then timidly, "Play—that one."

With all the importance of absolute certainty Penelope struck C.

"And that one."

Penelope's second finger hit F.

"And that—and that—and that," swiftly demanded Hester.

Penelope's cheeks grew pink, but her fingers did not falter. Hester drew a long breath.

"Oh, how quick you've learned 'em!" she exclaimed.

Her daughter hesitated a tempted moment.

"Well—I—I learned the notes in school," she finally acknowledged, looking sidewise at her mother.

But even this admission did not lessen for Hester the halo of glory about
Penelope's head. She drew another long breath.

"But what else did Miss Gale say? Tell me everything—every single thing," she reiterated hungrily.

That was not only Penelope's first lesson, but Hester's. The child, flushed and important with her sudden promotion from pupil to teacher, scrupulously repeated each point in the lesson, and the woman, humble and earnestly attentive, listened with bated breath. Then, Penelope, still airily consequential, practiced for almost an hour.

Monday, when the children were at school, Hester stole into the parlor and timidly seated herself at the piano.

"I think—I am almost sure I could do it," she whispered, studying with eager eyes the open book on the music rack. "I—I'm going to try, anyhow!" she finished resolutely.

And Hester did try, not only then, but on Tuesday, Wednesday, and thus until Saturday—that Saturday which brought with it a second lesson.

The weeks passed swiftly after that. Hester's tasks seemed lighter and her burdens less grievous since there was now that ever-present refuge—the piano. It was marvelous what a multitude of headaches and heartaches five minutes of scales, even, could banish; and when actual presence at the piano was impossible, there were yet memory and anticipation left her.

For two of these weeks Penelope practiced her allotted hour with a patience born of the novelty of the experience. The third week the "hour" dwindled perceptibly, and the fourth week it was scarcely thirty minutes long.

"Come, dearie, don't forget your practice," Hester sometimes cautioned anxiously.

"Oh, dear me suz!" Penelope would sigh, and Hester would watch her with puzzled eyes as she disconsolately pulled out the piano stool.

"Penelope," she threatened one day, "I shall certainly stop your lessons—you don't half appreciate them." But she was shocked and frightened at the relief that so quickly showed in her young daughter's eyes. Hester never made that threat again, for if Penelope's lessons stopped—

As the weeks lengthened into months, bits of harmony and snatches of melody became more and more frequent in Penelope's lessons, and the "exercises" were supplemented by occasional "pieces"—simple, yet boasting a name. But when Penelope played "Down by the Mill," one heard only the notes—accurate, rhythmic, an excellent imitation; when Hester played it, one might catch the whir of the wheel, the swish of the foaming brook, and almost the spicy smell of the sawdust, so vividly was the scene brought to mind.

Many a time, now, the old childhood dreams came back to Hester, and her fingers would drift into tender melodies and minor chords not on the printed page, until all the stifled love and longing of those dreary, colorless years of the past found voice at her finger-tips.

The stately marches and the rollicking dances of the cloud music came easily at her beck and call—now grave, now gay; now slow and measured, now tripping in weird harmonies and gay melodies.

Hester's blood quickened and her cheeks grew pink. Her eyes lost their yearning look and her lips their wistful curves.

Every week she faithfully took her lesson of Penelope, and she practiced only that when the children were about. It was when they were at school and she was alone that the great joy of this new-found treasure of improvising came to her, and she could set free her heart and soul on the ivory keys.

She was playing thus one night—forgetting time, self, and that Penelope would soon be home from school—when the child entered the house and stopped, amazed, in the parlor doorway. As the last mellow note died into silence, Penelope dropped her books and burst into tears.

"Why, darling, what is it?" cried Hester. "What can be the matter?"

"I—I don't know," faltered Penelope, looking at her mother with startled eyes. "Why—why did n't you tell me?"

"Tell you?"

"That—that you could—p-play that way! I—I did n't know," she wailed with another storm of sobs, rushing into her mother's arms.

Hester's clasp tightened about the quivering little form and her eyes grew luminous.

"Dearie," she began very softly, "there was once a little girl—a little girl like you. She was very, very poor, and all her days were full of work. She had no piano, no music lessons—but, oh, how she longed for them! The trees and the grass and the winds and the flowers sang all day in her ears, but she could n't tell what they said. By and by, after many, many years, this little girl grew up and a dear little baby daughter came to her. She was still very, very poor, but she saved and scrimped, and scrimped and saved, for she meant that this baby girl should not long and long for the music that never came. She should have music lessons."

"Was it—me?" whispered Penelope, with tremulous lips.

Hester drew a long breath.

"Yes, dear. I was the little girl long ago, and you are the little girl of to-day. And when the piano came, Penelope, I found in it all those songs that the winds and the trees used to sing to me. Now the sun shines brighter and the birds sing sweeter—and all this beautiful world is yours—all yours. Oh, Penelope, are n't you glad?"

Penelope raised a tear-wet face and looked into her mother's shining eyes.

"Glad?—oh, mother!" she cried fervently. Then very softly, "Mother—do you think—could you teach me?— Oh, I want to play just like that—just like that!"

The Folly of Wisdom

Until his fiftieth year Jason Hartsorn knew nothing whatever about the position of his liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, spleen, and stomach except that they must be somewhere inside of him; then he attended the auction of old Doctor Hemenway's household effects and bid off for twenty-five cents a dilapidated clothes basket, filled with books and pamphlets. Jason's education as to his anatomy began almost at once then, for on the way home he fished out a coverless volume from the basket and became lost in awed wonder over a pictured human form covered from scalp to the toes with scarlet, vine-like tracings.

"For the land's sake, Jason!" ejaculated Mrs. Hartsorn, as her husband came puffing into the kitchen with his burden an hour later. "Now, what trash have you been buyin'?"

"'Trash'!" panted Jason, carefully setting the basket down. "I guess you won't call it no 'trash' when you see what 't is! It's books—learnin', Hitty. I been readin' one of 'em, too. Look a-here," and he pulled up his shirt sleeve and bared a brawny arm; "that's all full of teeny little pipes an' cords. Why, if I could only skin it—"

"Jason!" screamed his wife, backing away.

"Pooh! 'T ain't nothin' to fret over," retorted Jason airily. "Besides, you've got 'em too—ev'ry one has; see!" He finished by snatching up the book and spreading before her horrified eyes the pictured figure with its scarlet, vine-like tracings.

"Oh-h!" shivered the woman, and fled from the room.

Shivers and shudders became almost second nature to Mehitable Hartsorn during the days that followed. The highly colored, carefully explained illustrations of the kidneys, liver, heart, and lungs which the books displayed were to her only a little less terrifying than the thought that her own body contained the fearsome things in reality; while to her husband these same illustrations were but the delightful means to a still more delightful end—finding in his own sturdy frame the position of every organ shown.

For a month Jason was happy. Then it was suddenly borne in upon him that not always were these fascinating new acquaintances of his in a healthy condition. At once he began to pinch and pummel himself, and to watch for pains, being careful, meanwhile, to study the books unceasingly, so that he might know just where to look for the pains when they should come. He counted his pulse daily—hourly, if he apprehended trouble; and his tongue he examined critically every morning, being particular to notice whether or not it were pale, moist, coated, red, raw, cracked, or tremulous.

Jason was not at all well that spring. He was threatened successively with typhoid fever, appendicitis, consumption, and cholera, and only escaped a serious illness in each case by the prompt application of remedies prescribed in his books. His wife ran the whole gamut of emotions from terror, worry, and sympathy down to indifference and good-natured tolerance, reaching the last only after the repeated failure of Jason's diseases to materialize.

It was about a week after Jason had mercifully escaped an attack of the cholera that he came into the kitchen one morning and dropped heavily into the nearest chair.

"I tell ye, my heart ain't right," he announced to his wife. "It's goin' jest like Jehu—'palpitation,' they call it; an' I've got 'shortness of breath,' too," he finished triumphantly.

"Hm-m; did ye catch her at last?" asked Mehitable with mild interest.

Jason looked up sharply.

"'Catch her'! Catch who?" he demanded.

"Why, the colt, of course! How long did ye have ter chase her?" Mrs. Hartsorn's carefully modulated voice expressed curiosity, and that was all.

Jason flushed angrily.

"Oh, I know what ye mean," he snapped. "Ye think thar don't nothin' ail me, an' that jest fetchin' Dolly from the pasture did it all. But I know what them symptoms means; they mean heart disease, woman,—'cardiac failure,'—that's what 't is." Jason leaned back in his chair and drew a long breath. When he could remember his "book-learnin'" and give a high-sounding name to his complaint, his gratification was enhanced.

"Hm-m; mebbe 't is, Jason," retorted his wife; "but I'm a-thinkin' that when a man of your heft and years goes kitin' 'round a ten-acre lot at the tail of a fly-away colt, he'll have all that kind of heart disease he wants, an' still live ter die of somethin' else!" And Mehitable cheerfully banged the oven door after making sure that her biscuits were not getting too brown.

As it happened, however, there was really no chance for Jason's heart disease to develop, for that night he scratched his finger, which brought about the much more imminent danger of blood-poisoning—"toxemia," Jason said it was. For a time the whole household was upset, and Mehitable was kept trotting from morning till night with sponges, cloths, cotton, and bowls of curious-smelling liquids, while Jason discoursed on antiseptics, germs, bacteria, microbes, and bacilli.

The finger was nearly well when he suddenly discovered that, after all, the trouble might have been lock-jaw instead of blood-poisoning. He at once began studying the subject so that he might be prepared should the thing occur again. He was glad, later, that he had done so, for the Fourth of July and a toy pistol brought all his recently acquired knowledge into instant requisition.

"If it does come, it's 'most likely ter be fatal," he said excitedly to his wife, who was calmly bathing a slight graze on his hand. "An' ye want ter watch me," he added, catching up a book with his uninjured hand and turning to a much-thumbed page for reference. "Now, listen. Thar's diff'rent kinds of it. They're all 'te-ta-nus,' but ye got to watch out ter find out which kind 't is. If I shut my jaws up tight, it's 'lock-jaw.' If I bend backwards, it's 'o-pis-tho-to-nos.' If I bend forwards, it's 'em-pros-tho-to-nos'; an' if I bend ter one side, it's 'pleu-ro-tho-to-nos,'" he explained, pronouncing the long words after a fashion of his own. "Now, remember," he finished. "Like enough I shan't know enough ter tell which kind 't is myself, nor which way I am a-leanin'."

"No, of course not, dear," agreed Mehitable cheerfully; "an' I'll remember," she promised, as she trotted away with her salves and bowls and bandages.

For some days Jason "tried" his jaw at regular intervals, coming to the conclusion at last that fate once more was kind, and that "te-ta-nus" was to pass him by.

The summer ended and autumn came. Jason was glad that the cold weather was approaching. The heat had been trying. He had almost suffered a sunstroke, and twice a mosquito bite had given him much trouble—he had feared that he would die of malignant pustule. His relief at the coming of cool weather was short-lived, however, for one of the neighboring towns developed a smallpox scare, and as he discovered a slight rash soon after passing through the place, he thought best to submit to vaccination. He caught a bad cold, too, and was sure pneumonia was setting in—that is, he would have been sure, only his throat was so sore that he could not help thinking it might be diphtheria.

Realizing the seriousness of the situation, and determining to settle once for all the vexed question, he pored over his books in an exhaustive search for symptoms. It was then that he rushed into the presence of his wife one morning, his face drawn, his eyes wildly staring, and an open book in his shaking hand.

"Hitty, Hitty," he cried; "jest listen ter this! How 'm I goin' ter tell what ails me, I should like ter know, if I don't ache where I'm sick? Why, Hitty, I can't never tell! Jest listen:

The location of pain is not always at the seat of disease. In hip disease the pain is not first felt in the hip, but in the knee-joint. In chronic inflammation of the liver the pain is generally most severe in the right shoulder and arm.

"Only think, Hitty, 'In the right shoulder and arm'! Why, I had a pain right in that spot only yesterday. So that's what I've got—'hip-disease'! an'—oh, no," he broke off suddenly, consulting his book, "'t ain't hip-disease when the shoulder aches—it's the liver, then."

"Well, well, Jason, I don't think I should fret," soothed Mehitable. "If ye don't know, where's the diff'rence? Now I've got a pain right now in my little toe. Like enough that means I 'm comin' down with the mumps; eh?"

"Hitty!" Jason's voice was agonized. He had been paying no attention to his wife's words, but had been reading on down the page. "Hitty, listen! It says—'Absence of pain in any disease where ordinarily it should be present is an unfavorable sign.' An', Hitty, I hain't got an ache—not a single ache, this minute!"

There was no possibility of quieting Jason after that, and the days that followed were hard for all concerned. If he had an ache he was terrified; if he did not have one, he was more so. He began, also, to distrust his own powers of diagnosis, and to study all the patent medicine advertisements he could lay his hands on. He was half comforted, half appalled, to read them. Far from being able to pick out his own particular malady from among the lot, he was forced to admit that as near as he could make out he had one or more symptoms of each and every disease that was mentioned.

"Now, Hitty, I'll leave it to you," he submitted plaintively. "Here's 'Dread of impending evil.' Now I've got that, sure; ye know I'm always thinkin' somethin' dreadful's goin' ter happen. 'Sparks before the eyes.' There! I had them only jest ter-day. I was sweepin' out the barn, an' I see 'em hoppin' up an' down in a streak of sunshine that come through a crack. 'Variable appetite.' Now, Hitty, don't ye remember? Yesterday I wanted pie awful, an' I ate a whole one; well, this mornin' seems as if I never wanted ter see an apple pie again. Now, if that ain't 'variable,' I don't know what is. 'Inquietude.'"

"Humph! You've got that all right," cut in Mehitable.

"'Weakness.' I hain't got a mite o' strength, Hitty," he complained. "An' thar 's dizziness, too,—I can't chase the calf three times round the barnyard but what my head is jest swimmin'! An' Hitty,"—his voice grew impressive,—"Hitty, I've got ev'ry one of them six symptoms, ev'ry blamed one of 'em, an' I picked 'em out of six diff'rent advertisements—six! Now, Hitty, which disease is it I've got? That's what I want ter know—which?"

His wife could not tell him; in fact, no one could tell him, and in sheer desperation Jason answered all six of the advertisements, determined to find out for a certainty what ailed him.

In due course the answers came. Jason read one, then another, then another, until the contents of the entire six had been mastered. Then he raised his head and gazed straight into his wife's eyes.

"Hitty," he gasped. "I've got 'em all! An' I've got ter take the whole six medicines ter cure me!"

Even Mehitable was stirred then. For one long minute she was silent, then she squared her shoulders, and placed her hands on her hips.

"Jason Hartsorn," she began determinedly, "this thing has gone jest as fur as I'm goin' to stand it. Do you bundle yourself off ter Boston an' hunt up the biggest doctor you can find. If he says somethin' ails ye, I 'll believe him, an' nuss ye ter the best of my ability; but as fur nussin' ye through six things—an' them all ter once—I won't! So there."

Twenty-four hours later Jason faced a square-jawed, smooth-shaven man who looked sharply into his eyes with a curt, "Well, sir?"

Jason cleared his throat.

"Well, ye see, doctor," he began, "somethin' ails me, an' I ain't quite sure what 't is. I 've been poorly since last spring, but it's been kind of puzzlin'. Now, fur instance: I had a pain in my knee, so I felt sure 'twas hip-disease, but it jumped ter my shoulder, so 'course then I knew 't was my liver."

The doctor made a sudden movement. He swung squarely around in his office chair and faced Jason.

Jason was pleased—his learning had already made an impression! He raised his chin and went on with renewed confidence.

"Ye see I was afraid my liver, or mebbe one o' my kidneys, was hardenin' or floatin' round loose, or doin' somethin' else they had n't orter. Lately, thar's been days, lots of 'em, when I hain't had no pain—not a mite, an' 'course that's the worst symptom of all. Then sometimes thar's been such shootin' pains that I kind o' worried fur fear 'twas locomotive ataxia; but mebbe the very next day it would change so's I did n't know but 'twas appendicitis, an' that my vermi-er-vermicelli appendix was the trouble."

The doctor coughed—he not only coughed, but he choked, so that Jason had to pause for a moment; but it was only for a moment.

"I 'most had diphtheria, an' pneumonia, an' smallpox this fall," he resumed complacently; "an' thar's six other diseases that I got symptoms of—that is, partly, you know:—'Variable appetite,' an' 'Inquietude,' an' all that."

"Hm-m," said the doctor, slowly, his eyes averted. "Well, we'll—make an examination. Come in here, please," he added, leading the way to an inner room.

"Gorry!" ejaculated Jason some minutes later, when he was once more back in his chair, "I should think you might know what ails me now—after all that thumpin' an' poundin' an' listenin'!"

"I do," said the doctor.

"Well, 't ain't six of 'em; is it?" There was mingled hope and fear in
Jason's voice. If it were six—he could see Hitty's face!

"Any physicians in your family?" asked the doctor, ignoring Jason's question.

Jason shook his head.

"Hm-m," commented the doctor. "Ever been any?"

"Why, not as I know of, sir," murmured Jason wonderingly.

"No? Where did you get them, then,—those medical books?"

Jason stared.

"Why, how in thunder did you know—" he began.

But the doctor interrupted him.

"Never mind that. You have them, have n't you?"

"Why, yes; I bought 'em at an auction. I bought 'em last—"

"Spring—eh?" supplied the doctor.

Jason's mouth fell open.

"Never mind," laughed the doctor again, his hand upraised. "Now to business!" And his face grew suddenly grave. "You're in a bad way, my friend."

"B-bad way?" stammered Jason. "It—it is n't six that ails me?"

It was all fear this time in Jason's voice; some way the doctor's face had carried conviction.

"No; you are threatened with more than six."

"Wha-at?" Jason almost sprang from his seat. "But, doctor, they ain't—dangerous!"

"But they are, very!"

"All of them? Why, doctor, how—how many are thar?"

The doctor shook his head.

"I could not count them," he replied, not meeting Jason's eyes.

"Oh-h!" gasped Jason, and shook in his shoes. There was a long silence.
"An' will I—die?" he almost whispered.

"We all must—sometime," returned the doctor, slowly, as if weighing his words; "but you will die long before your time—unless you do one thing."

"I'll do it, doctor, I'll do it—if I have ter mortgage the farm," chattered Jason frenziedly. "I'll do anythin'—anythin'; only tell me what it is."

"I will tell you," declared the doctor briskly, with a sudden change of manner, whisking about in his chair. "Go home and burn those medical books—every single one of them."

"Burn them! Why, doctor, them's the very things that made me know I was sick. I should n't 'a' come ter you at all if it had n't been fur them."

"Exactly!" agreed the doctor, rubbing his hands together. "That's just what I thought. You were well before, were n't you?"

"Why, yes,—that is, I did n't know I was sick," corrected Jason.

"Hm-m; well, you won't know it now if you'll go home and burn those books. If you don't burn them you'll have every disease there is in them, and some one of them will be the death of you. As it is now, you're a well man, but I would n't trust one organ of your anatomy within a rod of those books an hour longer!"

He said more—much more; and that his words were not without effect was shown no later than that same evening when Jason burst into the kitchen at home.

"Hitty, Hitty, thar ain't six, thar ain't one, thar ain't nothin' that ails me," he cried jubilantly, still under the sway of the joy that had been his when the great doctor had told him there was yet one chance for his life. "Thar ain't a single thing!"

"Well, now, ain't that nice?" murmured Hitty, as she drew up the chairs.
"Come, Jason, supper's ready."

"An' Hitty, I'm goin' ter burn 'em up—them books of Hemenway's," continued Jason confidentially. "They ain't very good readin', after all, an' like enough they're kind of out of date, bein' so old. I guess I'll go fetch 'em now," he added as he left the room. "Why, Hitty, they're—gone!" he cried a minute later from the doorway.

"Gone? Books?" repeated Mehitable innocently. "Oh, yes, I remember now.
I must 'a' burned 'em this mornin'. Ye see, they cluttered up so. Come,
Jason, set down."

And Jason sat down. But all the evening he wondered. "Was it possible, after all, that Hitty—knew?"

Crumbs

The Story of a Discontented Woman

The floor was untidy, the sink full of dirty dishes, and the stove a variegated thing of gray and dull red. At the table, head bowed on outstretched arms, was Kate Merton, twenty-one, discouraged, and sole mistress of the kitchen in which she sat. The pleasant-faced, slender little woman in the doorway paused irresolutely on the threshold, then walked with a brisk step into the room. "Is the water hot?" she asked cheerily. The girl at the table came instantly to her feet.

"Aunt Ellen!" she cried, aghast.

"Oh, yes, it's lovely," murmured the lady, peering into the copper boiler on the stove.

"But, auntie, you—I"—the girl paused helplessly.

"Let's see, are these the wipers?" pursued Mrs. Howland, her hand on one of the towels hanging behind the stove.

Kate's face hardened.

"Thank you, Aunt Ellen. You are very kind, but I can do quite well by myself. You will please go into the living-room. I don't allow company to do kitchen work."

"Of course not!" acquiesced Mrs. Howland imperturbably. "But your father's sister is n't company, you know. Let's see, you put your clean dishes here?"

"But, Aunt Ellen, you must n't," protested Kate. "At home you do nothing—nothing all day." A curious expression came into Mrs. Howland's face, but Kate Merton did not seem to notice. "You have servants to do everything, even to dressing you. No, you can't wipe my dishes."

For a long minute there was silence in the kitchen. Mrs. Howland, wiper in hand, stood looking out the window. Her lips parted, then closed again. When she finally turned and spoke, the old smile had come back to her face.

"Then if that is the case, it will be all the more change for me to do something," she said pleasantly. "I want to do them, Kate. It will be a pleasure to me."

"Pleasure!"

Mrs. Rowland's clear laugh rang through the kitchen at the scorn expressed in the one word.

"And is it so bad as that?" she demanded merrily.

"Worse!" snapped Kate. "I simply loathe dishes!" But a shamed smile came to her lips, and she got the pans and water, making no further objection.

"I like pretty dishes," observed Mrs. Howland, after a time, breaking a long silence. "There's a certain satisfaction in restoring them to their shelves in all their dainty, polished beauty."

"I should like them just as well if they always stayed there, and did n't come down to get all crumbs and grease in the sink," returned the other tartly.

"Oh, of course," agreed Mrs. Howland, with a smile; "but, as long as they don't, why, we might as well take what satisfaction there is in putting them in shape again."

"Don't see it—the satisfaction," retorted Kate, and her aunt dropped the subject where it was.

The dishes finished and the kitchen put to rights, the two women started for the chambers and the bed-making. Kate's protests were airily waved aside by the energetic little woman who promptly went to pillow-beating and mattress-turning.

"How fresh and sweet the air smells!" cried Mrs. Howland, sniffing at the open window.

"Lilacs," explained Kate concisely.

"Hm-m—lovely!"

"Think so? I don't care for the odor myself," rejoined Kate.

The other shot a quick look from under lowered lids. Kate's face expressed mere indifference. The girl evidently had not meant to be rude.

"You don't like them?" cried Mrs. Howland. "Oh, I do! My dear, you don't half appreciate what it is to have such air to breathe. Only think, if you were shut up in a brick house on a narrow street as I am!"

"Think!" retorted Kate, with sudden heat. "I 'd like to do something besides 'think'! I 'd like to try it!"

"You mean you'd like to leave here?—to go to the city?"

"I do, certainly. Aunt Ellen, I'm simply sick of chicken-feeding and meal-getting. Why, if it was n't for keeping house for father I 'd have been off to New York or Boston years ago!"

"But your home—your friends!"

"Commonplace—uninteresting!" declared Kate, disposing of both with a wave of her two hands. "The one means endless sweeping and baking; the other means sewing societies, and silly gossip over clothes, beaux, and crops."

Mrs. Howland laughed, though she sobered instantly.

"But there must be something, some one that you enjoy," she suggested.

Kate shook her head wearily.

"Not a thing, not a person," she replied; adding with a whimsical twinkle, "they're all like the dishes, Aunt Ellen,—bound to accumulate crumbs and scraps, and do nothing but clutter up."

"Oh, Kate, Kate," remonstrated Mrs. Howland, "what an incorrigible girl you are!" As she spoke her lips smiled, but her eyes did not—there was a wistful light in their blue depths that persistently stayed there all through the day as she watched her niece.

At ten, and again at half-past, some neighbors dropped in. After they had gone Kate complained because the forenoon was so broken up. The next few hours were free from callers, and at the supper table Kate grumbled because the afternoon was so stupid and lonesome. When Mr. Merton came in bringing no mail, Kate exclaimed that nobody ever answered her letters, and that she might just as well not write; yet when the next day brought three, she sighed over the time "wasted in reading such long letters."

The week sped swiftly and Sunday night came. Mrs. Howland's visit was all but finished. She was going early the next morning.

Sunday had not been an unalloyed joy. Mrs. Howland and her niece had attended church, but to Kate the sermon was too long, and the singing too loud. The girl mentioned both in a listless way, at the same time saying that it was always like that except when the sermon was interesting, then it was too short and the choir took up all the time there was with their tiresome singing.

Dinner had been long in preparation, and, in spite of Mrs. Rowland's gladly given assistance, the dish-washing and the kitchen-tidying had been longer still. All day Kate's step had been more than lagging, and her face more than discontented. In the twilight, as the two women sat together, Mrs. Rowland laid hold of her courage with both hands and spoke.

"Kate, dear, is n't there something, anything, worth while to you?"

"Nothing, auntie. I feel simply buried alive."

"But can't you think of anything—"

"Think of anything!" interrupted the girl swiftly. "Of course I can! If I had money—or lived somewhere else—or could go somewhere, or see something once in a while, it would be different; but here—!"

Mrs. Howland shook her head.

"But it would n't be different, my dear," she demurred.

"Why, of course it would!" laughed Kate bitterly. "It could n't help it."

Again Mrs. Howland shook her head. Then a whimsical smile crossed her face.

"Kate," she said, "there are crumbs on the plates out in the world just the same as there are here; and if here you teach yourself to see nothing but crumbs, you will see nothing but crumbs out there. In short, dissatisfaction with everyday living is the same joy-killer whether in town or city, farmhouse or palace. Oh, I 'm preaching, I know, dear," went on Mrs. Howland hurriedly, as she saw the angry light in the other's eyes, "but—I had to speak—you don't know how it's growing on you. Come, let's kiss and make up; then think it over."

Kate frowned, then laughed constrainedly.

"Don't worry, aunt," she replied, rising, and just touching her aunt's lips with her own. "I still think it would be different out there; but—I suppose you 'll always remain unconvinced, for I shall never have the chance to prove it. My plates won't belong anywhere but in Hopkinsville cupboards! Come, will you play to me?"

When Mrs. Rowland returned from England, one of the first letters she received after reaching home was a cordial invitation from her dead brother's daughter, Kate, to visit her.

In the last five years Mrs. Howland had seen her niece but once. That was during the sad, hurried days just following Mr. Merton's sudden death four years before. Since then Mrs. Howland had been abroad and there had been many changes at the little farmhouse in Hopkinsville. The farm had been sold, and Kate had married and had gone to Boston to live. Beyond the facts that Kate's husband was older than she, and was a man of considerable means, Mrs. Howland knew little of her niece's present circumstances. It was with curiosity, as well as pleasure, that she accepted Kate's invitation, and took the train specified.

At the South Station Mrs. Howland found a stylishly gowned, smiling young woman with a cordial welcome. An imposing carriage with a liveried coachman waited to take her to Kate's home.

"Oh, what handsome horses!" cried Mrs. Howland appreciatively, as she stepped into the carriage.

"Yes, are n't they," agreed Kate. "If only they matched better, they'd be perfect. I wish both had stars on their foreheads!"

"Let me see, you are on Beacon Street, I believe," remarked Mrs.
Howland, as the carriage left the more congested quarter of the city.

Kate frowned. "Yes," she answered. "I wanted Commonwealth Avenue, but Mr. Blake preferred Beacon. All his people live on Beacon, and have for years."

"Oh, but Beacon is lovely, I think."

"Do you? Well, perhaps; but Commonwealth is so much wider and more roomy. I could breathe on Commonwealth Avenue, I think!"

"And don't you, where you are?" laughed Mrs. Howland.

Her niece made a playfully wry face.

"Just pant—upon my word I do! Not one full breath do I draw," she asserted.

"Hm-m; I've always understood that deep breathing was necessary for health," commented Mrs. Howland, with a critical, comprehensive glance; "but—you seem to thrive all right! You are looking well, Kate."

"I don't feel so. I have the most shocking headaches," the other retorted. "Ah, here we are!"

Mrs. Howland followed her hostess up a short flight of stone steps into a handsome hall. A well-trained maid was at once in attendance, and another, a little later, helped her unpack.

"My dear," Mrs. Howland said to her niece when she came downstairs, "what a lucky woman you are to have two such maids! They are treasures!"

Kate's hands flew to her head with a gesture of despair.

"Maids!—Aunt Ellen, don't ever say the word to me, I beg! I never keep one more than a month, and I'm shaking in my shoes this very minute. There's a new cook in the kitchen, and I have n't the least idea what your dinner will be."

"I 'm not a bit worried," rejoined Mrs. Howland. "What a pretty home you have, Kate," she added, tactfully changing the subject.

"Think so? I'm glad you like it. I sometimes wish I could get hold of the man who built this house, though, and give him a piece of my mind. The rooms on this floor are so high studded they give me the shivers, while all the chambers are so low they are absurd. Did n't you notice it in your room?"

"Why—no; I don't think I did."

"Well, you will now."

"Perhaps so, since you have told me to," returned Mrs. Howland, a curious smile on her lips.

The dinner was well planned, well cooked, and well served, in Mrs. Howland's opinion, though to her niece it was none of the three. Kate's husband, the Honorable Eben Blake, proved to be a genial, distinguished-looking man who welcomed Mrs. Howland with the cordiality that he displayed toward anybody or anything connected in the most remote degree with his wife. It was evidently with sincere regrets that he made his apologies after dinner, and left the house with a plea of business.

"It's always that way when I want him!" exclaimed Kate petulantly. "Then night after night when I don't want him he'll stay at home and read and smoke."

"But you have friends—you go out," hazarded Mrs. Howland.

Mrs. Blake raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, of course! But, after all, what do calls and receptions amount to? You always meet the same people who say the same things, whether you go to see them or they come to see you."

Mrs. Howland laughed; then she said, softly,

"The old, old story, Kate,—the crumbs on the plates."

"What?" demanded the younger woman in frank amazement. There was a moment's pause during which she gazed blankly into her aunt's eyes. "Oh!—that?" she added, coloring painfully; then she uptilted her chin. "You are very much mistaken, auntie," she resumed with some dignity. "It is nothing of the sort. I am very happy—very happy, indeed!"—positively. "I have a good husband, a pretty home, more money than is good for me, and—well, everything," she finished a little breathlessly.

Again Mrs. Howland laughed, but her face grew almost instantly grave.

"And yet, my dear," she said gently, "scarcely one thing has been mentioned since I came that was quite right."

"Oh, Aunt Ellen, how can you say such a dreadful thing!"

"Listen," replied Mrs. Howland; "it's little bits of things that you don't think of. It has grown on you without your realizing it: the horses did n't both have stars; the house was n't on Commonwealth Avenue; the rooms are too high or too low studded; the roast was over-done; your husband could n't"—

"Oh, auntie, auntie, I beg of you!"—interrupted Kate hysterically.

"Are you convinced, then?"

Kate shook her head. "I can't, auntie—I can't believe it!" she cried. "It—it can't be like that always. There must have been special things to-day that plagued me. Auntie, I'm not such a—monster!"

"Hm-m; well—will you consent to an experiment to—er—find out?"

"Indeed I will!" returned Kate promptly.

"Very good! Every time I hear those little dissatisfied fault-findings, I am going to mention crumbs or plates or china. I think you'll understand. Is it a bargain?"

"It's a bargain," agreed Kate, and she smiled confidently.

The rest of the evening Mrs. Blake kept close guard over her tongue. Twice a "but" and once an "only" slipped out; but she bit her lips and completed her sentence in another way in each case, and if Mrs. Howland noticed, she made no sign.

It rained the next morning. Kate came into the dining-room with a frown.

"I'm so sorry, auntie," she sighed. "I'd planned a drive this morning. It always rains when I want to do something, but when I don't, it just shines and shines, week in and week out."

"Won't the rain wash the—plates?" asked Mrs. Howland in a low voice, as she passed her niece's chair.

"Wha-at?" demanded Mrs. Blake; then she flushed scarlet. "Weather doesn't count," she finished flippantly.

"No? Oh!" smiled Mrs. Howland.

"Fine muffins, these!" spoke up Mr. Blake, a little later. "New cook—eh?"

"Yes," replied his wife. "But they're graham. I 'd much rather have had corn-cake."

"There are not so many—crumbs to graham," observed Mrs. Howland musingly.

There was no reply. The man of the house looked slightly dazed. His wife bit her lip, and choked a little over her coffee. Through the rest of the meal Mrs. Blake confined herself almost exclusively to monosyllables, leaving the conversation to her husband and guest.

At ten the sky cleared, and Mrs. Blake ordered the horses.

"We can't drive far," she began discontentedly, "for I ordered an early luncheon as we have tickets for a concert this afternoon. I wanted to go away out beyond the Newtons, but now we'll have to take a little snippy one."

"Oh, I don't mind," rejoined her guest pleasantly. "Where one can't have the whole cake one must be satisfied with—crumbs."

"Why, I don't see"—began Kate aggressively; then she stopped, and nervously tapped her foot.

"Oh, how pretty that vine is!" cried Mrs. Howland suddenly. The silence was growing oppressive.

"It looks very well now, but you should see it in winter," retorted Kate. "Great, bare, snake-like things all over the—now, don't cudgel your brains to bring 'plates' or 'crumbs' into that!" she broke off with sudden sharpness.

"No, ma'am," answered Mrs. Howland demurely.

By night the guest, if not the hostess, was in a state of nervous tension that boded ill for sleep. The day had been one long succession of "crumbs" and "china plates"—conversationally. According to Kate, the roads had been muddy; the sun had been too bright; there had been chops when there should have been croquettes for luncheon; the concert seats were too far forward; the soprano had a thin voice, and the bass a faulty enunciation; at dinner the soup was insipid, and the dessert a disappointment; afterwards, in the evening, callers had stayed too long.

Mrs. Howland was in her own room, on the point of preparing for bed, when there came a knock at her chamber door,

"Please, Aunt Ellen, may I come in?"

"Certainly, my dear," called Mrs. Howland, hastening across the room.

Kate stepped inside, closed the door, and placed her back against it.

"I'll give it up," she began, half laughing, half crying. "I never, never would have believed it! Don't ever say 'crumbs' or 'plates' to me again as long as you live—please! I believe I never can even see the things again with any peace or comfort. I am going to try—try—Oh, how I'm going to try!—but, auntie, I think it's a hopeless case!" The next instant she had whisked the door open and had vanished out of sight.

"'Hopeless'?" Mrs. Howland was whispering to herself the next day, as she passed through the hall. "'Hopeless'? Oh, no, I think not." And she smiled as she heard her niece's voice in the drawing-room saying:

"High studded, Eben?—these rooms? Yes, perhaps; but, after all, it doesn't matter so much, being a drawing-room—and one does get better air, you know!"

A Four-Footed Faith and a Two

On Monday Rathburn took the dog far up the trail. Stub was no blue-ribbon, petted dog of records and pedigree; he was a vicious-looking little yellow cur of mixed ancestry and bad habits—that is, he had been all this when Rathburn found him six months before and championed his cause in a quarrel with a crowd of roughs in Mike Swaney's saloon. Since then he had developed into a well-behaved little beast with a pair of wistful eyes that looked unutterable love, and a tail that beat the ground, the floor, or the air in joyous welcome whenever Rathburn came in sight. He was part collie, sharp-nosed and prick-eared, and his undersized little body still bore the marks of the precarious existence that had been his before Rathburn had befriended him.

Rathburn had rescued the dog that day in the saloon more to thwart the designs of Pete Mulligan, the head of the gang and an old enemy, than for any compassion for the dog itself; but after he had taken the little animal home he rather enjoyed the slavish devotion which—in the dog's mind—seemed evidently to be the only fit return for so great a service as had been done him. For some months, therefore, Rathburn petted the dog, fed him, taught him to "speak" and to "beg," and made of him an almost constant companion. At the end of that time, the novelty having worn thin, he was ready—as he expressed it to himself—to "call the whole thing off," and great was his disgust that the dog failed to see the affair in the same light.

For some time, Rathburn endured the plaintive whines, the questioning eyes, the frequent thrusts of a cold little nose against his hand; then he determined to end it all.

"Stub, come here!" he called sharply, his right hand seeking his pocket.

With a yelp of joy the dog leaped forward—not for days had his master voluntarily noticed him.

Rathburn raised his pistol and took careful aim. His eye was steady and his hand did not shake. Two feet away the dog had come to a sudden halt. Something in the eye or in the leveled weapon had stayed his feet. He whined, then barked, his eyes all the while wistfully demanding an explanation. Suddenly, his gaze still fixed on his master's face, he rose upright on his haunches and held before him two little dangling paws.

There was a silence, followed by a muttered oath, as the pistol dropped to the ground.

"Confound my babyishness!" snarled Rathburn, stooping and pocketing his weapon. "One would think I'd never seen a gun before!"

This was on Sunday. On Monday Rathburn took the dog far up the trail.

"Want a dog?" he said to the low-browed, unkempt man sitting at the door of a squat cabin.

"Well, I don't. I ain't buyin' dogs these days."

"Yer don't have ter buy this one," observed Rathburn meaningly.

The other glanced up with sharp eyes.

"Humph! Bite?" he snapped.

Rathburn shook his head.

"Sick of him," he returned laconically. "Like his room better'n his company."

"Humph!" grunted the other. Then to the dog: "Come here, sir, an' let's have a look at ye!"

Five minutes later Rathburn strode down the trail alone, while behind him, on the other side of the fast-shut cabin door, barked and scratched a frantic little yellow dog.

Tuesday night, when Rathburn came home, the first sound that greeted him was a joyous bark, as a quivering, eager little creature leaped upon him from out of the dark.

On Wednesday Stub trotted into town at Rathburn's heels, and all the way down the straggling street he looked neither to the right nor to the left, so fearful did he seem that the two great boots he was following should in some way slip from his sight. And yet, vigilant as he was, the door of Swaney's saloon got somehow between and left him on one side barking and whining and running like mad about the room, while on the other his master stood jingling the two pieces of silver in his pocket—the price Mike Swaney had paid for his new dog.

Halfway up the mountain-side Rathburn was still chuckling, still jingling his coins.

"When a man pays money," he was saying aloud, as he squared his shoulders and looked across the valley at the setting sun, "when a man pays money he watches out. I reckon Stub has gone fer good, sure thing, this time!" And yet—long before dawn there came a whine and a gentle scratch at his cabin door; and although four times the dog was returned to his new owner, four times he escaped and nosed the long trail that led to the cabin on the mountain-side.

After Stub's fourth desertion the saloon-keeper refused to take him again, and for a week the dog lay unmolested in his old place in the sun outside the cabin door, or dozed before the fireplace at night. Then Rathburn bestirred himself and made one last effort, taking the dog quite over the mountain and leaving him tied to a tree.

At the end of thirty-six hours, Rathburn was congratulating himself; at the end of thirty-seven he was crying, "Down, sir—down!" to a joy-crazed little dog which had come leaping down the mountain-side with eighteen inches of rope dangling at his heels—a rope whose frayed and tattered end showed the marks of sharp little teeth.

Rathburn gave it up after that, and Stub stayed on. There was no petting, no trick-teaching; there were only sharp words and sometimes a kick or a cuff. Gradually the whines and barks gave way to the more silent appeal of wistful eyes, and Stub learned that life now was a thing of little food and less joy, and that existence was a thing of long motionless watchings of a master who would not understand.

Weeks passed and a cold wind swept down from the mountains. The line of snow crept nearer and nearer the clearing about the cabin, and the sun grew less warm. Rathburn came home each night with a deeper frown on his face, and a fiercer oath as he caught sight of the dog. Down at Swaney's the men knew that Bill Rathburn was having a "streak o' poor luck"; the golden treasure he sought was proving elusive. Stub knew only that he must hide each night now when his master appeared.

As the days passed food became scarce in the cabin. It had been some time since Rathburn had gone to town for supplies. Then came the day when a great joy came into Stub's life—his master spoke to him. It was not the old fond greeting, to be sure. It was a command, and a sharp one; but in Stub's opinion it was a vast improvement on the snarling oaths or wordless glowerings which had been his portion for the past weeks, and he responded to it with every sense and muscle quiveringly alert.

And so it came about that Stub, in obedience to that sharp command, frequently scampered off with his master to spend long days in the foothills, or following the mountain streams. Sometimes it was a partridge, sometimes it was a squirrel, or a rabbit—whatever it was that fell a victim to Rathburn's gun, Stub learned very soon that it must be brought at once to the master and laid at his feet; and so proud was he to be thus of use and consequence that he was well content if at the end of the day his master tossed him a discarded bone after the spoils had been cooked and the man's own appetite satisfied.

It was on one of the days when work, not hunting, filled the time, that Rathburn came home after a long day's labor to find Stub waiting for him with a dead rabbit. After that it came to be a common thing for the dog to trot off by himself in the morning; and the man fell more and more in the way of letting him go alone, as it left his own time the more free for the pursuit of that golden sprite who was ever promising success just ahead.

As for Stub—Stub was happy. He spent the long days in the foothills or on the mountain-side, and soon became expert in his hunting. He would trail for hours without giving tongue, and would patiently lie and wait for a glimpse of a venturesome woodchuck or squirrel. So devoted was he, so well trained, and so keenly alive was he to his responsibilities that, whether the day had been one of great or small success, he was always to be found at night crouching before the cabin door on guard of something limp and motionless—something that a dozen hours before had been a throbbing, scurrying bit of life in the forest. To be sure, that "something" did not always have a food value commensurate with the labor and time Stub had spent to procure it; but to Stub evidently the unforgivable sin was to return with nothing, which fact may explain why Rathburn came home one night to find Stub on guard beside a small dead snake. Both man and dog went supperless that night—the man inside the cabin before a roaring fire; the dog outside in the cheerless dark before a fast-closed door whither his master had promptly consigned him.

Gradually as the days passed there came still another change in the life at the cabin. Rathburn's step became slow, and his cheeks sunken. Sometimes he did not leave home all day, but lay tossing from side to side on his bunk in the corner. At such times, if the result of Stub's hunt were eatable, the man would rouse himself enough to stir the fire and get supper; and always, after such a day at home, Rathburn was astir the next morning at dawn and off in feverish haste for a long day's work to make up for the long day of idleness.

But there came a time when he could not do this—when each day found him stretched prone on his bunk or moving feebly about the room. Then came a night when Stub's bark at the door was unanswered. Again and again Stub demanded admittance only to be met with silence. The door, though unlatched, was swollen from recent rains, and it took five good minutes and all the strength of one small dog to push it open a narrow foot, and then there were only silence and a dying fire by way of greeting.

Stub dropped his burden on the floor and whined. He was particularly proud to-night; he had brought home a partridge—the first he had ever caught without the aid of his master's gun.

The figure on the bed did not move.

The dog picked up the bird he had dropped and walked toward his master.
This time he laid his offering close to the bunk and barked.

The man stirred and groaned. For long minutes the dog stood motionless, watching; then he crept to the fire and almost into the hot ashes in his efforts to warm the blood in his shivering little legs.

In the morning the fire was quite out. Stub stretched his stiffened body and gazed about the room. Over on the bed the man did not stir nor speak. The dead bird lay untouched at his side. There was a whine, a bark, and a long minute of apparent indecision; then the dog pattered across the floor, wormed himself through the partly open door, and took the trail that led to the foothills.

Three times Stub brought to the fireless, silent cabin the result of his day's hunt and laid it at his master's side, and always there was only silence or a low groan to greet him.

On the third night it snowed—the first storm of the season. A keen wind swept down the mountain and played hide-and-seek with the cabin door, so that in the morning a long bar of high-piled snow lay across the cabin floor.

When the men from the village had ploughed their way through the snow and pushed open the door, they stopped amazed upon the threshold, looking at one another with mingled alarm and pity; then one of them, conquering his reluctance, strode forward. He stooped for a moment over the prostrate form of the man before he turned and faced his companions.

"Boys, he's—gone," he said huskily; and in the silence that followed, four men bared their heads.

It was a dog's low whine that first stirred into action the man by the bunk. He looked down and his eyes grew luminous. He saw the fireless hearth, the drifted snow, and the half-dead dog keeping watchful guard over a pile of inert fur and feathers on the floor—a pile frozen stiff and mutely witnessing to a daily duty well performed.

"I reckon I'm needin' a dog," he said, as he stooped and patted Stub's head.

A Matter of System

At the office of Hawkins & Hawkins, system was everything. Even the trotter-boy was reduced to an orbit that ignored craps and marbles, and the stenographer went about her work like a well-oiled bit of machinery. It is not strange, then, that Jasper Hawkins, senior member of the firm, was particularly incensed at the confusion that Christmas always brought to his home.

For years he bore—with such patience as he could muster—the attack of nervous prostration that regularly, on the 26th day of December, laid his wife upon a bed of invalidism; then, in the face of the unmistakable evidence that the malady would this year precede the holy day of peace and good-will, he burst his bonds of self-control and spoke his mind.

It was upon the morning of the 21st.

"Edith," he began, in what his young daughter called his "now mind" voice, "this thing has got to stop."

"What thing?"

"Christmas."

"Jas-per!"—it was as if she thought he had the power to sweep good-will itself from the earth. "Christmas—stop!"

"Yes. My dear, how did you spend yesterday?"

"I was—shopping."

"Exactly. And the day before?—and the day before that?—and before that? You need n't answer, for I know. And you were shopping for—" he paused expectantly.

"Presents." Something quite outside of herself had forced the answer.

"Exactly. Now, Edith, surely it need not take all your time for a month before Christmas to buy a few paltry presents, and all of it for two months afterward to get over buying them!"

"But, Jasper, they are n't few, and they're anything but paltry. Imagine giving Uncle Harold a paltry present!" retorted Edith, with some spirit.

The man waved an impatient hand.

"Very well, we will call them magnificent, then," he conceded. "But even in that case, surely the countless stores full of beautiful and useful articles, and with a list properly tabulated, and a sufficiency of money—" An expressive gesture finished his sentence.

The woman shook her head.

"I know; it sounds easy," she sighed, "but it is n't. It's so hard to think up what to give, and after I 've thought it up and bought it, I 'm just sure I ought to have got the other thing."

"But you should have some system about it."

"Oh, I had—a list," she replied dispiritedly. "But I'm so—tired."

Jasper Hawkins suddenly squared his shoulders.

"How many names have you left now to buy presents for?" he demanded briskly.

"Three—Aunt Harriet, and Jimmy, and Uncle Harold. They always get left till the last. They're so—impossible."

"Impossible? Nonsense!—and I'll prove it to you, too. Give yourself no further concern, Edith, about Christmas, if that is all there is left to do—just consider it done."

"Do you mean—you'll get the presents for them?"

"Most certainly."

"But, Jasper, you know—"

An imperative gesture silenced her.

"My dear, I'm doing this to relieve you, and that means that you are not even to think of it again."

"Very well; er—thank you," sighed the woman; but her eyes were troubled.

Not so Jasper's; his eyes quite sparkled with anticipation as he left the house some minutes later.

On the way downtown he made his plans and arranged his list. He wished it were longer—that list. Three names were hardly sufficient to demonstrate his theories and display his ability. As for Aunt Harriet, Jimmy, and Uncle Harold being "impossible"—that was all nonsense, as he had said; and before his eyes rose a vision of the three: Aunt Harriet, a middle-aged spinster, poor, half-sick, and chronically discontented with the world; Jimmy, a white-faced lad who was always reading a book; and Uncle Harold, red-faced, red-headed, and—red-tempered. (Jasper smiled all to himself at this last thought.) "Red-tempered"—that was good. He would tell Edith—but he would not tell others. Witticisms at the expense of a rich old bachelor uncle whose heir was a matter of his own choosing were best kept pretty much to one's self. Edith was right, however, in one thing, Jasper decided: Uncle Harold surely could not be given a "paltry" present. He must be given something fine, expensive, and desirable—something that one would like one's self. And immediately there popped into Jasper's mind the thought of a certain exquisitely carved meerschaum which he had seen in a window and which he had greatly coveted. As for Aunt Harriet and Jimmy—their case was too simple for even a second thought: to one he would give a pair of bed-slippers; to the other, a book.

Some minutes later Jasper Hawkins tucked into his pocketbook an oblong bit of paper on which had been neatly written:—

Presents to be bought for Christmas, 1908:

Aunt Harriet, spinster, 58(?) years old—Bed-slippers.

Uncle Harold, bachelor, 65 years old—Pipe.

Jimmy, boy, 12 years old—Book.

In the office of Hawkins & Hawkins that morning, the senior member of the firm found a man waiting for him. This man was the emissary of his mighty chief, and upon this chief rested the whole structure of a "deal" which was just then looming large on the horizon of Hawkins & Hawkins—and in which the oblong bit of paper in Jasper's pocketbook had no part.

Mrs. Jasper Hawkins greeted her husband with palpitating interest that evening.

"Well—what did you get?" she asked.

The man of business lifted his chin triumphantly.

"Not everything we asked for, to be sure," he began, "but we got more than we expected to, and—" He stopped abruptly. The expression on his wife's face had suddenly reminded him that by no possible chance could she know what he was talking about. "Er—what do you mean?" he demanded.

"Why, Jasper, there's only one thing I could mean—the presents, you know!"

A curious something clutched at Jasper's breath and held it for a moment suspended. Then Jasper throttled the something, and raised his chin even higher.

"Time enough for that to-morrow," he retorted lightly. "I did n't promise to get them to-day, you know."

"But, Jasper, to-morrow 's the 22d!"

"And three whole days before Christmas."

"Yes, but they must be sent the 24th."

"And they'll be sent, my dear," declared Jasper, in a tone of voice that was a cold dismissal of the subject.

On the morning of the 22d, Jasper Hawkins told himself that he would not forget the presents this time. He decided, however, that there was no need for him to take the whole day to select a pipe, a book, and a pair of slippers. There would be quite time enough after luncheon. And he smiled to himself in a superior way as he thought of the dizzying rush and the early start that always marked his wife's shopping excursions. He was still smiling happily when he sallied forth at two o'clock that afternoon, leaving word at the office that he would return in an hour.

He decided to buy the meerschaum first, and with unhesitating steps he sought the tobacco-store in whose window he had seen it. The pipe was gone, however, and there really was no other in the place that just suited him, though he spent fully half an hour trying to find one. He decided then to look elsewhere. He would try the department store in which he intended to buy the book and the slippers. It was better, anyway, that he should do all his shopping under one roof—it was more systematic.

The great clock in the department-store tower had just struck three when Jasper stalked through the swinging doors on the street floor. He had been detained. Window displays had allured him, and dawdling throngs of Christmas shoppers had forced his feet into a snail's pace. He drew now a sigh of relief. He had reached his destination; he would make short work of his purchases. And with a dignified stride he turned toward the nearest counter.

At once, however, he found himself caught in a swirl of humanity that swept him along like a useless chip and flung him against a counter much farther down the aisle. With what dignity he could summon to his aid he righted himself and addressed the smiling girl behind it.

"I'm looking for pipes," he announced, severely. "Perhaps you can tell me where they are."

She shook her head.

"Ask him," she suggested, with a nod and a jerk of her thumb.

And Jasper, looking in the direction indicated, saw a frock-coated man standing like a rock where the streams of humanity broke and surged to the right and to the left. By some maneuvering, Jasper managed in time to confront this man.

"Pipes," he panted anxiously—he was reduced now to the single word.

"Annex; second floor. Elevator to your right."

"Thanks!" fervently breathed the senior member of the firm of Hawkins & Hawkins, muttering as he turned away, "Then they have got some system in this infernal bedlam!"

The crisp directions had sounded simple, but they proved to be anything but simple to follow. Like a shuttlecock, Jasper was tossed from clerk to clerk, until by the time he reached his destination he was confused, breathless, and cross.

The pipes, however, were numerous and beautiful, and the girl behind the counter was both pretty and attentive; moreover, pipes did not happen to be popular that day, and the corner was a little paradise of quietness and rest. The man drew a long breath of relief and bent to his task.

In his mind was the one thought uppermost—he must select just such a pipe as he himself would like; and for long minutes he pondered whether this, that, or another would best please him. So absorbed was he, indeed, in this phase of the question, that he had made his selection and taken out his money, when the sickening truth came to him—Uncle Harold did not smoke.

To Jasper it seemed incredible that he had not thought of this before. But not until he pictured his purchase in his uncle's hand had he realized that the thing was not for himself, after all, but for a man who not only did not smoke, but who abhorred the habit in others.

With a muttered something that the righteously indignant pretty girl could not hear, Jasper Hawkins thrust his money into his pocket and rushed blindly away from the pipe counter. Long minutes later in the street, he adjusted his tie, jerked his coat into place, straightened his hat, and looked at his watch.

It was four o'clock, and he must go back to the office before starting for home. There was still another whole day before him, he remembered, and, after all, it was a very simple matter to buy the book and the slippers, and then look around a little for something for Uncle Harold. In the morning he would doubtless light upon the very thing. And with this comforting thought he dismissed the subject and went back to the office.

Mrs. Hawkins did not question her husband that night about what he had bought. Something in his face stayed the words on her lips.

Jasper Hawkins went early to the office the next morning, but it was fully eleven o'clock before he could begin his shopping. He told himself, however, that there was quite time enough for the little he had to do, and he stepped off very briskly in the direction of the department store he had left the night before. He had decided that he preferred this one to the intricacies of a new one; besides, he was very sure that there would not now be so many people in it.

Just here, however, Jasper met with a disappointment. Not only was every one there who had been there the day before, but most of them had brought friends, and in dismay Jasper clung to the post near the door while he tried to rally his courage for the plunge. In the distance the frock-coated man was still the rock where the stream foamed and broke; and after a long wait and a longer struggle Jasper stood once more before him.

"I want slippers—bed-slippers for women," he muttered.

"Fourth floor, front. Elevator to your left," declaimed the man. And Jasper quite glowed with awe at the thought of a brain so stupendous that it could ticket and tell each shelf and counter in that vast domain of confusion.

Jasper himself had been swept to the right on the crest of a particularly aggressive wave formed by the determined shoulders of a huge fat woman who wished to go in that direction; so it was some time before he could stem the current and make an effort to reach the elevator on the other side of the store. It was then that he suddenly decided to grasp this opportunity for "looking about a little to find something for Uncle Harold"—and it was then that he was lost, for no longer had he compass, captain, or a port in view; but oarless and rudderless he drifted.

Then, indeed, did the department store, in all its allurements of glitter and show and competing attractions, burst on Jasper's eyes, benumbing his senses and overthrowing his judgment. For long minutes he hung entranced above a tray of jeweled side combs, and for other long minutes he critically weighed the charms of a spangled fan against those of one that was merely painted—before he suddenly awoke to the realization that he was looking for something for Uncle Harold, and that Uncle Harold did not wear side combs, nor disport himself with gauze fans.

"Where do you keep things for men?" he demanded then, aggrievedly, of the demure-faced girl behind the counter; and it was while he was on the ensuing frantic search for "things for men" that he stumbled upon the book department.

"To be sure—a book for Jimmy," he muttered, and confidently approached a girl who already was trying to wait on three customers at once.

"I want a book for a boy," he observed; and was surprised that no one answered.

"I want a book for a boy," he urged, in a louder tone.

Still no one answered.

"I want a book—for—a—boy," he reiterated distinctly; and this time the girl flicked her ear as at the singing of an annoying insect.

"Juveniles three aisles over to your left," she snapped glibly; and after a puzzled pondering on her words, Jasper concluded that they were meant for him.

In the juvenile department, Jasper wondered why every one in the store had chosen that particular minute to come there and buy a book for a child. Everywhere were haste and confusion. Nowhere was there any one who paid the least attention to himself. At his right a pretty girl chatted fluently of this, that, and another "series"; and at his left a severe-faced woman with glasses discoursed on the great responsibility of selecting reading for the young, and uttered fearsome prophecies of the dire evil that was sure to result from indiscriminate buying.

Her words were not meant for Jasper's ears, but they reached them, nevertheless. The man shuddered and grew pale. With soft steps he slunk out of the book department. . . . To think that he—he, who knew nothing whatever about books for boys—had nearly bought one of the risky things for Jimmy! And to Jasper's perverted imagination it almost seemed that Jimmy, white-faced and sad-eyed, had already gone wrong—and through him.

Jasper looked at his watch then, and decided it was time for luncheon.
After that he could look around for something else for Jimmy.

It was six o'clock when Jasper, flushed, tired, and anxious, looked at his watch again, and took account of stock.

He had a string of beads and a pair of skates.

The skates, of course, were for Jimmy. He was pleased with those. It was a girl who had helped him in that decision—a very obliging girl who had found him in the toy department confusedly eyeing an array of flaxen-haired dolls, and who had gently asked him the age of the boy for whom he desired a present. He thought of that girl now with gratitude.

The string of beads did not so well please him. He was a little doubtful, anyway, how he happened to buy them. He had a dim recollection that they looked wonderfully pretty with the light bringing out sparkles of green and gold, and that the girl who tended them did not happen to have anything to do but to wait on him. So he had bought them. They were handsome beads, and not at all cheap. They would do for some one, he assured himself. And not until he had dropped them in his pocket did it occur to him that he was buying presents for only a boy, a bachelor, and a middle-aged spinster. Manifestly a string of beads would not do for Jimmy or Uncle Harold, so they must do for Aunt Harriet. He had meant to buy bed-slippers for her, but, perhaps, after all, she would prefer beads. At all events, he had bought them, and they would have to go. And with that he dismissed the beads.

As yet he had nothing for Uncle Harold. There seemed to be nothing, really, that he could make up his mind to give. The more he searched, the more undecided he grew. The affair of the pipe had frightened him, and had sown distrust in his heart. He would have to buy something this evening, of course, for it must be sent to-morrow. He would telephone Edith that he could not be home for dinner—that business detained him; then he would eat a hasty luncheon and buy Uncle Harold's present. And with this decision Jasper wearily turned his steps toward a telephone booth.

Jasper Hawkins went home at ten o'clock. He still had nothing for
Uncle Harold. The stores had closed before he could find anything.
But there was yet until noon the next day.

Mrs. Hawkins did not question her husband. In the morning she only reminded him timidly.

"You know those things must get off by twelve o'clock, Jasper."

"Oh, yes, they'll go all right," her husband had replied, in a particularly cheery voice. Jasper was not cheery, however, within. He was nervous and anxious. A terrible fear had clutched his heart: what if he could not—but then, he must find something, he enjoined himself. And with that he started downtown at once.

He did not go to the office this time, but sought the stores immediately. He found conditions now even worse than before. Every one seemed to have an Uncle Harold for whom was frenziedly being sought the unattainable. If at nine o'clock Jasper had been nervous, at ten he was terrified, and at eleven he was nearly frantic. All power of decision seemed to have left him, and he stumbled vaguely on and on, scarcely knowing what he was doing. It was then that his eye fell on a huge sign:

"Just the thing for Christmas! When in doubt, buy me!"

There was a crowd before the sign, but Jasper knew now how to use his elbows. Once at his goal he stared in amazement. Then the tension snapped, and he laughed outright—before him were half a dozen cages of waltzing mice.

For a long time the curious whirls and antics of the odd little creatures in their black-and-white coats held Jasper's gaze in a fascinated stare. Then the man, obeying an impulse that he scarcely understood himself, made his purchase, gave explicit directions where and when it was to be sent, and left the store. Then, and not until then, did Jasper Hawkins fully realize that to his Uncle Harold—the rich old man who must be petted and pampered, and never by any chance offended—he had sent as a Christmas present a cage of dancing mice!

That night Mrs. Hawkins fearlessly asked her questions, and as fearlessly her husband answered them. He had determined to assume a bold front. However grave might be his own doubts and fears, he had resolved that she should not know of them.

"Presents? Of course! They went to-day with our love," he answered gayly.

"And what—did you send?"

"The simplest things in the world; a string of handsome beads to Aunt Harriet, a pair of skates to Jimmy, and a cage of the funniest little waltzing mice you ever saw, to Uncle Harold. You see it all resolves itself down to a mere matter of system," he went on; but at the real agony in his wife's face he stopped in dismay. "Why, Edith!"

"Jasper, you didn't—you did n't send skates to Jimmy!"

"But I did. Why not?"

"But, Jasper, he's—lame!"

Jasper fell back limply. All the bravado fled from his face.

"Edith, how could I—how could I—forget—a thing like that!" he groaned.

"And beads for Aunt Harriet! Why, Jasper, I never saw a bead on her neck! You know how poor she is, and how plain she dresses. I always give her useful, practical things!"

Jasper said nothing. He was still with Jimmy and the skates. He wished he had bought a book—a wicked book, if need be; anything would be better than those skates.

"And mice—mice for Uncle Harold!" wept Edith. "Why, Jasper, how could you?—dirty little beasts that Uncle Harold can only feed to his cat! And I had hoped so much from Uncle Harold. Oh, Jasper, Jasper, how could you!"

"I don't know," said Jasper dully, as he got up to leave the room.

To Jasper it was not a happy Christmas. There were those three letters of thanks to come; and he did not want to read them.

As it chanced they all came the same day, the 28th. They were addressed to Mrs. Hawkins, and naturally she read them first. When Jasper came home that night they lay waiting for him on his desk. He saw them, but he decided not to read them until after dinner. He felt that he needed all the fortification he could obtain. He hoped that his wife would not mention them, and yet he was conscious of a vague disappointment when, as time passed, she did not mention them.

Dinner over, further delay was impossible; and very slowly he picked up the letters. He singled out Aunt Harriet's first. Dimly he felt that this might be a sort of preparation for the wrath to follow.

Dear Niece and Nephew [he read—and he sat suddenly erect]. How ever in the world did you guess that it was beads that I wanted more than anything else in the world? And these are such handsome ones! Ever since beads and chains have been worn so much I have longed for one all my own; but I have tried to crush the feeling and hide it, for I feared it might be silly—and me so old and faded, and out-of-date! But I know now that it is n't, and that I need n't be ashamed of it any more, for, of course, you and Jasper would never give me anything silly! And thank you ever and ever so much!

With a slightly dazed expression Jasper Hawkins laid down Aunt
Harriet's letter when he had finished it, and picked up the one from
Uncle Harold. As he did so he glanced at his wife; but she was sewing
and did not appear to be noticing him.

Well, well, children, you have done it this time! [read Jasper, with fearful eyes]. The little beasts came on Christmas morning, and never have I [Jasper turned the page and relaxed suddenly] stopped laughing since, I believe! How in the world did you happen to think of a present so original, so cute, and so everlastingly entertaining? The whole house, and I might say the whole town, is in a fever over them, and there is already a constant stream of children past my window—you see, I 've got the little devils where they can best be seen and appreciated!

There was more, much more, and all in the same strain; and again, as Jasper laid the letter down he glanced at his wife, only to find a demure, downcast gaze.

But one letter now remained, and in spite of what had gone before, Jasper picked up this with dread. Surely, nothing—nothing could reconcile Jimmy and those awful skates! He winced as he opened the letter and saw that Jimmy's mother had written—poor Jimmy's mother! how her heart must have ached!—and then he stared in unbelieving wonder at the words, and read them over and over, lest he had in some way misconstrued their meaning.

My dear sister and brother [Jimmy's mother had written], I wish you could have seen Jimmy when your beautiful skates arrived. He will write you himself and thank you, but I know he can't half make you understand just what that present means to him, so I am going to write you myself and tell you what he said; then maybe you can realize a little what a great joy you have brought into his life.

And let me say right here that I myself have been blind all these years. I have n't understood. And what I want to know is, how did you find it out—what Jimmy wanted? How did you know? When I, his own mother, never guessed! Why, even when the skates came on Christmas Day, I was frightened and angry, because you had been so "thoughtless" as to send my poor lame boy skates! And then—I could hardly believe my own eyes and ears, for Jimmy, his face one flame of joy, was waving a skate in each hand. "Mother, mother!" he was shouting. "See, I've got a boy present, a real boy present—just as if I was—like other boys. I've always had books and puzzles and girl presents! Everybody's thought of them when they thought of me!" he cried, thumping the crutches at his side. "But this is a real present— Now I've got something to show, and to lend—something that is something!" And on and on he chattered, with me staring at him as if I thought he was out of his head.

But he was n't out of his head. He was happy—happier than I've ever seen him since he was hurt. And it still lasts. He shows those skates to every one, and talks and talks about them, and has already made plans to let his dearest friends try them. Best of all, they have given him a new interest in life, and he is actually better. The doctor says at this rate he'll be using the skates himself some day!

And now, how can I thank you—you who have done this thing, who have been so wise beyond his mother? I can only thank and thank you, and send you my dearest love.

Your affectionate sister,

BERTHA

The senior member of the firm of Hawkins & Hawkins folded the letter very hurriedly and tucked it into its envelope. There was a mist in his eyes, and a lump in his throat—two most uncalled-for, unwelcome phenomena. With a determined effort he cleared his throat and began to speak.

"You see, Edith," he observed pompously, "your fears were quite groundless, after all. This Christmas shopping, if reduced to a system—" He paused suddenly. His wife had stopped her sewing and was looking straight into his eyes.

Angelus

To Hephzibah the world was a place of weary days and unrestful nights, and life was a thing of dishes that were never quite washed and of bread that was never quite baked—leaving something always to be done.

The sun rose and the sun set, and Hephzibah came to envy the sun. To her mind, his work extended from the first level ray shot into her room in the morning to the last rose-flush at night; while as for herself, there were the supper dishes and the mending-basket yet waiting. To be sure, she knew, if she stopped to think, that her sunset must be a sunrise somewhere else; but Hephzibah never stopped to think; she would have said, had you asked her, that she had no time.

First there was the breakfast for Theron and the hired man in the chill gray dawn of each day;—if one were to wrest a living from the stones and sand of the hillside farm, one must be up and at work betimes. Then Harry, Tom, and Nellie must be roused, dressed, fed, and made ready for the half-mile walk to the red schoolhouse at the cross-roads. After that the day was one blur of steam, dust, heat, and stifling fumes from the oven and the fat-kettle, broken always at regular intervals by meal-getting and chicken-feeding.

What mattered the blue of the heavens or the green of the earth outside? To Hephzibah the one was "sky" and the other "grass." What mattered the sheen of silver on the emerald velvet of the valley far below? Hephzibah would have told you that it was only the sun on Otter Creek down in Johnson's meadows.

As for the nights, even sleep brought little relief to Hephzibah; for her dreams were of hungry mouths that could not be filled, and of dirt-streaked floors that would not come clean.

Last summer a visitor had spent a week at the farm—Helen Raymond, Hephzibah's niece from New York; and now a letter had come from this same Helen Raymond, telling Hephzibah to look out for a package by express.

A package by express!

Hephzibah laid the letter down, left the dishes cooling in the pan, and went out into the open yard where she could look far down the road toward the village.

When had she received a package before? Even Christmas brought no fascinating boxes or mysterious bundles to her! It would be interesting to open it; and yet—it probably held a book which she would have no time to read, or a pretty waist which she would have no chance to wear.

Hephzibah turned and walked listlessly back to her kitchen and her dish-washing. Twelve hours later her unaccustomed lips were spelling out the words on a small white card which had come with a handsomely framed photograph:

The Angelus. Jean François Millet. 1859.

Hephzibah looked from the card to the picture, and from the picture back again to the card. Gradually an angry light took the place of the dazed wonder in her eyes. She turned fiercely to her husband.

"Theron, why did Helen send me that picture?" she demanded.

"Why, Hetty, I—I dunno," faltered the man, "'nless she—she—wanted ter please ye."

"Please me!—please me!" scoffed Hephzibah. "Did she expect to please me with a thing like that? Look here, Theron, look!" she cried, snatching up the photograph and bringing it close to her husband's face. "Look at that woman and that man—they're us, Theron,—us, I tell you!"

"Oh, come, Hetty," remonstrated Theron; "they ain't jest the same, yer know. She did n't mean nothin'—Helen did n't."

"Didn't mean nothing!" repeated Hephzibah scornfully; "then why did n't she send something pretty?—something that showed up pretty things—not just fields and farm-folks! Why did n't she, Theron,—why did n't she?"

"Why, Hetty, don't! She—why, she—"

"I know," cut in the woman, a bright red flaming into her cheeks. "'T was 'cause she thought that was all we could understand—dirt, and old clothes, and folks that look like us! Don't we dig and dig like them? Ain't our hands twisted and old and—"

"Hetty—yer ain't yerself! Yer—"

"Yes, I am—I am! I'm always myself—there's never anything else I can be, Theron,—never!" And Hephzibah threw her apron over her head and ran from the room, crying bitterly.

"Well, by gum!" muttered the man, as he dropped heavily into the nearest chair.

For some days the picture stayed on the shelf over the kitchen sink, where it had been placed by Theron as the quickest means of its disposal. Hephzibah did not seem to notice it after that first day, and Theron was most willing to let the matter drop.

It must have been a week after the picture's arrival that the minister made his semi-yearly call.

"Oh, you have an Angelus! That's fine," he cried, appreciatively;—the minister always begged to stay in Hephzibah's kitchen, that room being much more to his mind than was the parlor, carefully guarded from sun and air.

"'Fine'!—that thing!" laughed Hephzibah.

"Aye, that thing," returned the man, quick to detect the scorn in her voice; then, with an appeal to the only side of her nature he thought could be reached, he added:

"Why, my dear woman, 'that thing,' as you call it, is a copy of a picture which in the original was sold only a few years ago for more than a hundred thousand dollars—a hundred and fifty, I think."

"Humph! Who could have bought it! That thing!" laughed Hephzibah again, and changed the subject. But she remembered,—she must have remembered; for, after the minister had gone, she took the picture from the shelf and carried it to the light of the window.

"A hundred and fifty thousand dollars," she murmured; "and to think what I'd do with that money!" For some minutes she studied the picture in silence, then she sighed: "Well, they do look natural like; but only think what a fool to pay a hundred and fifty thousand for a couple of farm-folks out in a field!"

And yet—it was not to the kitchen shelf Hephzibah carried the picture that night, but to the parlor—the somber, sacred parlor. There she propped it up on the center-table among plush photograph-albums and crocheted mats—the dearest of Hephzibah's treasures.

Hephzibah could scarcely have explained it herself, but after the minister's call that day she fell into the way of going often into the parlor to look at her picture. At first its famous price graced it with a halo of gold; but in time this was forgotten, and the picture itself, with its silent, bowed figures, appealed to her with a power she could not understand.

"There's a story to it—I know there's a story to it!" she cried at last one day; and forthwith she hunted up an old lead-pencil stub and a bit of yellowed note-paper.

It was a long hour Hephzibah spent then, an hour of labored thinking and of careful guiding of cramped fingers along an unfamiliar way; yet the completed note, when it reached Helen Raymond's hands, was wonderfully short.

The return letter was long, and, though Hephzibah did not know it, represented hours of research in bookstores and in libraries. It answered not only Hephzibah's questions, but attempted to respond to the longing and heart-hunger Miss Raymond was sure she detected between the lines of Hephzibah's note. Twelve hours after it was written, Hephzibah was on her knees before the picture.

"I know you now—I know you!" she whispered exultingly. "I know why you're real and true. Your master who painted you was like us once—like us, and like you! He knew what it was to dig and dig; he knew what it was to work and work until his back and his head and his feet and his hands ached and ached—he knew! And so he painted you!

"She says you're praying; that you've stopped your work and 'turned to higher things.' She says we all should have an Angelus in our lives each day. Good God!—as if she knew!"—Hephzibah was on her feet now, her hands to her head.

"An Angelus?—me?" continued the woman scornfully. "And where? The dish-pan?—the wash-tub?—the chicken-yard? A fine Angelus, that! And yet"—Hephzibah dropped to her knees again—"you look so quiet, so peaceful, and, oh, so—rested!"

"For the land's sake, Hetty, what be you doin'? Have you gone clean crazy?"—It was Theron in the parlor doorway.

Hephzibah rose wearily to her feet. "Sometimes I think I have,
Theron," she said.

"Well,"—he hesitated,—"ain't it 'most—supper-time?"

"I s'pose 'tis," she assented, listlessly, and dragged herself from the room.

It was not long after this that the picture disappeared from the parlor. Hephzibah had borne it very carefully to her room and hung it on the wall at the foot of her bed, where her eyes would open upon it the first thing every morning. Each day she talked to it, and each day it grew to be more and more a part of her very self. Not until the picture had been there a week, however, did she suddenly realize that it represented the twilight hour; then, like a flash of light, came her inspiration.

"It's at sunset—I'll go out at sunset! Now my Angelus will come to me," she cried softly. "I know it will!"

Then did the little hillside farmhouse see strange sights indeed. Each night, as the sun dropped behind the far-away hills, Hephzibah left her work and passed through the kitchen door, her face uplifted, and her eyes on the distant sky-line.

Sometimes she would turn to the left to the open field and stand there motionless, unconsciously falling into the reverent attitude now so familiar to her; sometimes she would turn to the right and pause at the brow of the hill, where the valley in all its panorama of loveliness lay before her; and sometimes she would walk straight ahead to the old tumble-down gate where she might face the west and watch the rose change to palest amber in the sky.

At first her eyes saw but grass, sky, and dull-brown earth, and her thoughts turned in bitterness to her unfinished tasks; but gradually the witchery of the summer night entered her soul and left room for little else. Strange faces, peeping in and out of the clouds, looked at her from the sky; and fantastic figures, clothed in the evening mist, swept up the valley to her feet. The grass assumed a deeper green, and the trees stood out like sentinels along the hilltop behind the house. Even when she turned and went back to the kitchen, and took upon herself once more the accustomed tasks, her eyes still faintly glowed with the memory of what they had seen.

"It do beat all," said Theron a month later to Helen Raymond, who was again a visitor at the farm,—"it do beat all, Helen, what's come over yer aunt. She used ter be nervous-like, and fretted, an' things never went ter suit. Now she's calm, an' her eyes kind o' shine—'specially when she comes in from one of them tramps of hers outdoors. She says it's her Angelus—if ye know what that is; but it strikes me as mighty queer—it do, Helen, it do!"

And Helen smiled, content.

The Apple of Her Eye

It rained. It had rained all day. To Helen Raymond, spatting along the wet slipperiness of the drenched pavements, it seemed as if it had always rained, and always would rain.

Helen was tired, blue, and ashamed—ashamed because she was blue; blue because she was tired; and tired because—wearily her mind reviewed her day.

She had dragged herself out of bed at half-past five, but even then her simple toilet had been hastened to an untidy half completion by the querulous insistence of her mother's frequent "You know, Helen,—you must know how utterly impossible it is for me to lift my head until I've had my coffee! Are n't you nearly ready?" Mrs. Raymond had wakened earlier than usual that morning, and she could never endure to lie in bed when not asleep.

With one shoe unbuttoned and no collar on, Helen had prepared the coffee; then had come the delicate task of getting the semi-invalid up and dressed, with hair smoothed to the desired satiny texture. The hair had refused to smooth, however, this morning; buttons had come off, too, and strings had perversely knotted until Helen's patience had almost snapped—almost, but not quite. In the end her own breakfast, and the tidying of herself and the little four-room flat, had degenerated into a breathless scramble broken by remorseful apologies to her mother, in response to which Mrs. Raymond only sighed:

"Oh, of course, it does n't matter; but you know how haste and confusion annoy me, and how bad it is for me!"

It had all resulted as Helen had feared that it would result—she was late; and tardiness at Henderson & Henderson's meant a sharp reprimand, and in time, a fine. Helen's place in the huge department store was behind a counter where spangled nets and embroidered chiffons were sold. It had seemed to Helen today that half the world must be giving a ball to which the other half was invited, so constant—in spite of the rain—were the calls for her wares. The girl told herself bitterly that it would not be so unendurable were she handling anything but those filmy, glittering stuffs that spoke so loudly of youth and love and laughter. If it were only gray socks and kitchen kettles that she tended! At least she would be spared the sight of those merry, girlish faces, and the sound of those care-free, laughing voices. At least she would not have all day before her eyes the slender, gloved fingers which she knew were as fair and delicate as the fabrics they so ruthlessly tossed from side to side.

Annoyances at the counter had been more frequent to-day than usual, Helen thought. Perhaps the rain had made people cross. Whatever it was, the hurried woman had been more hurried, and the insolent woman more unbearable. There had been, too, an irritating repetition of the woman who was "just looking," and of her sister who "did n't know"; "was n't quite sure"; but "guessed that would n't do." Consequently Helen's list of sales had been short in spite of her incessant labor—and the list of sales was what Henderson & Henderson looked at when a promotion was being considered.

And through it all, hour after hour, there had been the shimmer of the spangles, the light chatter of coming balls and weddings, the merry voices of care-free girls—the youth, and love, and laughter.

"Youth, and love, and laughter." Unconsciously Helen repeated the words aloud; then she smiled bitterly as she applied them to herself. Youth?—she was twenty-five. Love?—the grocer? the milkman? the floorwalker? oh, yes, and there was the postman. Laughter?—she could not remember when she had seen anything funny—really funny enough to laugh at.

Of all this Helen thought as she plodded wearily homeward; of this, and more. At home there would be supper to prepare, her mother to get to bed, and the noon dishes to clear away. Helen drew in her breath sharply as she thought of the dinner. She hoped that it had not been codfish-and-cream to-day. If it had, she must speak to Mrs. Mason. Codfish twice a week might do, but five times! (Mrs. Mason was the neighbor who, for a small sum each day, brought Mrs. Raymond her dinner fully cooked.) There was a waist to iron and some mending to do. Helen remembered that. There would be time, however, for it all, she thought; that is, if it should not unfortunately be one of her mother's wakeful evenings when talking—and on one subject—was the only thing that would soothe her.

Helen sighed now. She was almost home, but involuntarily her speed slackened. She became suddenly more acutely aware of the dreary flapping of her wet skirts against her ankles, and of the swish of the water as it sucked itself into the hole at the heel of her left overshoe. The wind whistled through an alleyway in a startling swoop and nearly wrenched her umbrella from her half-numbed fingers, but still her step lagged. The rain slapped her face smartly as the umbrella careened, but even that did not spur her to haste. Unmistakably she dreaded to go home—and it was at this realization that Helen's shame deepened into a dull red on her cheeks; as if any girl, any right-hearted girl, should mind a mother's talk of her only son!

At the shabby door of the apartment house Helen half closed her umbrella and shook it fiercely. Then, as if freeing herself from something as obnoxious as was the rain, she threw back her head and shook that, too. A moment later, carefully carrying the dripping umbrella, she hurried up three flights of stairs and unlocked the door of the rear suite.

"My, but it sprinkles! Did you know it?" she cried cheerily to the little woman sitting by the west window.

"'Sprinkles'! Helen, how can you speak like that when you know what a dreadful day it is!" fretted the woman. "But then, you don't know. You never do know. If you had to just sit here and stare and stare and stare at that rain all day, as I do, perhaps you would know."

"Perhaps," smiled Helen oddly—she was staring just then at the havoc that that same rain had wrought in what had been a fairly good hat.

Her mother's glance followed hers.

"Helen, that can't be—your hat!" cried the woman, aghast.

Helen smiled quizzically. "Do you know that's exactly what I was thinking myself, mother! It can't be—but it is."

"But it's ruined, utterly ruined!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And you have n't any other that's really decent!"

"No, ma'am."

The woman sighed impatiently. "Helen, how can you answer like that when you know what it means to spoil that hat? Can't anything dampen your absurd high spirits?"

"'High spirits'!" breathed the girl. A quick flash leaped to her eyes. Her lips parted angrily; then, as suddenly, they snapped close shut. In another minute she had turned and left the room quietly.

Clothed in dry garments a little later, Helen set about the evening's tasks. At the first turn in the little room that served for both kitchen and dining-room she found the dinner dishes waiting to be cleared from the table—and there were unmistakable evidences of codfish-and-cream. As she expected, she had not long to wait.

"Helen," called a doleful voice from the sitting-room.

"Yes, mother."

"She brought codfish again to-day—five times this week; and you know how I dislike codfish!"

"Yes, I know, dear. I'm so sorry!"

"'Sorry'! But that does n't feed me. You must speak to her, Helen. I can't eat codfish like that. You must speak to-night when you take the dishes back."

"Very well, mother; but—well, you know we don't pay very much."

"Then pay more. I'm sure I shouldn't think you'd grudge me enough to eat, Helen."

"Mother! How can you say a thing like that!" Helen's voice shook. She paused a moment, a dish half-dried in her hands; but from the other room came only silence.

Supper that night was prepared with unusual care. There was hot corncake, too,—Mrs. Raymond liked hot corncake. It was a little late, it is true; Helen had not planned for the corncake at first—but there was the codfish. If the poor dear had had nothing but codfish! . . . Helen opened a jar of the treasured peach preserves, too; indeed, the entire supper table from the courageous little fern in the middle to the "company china" cup at Mrs. Raymond's plate was a remorseful apology for that midday codfish. If Mrs. Raymond noticed this, she gave no sign. Without comment, she ate the corncake and the peach preserves, and drank her tea from the china cup; with Mrs. Raymond only the codfish of one's daily life merited comment.

It was at the supper table that Helen's mother brought out the letter.

"You don't ask, nor seem to care," she began with a curious air of injured triumph, "but I've got a letter from Herbert."

The younger woman flushed.

"Why, of course, I care," she retorted cheerily. "What does he say?"

"He wrote it several days ago. It got missent. But it's such a nice letter!"

"They always are."

"It asks particularly how I am, and says he's sorry I have to suffer so. He cares."

Only the swift red in Helen's cheeks showed that the daughter understood the emphasis.

"Of course he cares," she answered smoothly.

"And he sent me a present, too—money!" Mrs. Raymond's usually fretful whine carried a ring of exultation.

Helen lifted her head eagerly.

"Money?"

"Yes. A new crisp dollar bill. He told me to get something pretty—some little trinket that I'd like."

"But, a dollar—only a dollar," murmured Helen. "Now you're needing a wrapper, but that—"

"A wrapper, indeed!" interrupted Mrs. Raymond in fine scorn. "A wrapper is n't a 'trinket' for me! I'd have wrappers anyway, of course. He said to buy something pretty; something I'd like. But then, I might have known. You never think I need anything but wrappers and—and codfish! I—I'm glad I've got one child that—that appreciates!" And Mrs. Raymond lifted her handkerchief to her eyes.

Across the table Helen caught her lower lip between her teeth. For a moment she did not speak; then very gently she said:—

"Mother, you did n't quite mean that, I'm sure. You know very well that I—I'd dress you in silks and velvets, and feed you on strawberries and cream, if I could. It's only that—that— But never mind. Use the dollar as you please, dear. Is n't there something—some little thing you would like?"

Mrs. Raymond lowered her handkerchief. Her grieved eyes looked reproachfully across at her daughter.

"I'd thought of—a tie; a lace tie with pretty ends; a nice tie. You know how I like nice things!"

"Of course, you do; and you shall have it, too," cried Helen. "I'll bring some home tomorrow night for you to select from. Now that will be fine, won't it?"

The other drew a resigned sigh.

"'Fine'! That's just like you, Helen. You never appreciate—never realize. Perhaps you do think it's 'fine' to stay mewed up at home here and have ties brought to you instead of going out yourself to the store and buying them, like other women!"

"Oh, but just don't look at it that way," retorted Helen in a cheerful voice. "Just imagine you're a queen, or a president's wife, or a multi-millionairess who is sitting at home in state to do her shopping just because she wishes to avoid the vulgar crowds in the stores; eh, mother dear?"

"Mother dear" sniffed disdainfully.

"Really, Helen," she complained, "you are impossible. One would think you might have some sympathy, some consideration for my feelings! There's your brother, now. He's all sympathy. Look at his letter. Think of that dollar he sent me—just a little thing to give me happiness. And he's always doing such things. Did n't he remember how I loved peppermints, and give me a whole box at Christmas?"

Helen did not answer. As well she knew, she did not need to. Her mother, once started on this subject, asked only for a listener. Wearily the girl rose to her feet and began to clear the table.

"And it is n't as if he did n't have his hands full, just running over full with his business and all," continued Mrs. Raymond. "You know how successful he is, Helen. Now there's that club—what was it, president or treasurer that they made him? Anyhow, it was something; and that shows how popular he is. And you know every letter tells us of something new. I 'm sure it is n't any wonder I 'm proud of him; and relieved, too—I did hope some one of my children would amount to something; and I 'm sure Herbert has."

There was a pause. Herbert's sister was washing the dishes now, hurriedly, nervously. Herbert's mother watched her with dissatisfied eyes.

"Now there's you, Helen, and your music," she began again, after a long sigh. "You know how disappointed I was about that."

"Oh, but piano practice does n't help to sell goods across the counter," observed Helen dully. "At least, I never heard that it did."

"'Sell goods,'" moaned the other. "Always something about selling goods! Helen, can't you get your mind for one moment off that dreadful store, and think of something higher?"

"But it's the store that brings us in our bread and butter—and codfish," added Helen, half under her breath.

It was a foolish allusion, born of a much-tried spirit; and Helen regretted the words the moment they had left her lips.

"Yes, that's exactly what it brings—codfish," gloomed Mrs. Raymond.
"I'm glad you at least realize that."

There was no reply. Helen was working faster now. Her cheeks were pink, and her hands trembled. As soon as possible she piled Mrs. Mason's dinner dishes neatly on the tray and hurried with them to the outer door of the suite.

"Now, Helen, don't stay," called her mother. "You know how much I'm alone, and I just simply can't go to bed yet. I'm not one bit sleepy."

"No, mother." The voice was calm, and the door shut quietly; but in the hall Helen paused at the head of the stairs, flushed and palpitating.

"I wonder—if it would do any good—if I should—throw them!" she choked hysterically, the tray raised high in her hands. Then with a little shamed sob she lowered the tray and hurried downstairs to the apartment below.

"It's only me, Mrs. Mason, with the dishes," she said a moment later, as her neighbor peered out into the hall in answer to the knock at the door. "I'm a little late to-night."

"Oh, to be sure, Miss Raymond; come in—come in. Why, child, what ails you?" cried the woman, as Helen stepped into the light.

"Ails me? Why, nothing," laughed the girl evasively. "Shall I put the things here?"

As she set the tray down and turned to go, the elder woman, by a sudden movement, confronted her.

"See here, Miss Helen, it ain't none o' my business, I know, but I've just got to speak. Your eyes are all teary, and your cheeks have got two red spots in 'em. You've been cryin'. I know you have. You're so thin I could just blow you over with a good big breath. And I know what's the matter. You're all wore out. You 're doin' too much. No mortal woman can work both day and night!"

"But I don't—quite," stammered the girl "Besides, there is so much to be done. You know, mother—though she isn't very sick—can do but little for herself."

"Yes, I know she don't—seem to. But is n't there some one else that could help?"

The girl stirred restlessly. Her eyes sought for a means of escape.

"Why, no, of course not. There is n't any one," she murmured. "You are very kind, really, Mrs. Mason, but I must go—now."

The other did not move. She was standing directly before the hall door.

"There 's—your brother."

The girl lifted her head quickly. A look that was almost fear came into her eyes.

"Why, how did you know that I had—a brother?"

"Know it!" scoffed Mrs. Mason. "I have known your mother for a year—ever since she moved here; and as if a body could know her and not hear of him! He's the very apple of her eye. Why can't he—help? Would n't he, if he knew?"

"Why, Mrs. Mason, of course! He has—he does," declared the girl quickly, the red deepening in her cheeks. "He—he sent her money only to-day."

"Yes, I know; she told me—of that." Mrs. Mason's voice was significant in its smoothness. "Your mother said she was going to get her—a tie."

"Yes, a tie," repeated Helen, with feverish lightness; "lace, you know. Mother does so love pretty things! Oh, and by the way," hurried on the girl breathlessly, "if you don't mind—about the dinners, you know. Mother does n't care for codfish-and-cream, and if you could just substitute something else, I'll pay more, of course! I'd expect to do that. I've been thinking for some time that you ought to have at least ten cents a day more—if you could manage—on that. And—thank you; if you would remember about—the codfish, and now I really must—go!" she finished. And before Mrs. Mason knew quite what had happened a flying figure had darted by her through the half-open doorway.

"Well, of all things! Now what have I said?" muttered the puzzled woman, staring after her visitor. "Ten cents a day more, indeed! And where, for the land's sake, is the poor lamb going to find that?"

Long hours later in the Raymond flat, after the mending was done, the waist ironed, and the mother's querulous tongue had been silenced by sleep, the "poor lamb" sat down with her little account book and tried to discover just that—where she was going to find the extra ten cents a day to buy off Mrs. Mason's codfish.

It did not rain the next morning. The sun shone, indeed, as if it never had rained, and never would rain. In Helen Raymond's soul a deeper shame than ever sent the blue devils skulking into the farthermost corners—as if it were anything but a matter for the heartiest congratulations that one's mother had at least one child who had proved not to be a disappointment to her! And very blithely, to cheat the last one of the little indigo spirits, the girl resolutely uptilted her chin, and began her day.

It was not unlike the days that had gone before. There was the same apologetic rush in the morning, the same monotonous succession of buyers and near-buyers at the counter, the same glitter and sparkle and chatter—the youth, and love, and laughter. Then at night came the surprise.

Helen Raymond went home to find the little flat dominated by a new presence, a presence so big and breezy that unconsciously she sniffed the air as if she were entering a pine grove instead of a stuffy, four-room city flat.

"Helen, he knows Herbert, my Herbert," announced Mrs. Raymond rapturously; and as she seemed to think no further introduction was necessary, the young man rose to his feet and added with a smile:—

"My name is Carroll—Jack Carroll; Miss Raymond, I suppose. Your brother—er—suggested that I call, as I was in the city."

"Of course you'd call," chirruped Mrs. Raymond. "As if we were n't always glad to see any friend of my boy's. Helen, why don't you say something? Why don't you welcome Mr. Carroll?"

"I have n't had much chance yet, mother," smiled the girl, in some embarrassment. "Perhaps I—I have n't caught my breath."

"Not that Mr. Carroll ought to mind, of course," resumed Mrs. Raymond plaintively. "And he won't when he knows you, and sees how moderate you are. You know Herbert is so quick," she added, turning to Herbert's friend.

"Is he?" murmured the man; and at the odd something in his voice Helen looked up quickly to find the stranger's eyes full upon her. "You see, I'm not sure, after all, that I do know Herbert," he continued lightly, still with that odd something in his voice. "Herbert's mother has been telling me lots of things—about Herbert."

"Yes; we've been having such a nice visit together," sighed Mrs. Raymond.
"You see, he understands, Helen,—Mr. Carroll does."

Again Helen glanced up and met the stranger's eyes. She caught her breath sharply and looked away.

"Of course he understands," she cried, in a voice that was not quite steady. "If he knew you better, mother dear, he would know that there could n't be any nicer subject than Herbert to talk about—Herbert and the fine things he has done!" There was no bitterness, no sarcasm, in tone or manner. There was only a frightened little pleading, a warding-off, as of some unknown, threatening danger. "Of course, Mr. Carroll understands," she finished; and this time she turned and looked straight into the stranger's eyes unswervingly.

"I understand," he nodded gravely.

And yet—it was not of Herbert that he talked during the next ten minutes. It was of Mrs. Raymond and her daughter, of their life at home and at the store. It was a gay ten minutes, for the man laughed at the whimsical playfulness with which Miss Raymond set off the pitiful little tale of the daily struggle for existence. If he detected the nervousness in the telling, he did not show it. He did frown once; but that was when Herbert's mother sighed apologetically:—

"You must n't mind all she says, Mr. Carroll. Helen never did seem to realize the serious side of life, nor what I suffer; but that is Helen's way."

"After all, it must be a way that helps smooth things over some," he had retorted warmly.

And there the matter had ended—except in Helen's memory: there it bade fair to remain long, indeed.

At the end of the ten minutes, Herbert's friend rose to his feet and said that he must go. He added that he would come again, if he might; and to Miss Raymond he said very low—but very impressively—that she would see him soon, very soon. It was no surprise, therefore, to Helen, to encounter the big, tall fellow not twenty feet from her doorway when she started for the store the next morning.

His clean-cut face flushed painfully as he advanced; but the girl did not change color.

"Good-morning. I thought you'd do this," she began hurriedly. "We can talk as we walk. Now, tell me, please, quick. What is it about—Herbert?"

"Then you—know?"

"Not much; only suspect. I know everything is n't quite—right."

"But your mother doesn't know—even that much?"

"No, no! You saw that, didn't you? I was so glad you did, and did n't speak! He is her pet, and she's so proud of him!"

"Yes, I know," nodded the man grimly. "I saw—that."

The girl lifted her chin.

"And mother has a right to be proud of him. Herbert is fine. It is only that—that—" She weakened perceptibly. "Was it—money?" she faltered.

"Y-yes." Carroll spoke with evident reluctance. His eyes looked down almost tenderly at the girl with the still bravely uptilted chin. "It—it is rather serious this time. He asked me to call and—and make it plain to you. I had told him I was coming up to town on business, and I promised. But—good Heavens, Miss Raymond, I—I can't tell you!"

"But you must. I'll have to know," cried the girl sharply. All the pride had fled now. "And you need n't fear. I know what it is. He wants money to settle debts. I've sent it before—once. That is it—that is it?"

"Yes, only it's—it's a particularly bad job this time," stammered the other. "You see, it—it's club money—a little club among the boys, of which he is treasurer—and he sto—used part of the—funds."

The man choked over the wretched tale, and instinctively laid his hand on the girl's arm. She would faint or cry, of course, and he wondered what he could do. But there was no fainting, no crying. There was only the pitiful whitening of a set little face, and the tense question:

"How much—was it?"

Carroll sighed in relief.

"Miss Raymond, you're a—a brick—to take it like that," he cried brokenly. "I don't know another girl who— It was—well, a hundred dollars will cover it; but he's got to have it—to-morrow."

"I'll send it."

"But how—forgive me, Miss Raymond, but last night you were telling me that—that—" He flushed, and came to a helpless pause.

"How can I get it?" she supplied wearily. "We've a little in the bank—a very little laid by for a rainy day; but it will cover that. We never think of touching it, of course, for—for ordinary things. But—this." She shuddered, and Carroll saw her shabbily gloved hand clinch spasmodically. "Mr. Carroll, how did he come to—do it?"

It was a short story, soon told—the usual story of a pleasure-loving, thoughtless youth, tempted beyond his strength. Carroll softened it where he could, and ended with:—

"I asked Bert to let me make it good, somehow, but he would n't, Miss
Raymond. He—he just would n't!"

"Of course he would n't," exclaimed the girl sharply. Then, in a softer voice: "Thank you, just the same. But, don't you see? 'T would have done no good. I'd have had to pay you. . . . No, no, don't say any more, please," she begged, in answer to the quick words that leaped to his lips. "You have been kind—very kind. Now, just one kindness more, if you will," she hurried on. "Come tonight. I must leave you now—it's the store, just around the corner. But to-night I 'll have the money. It's in my name, and I can get it without mother's—knowing. You understand? Without—mother's—knowing."

"I understand," he nodded gravely, as he wrung her hand and turned chokingly away.

When Helen reached home that night she found the little flat dominated once again by the big, breezy presence of Herbert's friend.

"I've been telling him more about Herbert," Mrs. Raymond began joyously, as soon as Helen entered the room. "I've been telling him about his letters to me, and the peppermints and the lace tie, you know, and how good Herbert is to me. We've had such a nice visit!"

"Have you? I'm so glad!" returned Helen, a little unsteadily; and only the man knew the meaning of the quick look of relieved gratitude that came to her face.

At the door some minutes later, Carroll found a small packet thrust into his fingers. He caught both the hand and the packet in a firm clasp.

"You're true blue, little girl," he breathed tremulously, "and I'm going to keep tabs on Bert after this. I 'll make him keep straight for her—and for you. He's only a bit weak, after all. And you'll see me again soon—very soon," he finished, as he crushed her hand in a grip that hurt. Then he turned and stumbled away, as if his eyes did not see quite clearly.

"Now, wasn't he nice?" murmured Mrs. Raymond, as the girl closed the hall door. "And—didn't he say that he'd call again sometime?"

"Yes, mother."

"Well, I'm sure, I hope he will. He isn't Herbert, of course, but he knows Herbert."

"He—does, mother." There was a little break in Helen's voice, but Mrs.
Raymond did not notice it.

"Dearie me! Well, he's gone now, and I am hungry. My dinner didn't seem to please, somehow."

"Why, mother, it was n't—codfish; was it?"

"N-no. It was chicken. But then, like enough it will be codfish to-morrow."

Helen Raymond dreamed that night, and she dreamed of love, and youth, and laughter. But it was not the shimmer of spangled tulle nor the chatter of merry girls that called it forth. It was the look in a pair of steadfast blue eyes, and the grip of a strong man's hand.

A Mushroom of Collingsville

There were three men in the hotel office that Monday evening: Jared Parker, the proprietor; Seth Wilber, town authority on all things past and present; and John Fletcher, known in Collingsville as "The Squire"—possibly because of his smattering of Blackstone; probably because of his silk hat and five-thousand-dollar bank account. Each of the three men eyed with unabashed curiosity the stranger in the doorway.

"Good-evening, gentlemen," began a deprecatory voice. "I—er—this is the hotel?"

In a trice Jared Parker was behind the short counter.

"Certainly, sir. Room, sir?" he said suavely, pushing an open book and a pen halfway across the counter.

"H'm, yes, I—I suppose so," murmured the stranger, as he hesitatingly crossed the floor. "H'm; one must sleep, you know," he added, as he examined the point of the pen.

"Certainly, sir, certainly," agreed Jared, whose face was somewhat twisted in his endeavors to smile on the prospective guest and frown at the two men winking and gesticulating over by the stove.

"H'm," murmured the stranger a third time, as he signed his name with painstaking care. "There, that's settled! Now where shall I find Professor Marvin, please?"

"Professor Marvin!" repeated Jared stupidly.

"Yes; Professor George Marvin," bowed the stranger.

"Why, there ain't no Professor Marvin, that I know of."

"Mebbe he means old Marvin's son," interposed Seth Wilber with a chuckle.

The stranger turned inquiringly.

"His name's 'George,' all right," continued Seth, with another chuckle, "but I never heard of his professin' anythin'—'nless 't was laziness."

The stranger's face showed a puzzled frown.

"Oh—but—I mean the man who discovered that ants and—"

"Good gorry!" interrupted Seth, with a groan. "If it's anythin' about bugs an' snakes, he's yer man! Ain't he?" he added, turning to his friends for confirmation.

Jared nodded, and Squire Fletcher cleared his throat.

"He's done nothing but play with bugs ever since he came into the world," said the Squire ponderously. "A most unfortunate case of an utterly worthless son born to honest, hard-working parents. He'll bring up in the poor-house yet—or in a worse place. Only think of it—a grown man spending his time flat on his stomach in the woods counting ants' legs and bugs' eyes!"

"Oh, but—" The stranger stopped. The hotel-keeper had the floor.

"It began when he wa'n't more'n a baby. He pestered the life out of his mother bringing snakes into the sittin'-room, and carrying worms in his pockets. The poor woman was most mortified to death about it. Why, once when the parson was there, George used his hat to catch butterflies with—smashed it, too."

"Humph!" snapped the Squire. "The little beast filled one of my overshoes once, to make a swimming-tank for his dirty little fish."

"They could n't do nothin' with him," chimed in Seth Wilber. "An' when he was older, 'twas worse. If his father set him ter hoein' pertaters, the little scamp would be found h'istin' up old rocks an' boards ter see the critters under 'em crawl."

"Yes, but—" Again the stranger was silenced.

"And in school he did n't care nothing about 'rithmetic nor jography," interrupted Jared. "He was forever scarin' the teacher into fits bringin' in spiders an' caterpillars, an' asking questions about 'em."

"Gorry! I guess ye can't tell me no news about George Marvin's schoolin'," snarled Seth Wilber—"me, that's got a son Tim what was in the same class with him. Why, once the teacher set 'em in the same seat; but Tim could n't stand that—what with the worms an' spiders—an' he kicked so hard the teacher swapped 'round."

"Yes; well—er—extraordinary, extraordinary—very!—so it is," murmured the stranger, backing toward the door. The next moment he was out on the street asking the first person he met for the way to George Marvin's.

On Tuesday night a second stranger stopped at the hotel and asked where he could find Professor Marvin. Jared, Seth, and Squire Fletcher were there as before; but this time their derisive stories—such as they managed to tell—fell on deaf ears. The stranger signed his name with a flourish, engaged his room, laughed good-naturedly at the three men—and left them still talking.

On Wednesday two more strangers arrived, and on Thursday, another one.
All, with varying manner but unvarying promptitude, called for
Professor George Marvin.

Jared, Seth, and the Squire were dumfounded. Their mystification culminated in one grand chorus of amazement when, on Friday, the Squire came to the hotel hugging under his arm a daily newspaper.

"Just listen to this!" he blurted out, banging his paper down on the desk and spreading it open with shaking hands. As he read, he ran his finger down the column, singling out a phrase here and there, and stumbling a little over unfamiliar words.

The recent ento-mo-logical discoveries of Professor George Marvin have set the scientific world in a flurry. . . . Professor Marvin is now unanimously conceded to be the greatest entomologist living. He knows his Hex-a-poda and Myri-a-poda as the most of us know our alphabet. . . . The humble home of the learned man has become a Mecca, toward which both great and small of the scientific world are bending eager steps. . . . The career of Marvin reads like a romance, and he has fought his way to his present enviable position by sheer grit, and ability, having had to combat with all the narrow criticism and misconceptions usual in the case of a progressive thinker in a small town. Indeed, it is said that even now his native village fails to recognize the honor that is hers.

"Jehoshaphat!" exclaimed Seth Wilber faintly.

Fletcher folded the paper and brought his fist down hard upon it.

"There's more—a heap more," he cried excitedly.

"But how—what—" stammered Jared, whose wits were slow on untrodden paths.

"It's old Marvin's son—don't you see?" interrupted Squire Fletcher impatiently. "He 's big!—famous!"

"'Famous'! What for?"

"Zounds, man!—did n't you hear?" snarled the Squire. "He's a famous entomologist. It's his bugs and spiders."

"Gosh!" ejaculated Jared, his hand seeking the bald spot on the back of his head. "Who'd ever have thought it? Gorry! Let's have a look at it." And he opened the paper and peered at the print with near-sighted eyes.

It was on Monday, three days later, that Jared, Seth, and the Squire were once more accosted in the hotel office by a man they did not know.

"Good-evening, gentlemen, I—"

"You don't even have to say it," cut in Jared, with a nourish of both hands. "We know why you're here without your telling."

"An' you've come ter the right place, sir—the right place," declared Seth Wilber, pompously. "What Professor Marvin don't know about bugs an' spiders ain't wuth knowin'. I tell ye, sir, he's the biggest entymollygist that there is ter be found."

"That he is," affirmed the Squire, with an indulgently superior smile toward Wilber—"the very greatest entomologist living," he corrected carefully. "And no wonder, sir; he's studied bugs from babyhood. I've known him all his life—all his life, sir, and I always said he'd make his mark in the world."

"Oh, but—" began the stranger.

"'Member when he took the parson's hat to catch butterflies in?" chuckled Jared, speaking to the Squire, but throwing furtive glances toward the stranger to make sure of his attention. "Gorry—but he was a cute one! Wish 't had been my hat. I 'd 'a' had it framed an' labeled, an' hung up on the wall there."

"Yes, I remember," nodded the Squire; then he added with a complacent smile: "The mischievous little lad used my overshoe for a fish-pond once—I have that overshoe yet."

"Have ye now?" asked Seth Wilber enviously. "I want ter know! Well, anyhow, my Tim, he went ter school with him, an' set in the same seat," continued Seth, turning toward the stranger. "Tim's got an old writin'-book with one leaf all sp'iled 'cause one of young Marvin's spiders got into the inkwell an' then did a cake-walk across the page. Tim, he got a lickin' fur it then, but he says he would n't give up that page now fur forty lickin's."

The stranger shifted from one foot to the other.

"Yes, yes," he began, "but—"

"You'd oughter seen him when old Marvin used ter send him put to hoe pertaters," cut in Jared gleefully. "Gorry!—young as he was, he was all bugs then. He was smart enough to know that there was lots of curious critters under sticks an' stones that had laid still for a long time. I tell yer, there wa'n't much that got away from his bright eyes—except the pertaters!—he did n't bother them none."

A prolonged chuckle and a loud laugh greeted this sally. In the pause that followed the stranger cleared his throat determinedly.

"See here, gentlemen," he began pompously, with more than a shade of irritation in his voice. "Will you allow me to speak? And will you inform me what all this is about?"

"About? Why, it's about Professor George Marvin, to be sure," rejoined
Squire Fletcher. "Pray, what else should it be about?"

"I guess you know what it's about all right, stranger," chuckled Seth Wilber, with a shrewd wink. "You can't fool us. Mebbe you're one o' them fellers what thinks we don't know enough ter 'preciate a big man when we've got him. No, sir-ree! We ain't that kind. Come, ye need n't play off no longer. We know why you're here, an' we're glad ter see ye, an' we're proud ter show ye the way ter our Professor's. Come on—'t ain't fur."

The stranger drew back. His face grew red, then purple.

"I should like to know," he sputtered thickly, "I should like to know if you really think that I—I have come 'way up here to see this old bug man. Why, man alive, I never even heard of him!"

"What!" ejaculated three disbelieving voices, their owners too dumfounded to take exceptions to the sneer in tone and words. "Zounds, man!—what did you come for, then?" demanded the Squire.

The stranger raised his chin.

"See here, who do you think I am?" he demanded pompously, as he squared himself before them in all his glory of checkered trousers, tall hat, and flaunting watch-chain. "Who do you think I am? I am Theophilus Augustus Smythe, sir, advance agent and head manager of the Kalamazoo None-Like-It Salve Company. I came, sir, to make arrangements for their arrival to-morrow morning. They show in this town to-morrow night. Now perhaps you understand, sir, that my business is rather more important than hunting up any old bug man that ever lived!" And he strode to the desk and picked up the pen.

For a moment there was absolute silence; then Seth Wilber spoke.

"Well, by ginger!—you—you'd oughter have come ter see the Professor, anyhow," he muttered, weakly, as he fell back in his chair. "Say, Squire, 'member when Marvin—"

Over at the desk Theophilus Augustus Smythe crossed his t with so violent an energy that the pen sputtered and made two blots.

That Angel Boy

"I am so glad you consented to stay over until Monday, auntie, for now you can hear our famous boy choir," Ethel had said at the breakfast table that Sunday morning.

"Humph! I've heard of 'em," Ann Wetherby had returned crisply, "but I never took much stock in 'em. A choir—made o' boys—just as if music could come from yellin', hootin' boys!"

An hour later at St. Mark's, the softly swelling music of the organ was sending curious little thrills tingling to Miss Wetherby's finger tips. The voluntary had become a mere whisper when she noticed that the great doors near her were swinging outward. The music ceased, and there was a moment's breathless hush—then faintly in the distance sounded the first sweet notes of the processional.

Ethel stirred slightly and threw a meaning glance at her aunt. The woman met the look unflinchingly.

"Them ain't no boys!" she whispered tartly.

Nearer and nearer swelled the chorus until the leaders reached the open doors. Miss Wetherby gave one look at the white-robed singers, then she reached over and clutched Ethel's fingers.

"They be!—and in their nighties, too!" she added in a horrified whisper.

One of the boys had a solo in the anthem that morning, and as the clear, pure soprano rose higher and higher, Miss Wetherby gazed in undisguised awe at the young singer. She noted the soulful eyes uplifted devoutly, and the broad forehead framed in clustering brown curls. To Miss Wetherby it was the face of an angel; and as the glorious voice rose and swelled and died away in exquisite melody, two big tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed on the shining, black silk gown.

At dinner that day Miss Wetherby learned that the soloist was "Bobby Sawyer." She also learned that he was one of Ethel's "fresh-air" mission children, and that, as yet, there was no place for him to go for a vacation.

"That angel child with the heavenly voice—and no one to take him in?" Miss Wetherby bethought herself of her own airy rooms and flowering meadows, and snapped her lips together with sudden determination.

"I'll take him!" she announced tersely, and went home the next day to prepare for her expected guest.

Early in the morning of the first Monday in July, Miss Wetherby added the finishing touches to the dainty white bedroom upstairs.

"Dear little soul—I hope he'll like it!" she murmured, giving a loving pat to the spotless, beruffled pillow shams; then her approving eyes fell upon the "Morning Prayer" hanging at the foot of the bed. "There! them sweet little cherubs sayin' their prayers is jest the thing fur the little saint to see when he first wakes ev'ry mornin'. Little angel!" she finished softly.

On the table in the comer were hymn books, the great red-and-gold family Bible, and a "Baxter's Saint's Rest"—the only reading matter suited to Miss Wetherby's conception of the mind behind those soulful orbs upraised in devout adoration.

Just before Ann started for the station Tommy Green came over to leave his pet dog, Rover, for Miss Wetherby's "fresh-air" boy to play with.

"Now, Thomas Green," remonstrated Ann severely, "you can take that dirty dog right home. I won't have him around. Besides, Robert Sawyer ain't the kind of a boy you be. He don't care fur sech things—I know he don't."

Half an hour later, Ann Wetherby, her heart thumping loudly against her ribs, anxiously scanned the passengers as they alighted at Slocumville Station. There were not many—an old man, two girls, three or four women, and a small, dirty boy with a dirtier dog and a brown paper parcel in his arms.

He had not come!

Miss Wetherby held her breath and looked furtively at the small boy. There was nothing familiar in his appearance, she was thankful to say! He must be another one for somebody else. Still, perhaps he might know something about her own angel boy—she would ask.

Ann advanced warily, with a disapproving eye on the dog.

"Little boy, can you tell me why Robert Sawyer did n't come?" she asked severely.

The result of her cautious question disconcerted her not a little. The boy dropped the dog and bundle to the platform, threw his hat in the air, and capered about in wild glee.

"Hi, there. Bones! We're all right! Golly—but I thought we was side-tracked, fur sure!"

Miss Wetherby sank in limp dismay to a box of freight near by—the bared head disclosed the clustering brown curls and broad forehead, and the eyes uplifted to the whirling hat completed the tell-tale picture.

The urchin caught the hat deftly on the back of his head, and pranced up to Ann with his hands in his pockets.

"Gee-whiz! marm—but I thought you'd flunked fur sure. I reckoned me an' Bones was barkin' up the wrong tree this time. It looked as if we'd come to a jumpin'-off place, an' you'd given us the slip. I'm Bob, myself, ye see, an' I've come all right!"

"Are you Robert Sawyer?" she gasped.

"Jest ye hear that, Bones!" laughed the boy shrilly, capering round and round the small dog again. "I's 'Robert' now—do ye hear?" Then he whirled back to his position in front of Miss Wetherby, and made a low bow. "Robert Sawyer, at yer service," he announced in mock pomposity. "Oh, I say," he added with a quick change of position, "yer 'd better call me 'Bob'; I ain't uster nothin' else. I'd fly off the handle quicker 'n no time, puttin' on airs like that."

Miss Wetherby's back straightened. She made a desperate attempt to regain her usual stern self-possession.

"I shall call ye 'Robert,' boy. I don't like—er—that other name."

There was a prolonged stare and a low whistle from the boy. Then he turned to pick up his bundle.

"Come on, Bones, stir yer stumps; lively, now! This 'ere lady 's a-goin' ter take us ter her shebang ter stay mos' two weeks. Gee-whiz! Bones, ain't this great!" And with one bound he was off the platform and turning a series of somersaults on the soft grass followed by the skinny, mangy dog which was barking itself nearly wild with joy.

Ann Wetherby gazed at the revolving mass of heads and legs of boy and dog in mute despair, then she rose to her feet and started down the street.

"You c'n foller me," she said sternly, without turning her head toward the culprits on the grass.

The boy came upright instantly.

"Do ye stump it, marm?"

"What?" she demanded, stopping short in her stupefaction.

"Do ye stump it—hoof it—foot it, I mean," he enumerated quickly, in a praise-worthy attempt to bring his vocabulary to the point where it touched hers.

"Oh—yes; 't ain't fur," vouchsafed Ann feebly.

Bobby trotted alongside of Miss Wetherby, meekly followed by the dog. Soon the boy gave his trousers an awkward hitch, and glanced sideways up at the woman.

"Oh, I say, marm, I think it's bully of yer ter let me an' Bones come," he began sheepishly. "It looked 's if our case 'd hang fire till the crack o' doom; there wa'n't no one ter have us. When Miss Ethel, she told me her aunt 'd take us, it jest struck me all of a heap. I tell ye, me an' Bones made tracks fur Slocumville 'bout's soon as they 'd let us."

"I hain't no doubt of it!" retorted Ann, looking back hopelessly at the dog.

"Ye see," continued the boy confidentially, "there ain't ev'ry one what likes boys, an'—hi, there!—go it, Bones!" he suddenly shrieked, and scampered wildly after the dog which had dashed into the bushes by the side of the road. Ann did not see her young charge again until she had been home half an hour. He came in at the gate, then, cheerfully smiling, the dog at his heels.

"Jiminy Christmas!" he exclaimed, "I begun ter think I 'd lost ye, but I remembered yer last name was the same's Miss Ethel's, an' a boy—Tommy Green, around the corner—he told me where ye lived. And, oh, I say, me an' Bones are a-goin' off with him an' Rover after I 've had somethin' ter eat—'t is mos' grub time, ain't it?" he added anxiously.

Ann sighed in a discouraged way.

"Yes, I s'pose 't is. I left some beans a-bakin', and dinner'll be ready pretty quick. You can come upstairs with me, Robert, an' I'll show ye where yer goin' ter sleep," she finished, with a sinking heart, as she thought of those ruffled pillow shams.

Bobby followed Miss Wetherby into the dainty chamber. He gave one look, and puckered up his lips into a long, low whistle.

"Well, I'll be flabbergasted! Oh, I say, now, ye don't expect me ter stay in all this fuss an' fixin's!" he exclaimed ruefully.

"It—it is the room I calculated fur ye," said Ann, with almost a choke in her voice.

The boy looked up quickly and something rose within him that he did not quite understand.

"Oh, well, ye know, it's slick as a whistle an' all that, but I ain't uster havin' it laid on so thick. I ain't no great shakes, ye know, but I'll walk the chalk all right this time. Golly! Ain't it squashy, though!" he exclaimed, as with a run and a skip he landed straight in the middle of the puffy bed.

With one agitated hand Miss Wetherby rescued her pillow shams, and with the other, forcibly removed the dog which had lost no time in following his master into the feathery nest. Then she abruptly left the room; she could not trust herself to speak.

Miss Wetherby did not see much of her guest that afternoon; he went away immediately after dinner and did not return until supper time. Then he was so completely tired out that he had but two words in reply to Miss Wetherby's question.

"Did ye have a good time?" she asked wistfully.

"You bet!"

After supper he went at once to his room; but it was not until Miss Wetherby ceased to hear the patter of his feet on the floor above that she leaned back in her chair with a sigh of relief.

When Ann went upstairs to make the bed that Tuesday morning, the sight that met her eyes struck terror to her heart. The bedclothes were scattered in wild confusion half over the room. The washbowl, with two long singing-books across it, she discovered to her horror, was serving as a prison for a small green snake. The Bible and the remaining hymn books, topped by "Baxter's Saints' Rest," lay in a suspicious-looking pile on the floor. Under these Miss Wetherby did not look. After her experience with the snake and the washbowl, her nerves were not strong enough. She recoiled in dismay, also, from the sight of two yellow, paper-covered books on the table, flaunting shamelessly the titles: "Jack; the Pirate of Red Island," and "Haunted by a Headless Ghost."

She made the bed as rapidly as possible, with many a backward glance at the book-covered washbowl, then she went downstairs and shook and brushed herself with little nervous shudders.

Ann Wetherby never forgot that Fourth of July, nor, for that matter, the days that immediately followed. She went about with both ears stuffed with cotton, and eyes that were ever on the alert for all manner of creeping, crawling things in which Bobby's soul delighted.

The boy, reinforced by the children of the entire neighborhood, held a circus in Miss Wetherby's wood-shed, and instituted a Wild Indian Camp in her attic. The poor woman was quite powerless, and remonstrated all in vain. The boy was so cheerfully good-tempered under her sharpest words that the victory was easily his.

But on Saturday when Miss Wetherby, returning from a neighbor's, found two cats, four dogs, and two toads tied to her parlor chairs, together with three cages containing respectively a canary, a parrot, and a squirrel (collected from obliging households), she rebelled in earnest and summoned Bobby to her side.

"Robert, I've stood all I'm a-goin' ter. You've got to go home Monday.
Do you hear?"

"Oh, come off, Miss Wetherby, 't ain't only a menag'ry, an' you don't use the room none."

Miss Wetherby's mouth worked convulsively.

"Robert!" she gasped, as soon as she could find her voice, "I never, never heard of such dreadful goin's-on! You certainly can't stay here no longer," she continued sternly, resolutely trying to combat the fatal weakness that always overcame her when the boy lifted those soulful eyes to her face. "Now take them horrid critters out of the parlor this minute. You go home Monday—now mind what I say!"

An hour later, Miss Wetherby had a caller. It was the chorister of her church choir. The man sat down gingerly on one of the slippery haircloth chairs, and proceeded at once to state his business.

"I understand, Miss Wetherby, that you have an—er—young singer with you."

Miss Wetherby choked, and stammered "Yes."

"He sings—er—very well, does n't he?"

The woman was still more visibly embarrassed.

"I—I don't know," she murmured; then in stronger tones, "The one that looked like him did."

"Are there two?" he asked in stupid amazement.

Miss Wetherby laughed uneasily, then she sighed.

"Well, ter tell the truth, Mr. Wiggins, I s'pose there ain't; but sometimes I think there must be. I'll send Robert down ter the rehearsal to-night, and you can see what ye can do with him." And with this Mr. Wiggins was forced to be content.

Bobby sang on Sunday. The little church was full to the doors. Bobby was already famous in the village, and people had a lively curiosity as to what this disquieting collector of bugs and snakes might offer in the way of a sacred song. The "nighty" was, perforce, absent, much to the sorrow of Ann; but the witchery of the glorious voice entered again into the woman's soul, and, indeed, sent the entire congregation home in an awed silence that was the height of admiring homage.

At breakfast time Monday morning, Bobby came downstairs with his brown paper parcel under his arm. Ann glanced at his woeful face, then went out into the kitchen and slammed the oven door sharply.

"Well, marm, I've had a bully time—-sure's a gun," said the boy wistfully, following her.

Miss Wetherby opened the oven door and shut it with a second bang; then she straightened herself and crossed the room to the boy's side.

"Robert," she began with assumed sternness, trying to hide her depth of feeling, "you ain't a-goin' home ter-day—now mind what I say! Take them things upstairs. Quick—breakfast's all ready!"

A great light transfigured Bobby's face. He tossed his bundle into a corner and fell upon Miss Wetherby with a bearlike hug.

"Gee-whiz! marm—but yer are a brick! An' I 'll run yer errands an' split yer wood, an' I won't take no dogs an' cats in the parlor, an' I'll do ev'rythin'—ev'rythin' ye want me to! Oh, golly—golly!—I'm goin' ter stay—I'm goin' ter stay!" And Bobby danced out of the house into the yard there to turn somersault after somersault in hilarious glee.

A queer choking feeling came into Ann Wetherby's throat. She seemed still to feel the loving clasp of those small young arms.

"Well, he—he's part angel, anyhow," she muttered, drawing a long breath and watching with tear-dimmed eyes Bobby's antics on the grass outside.

And Bobby stayed—not only Monday, but through four other long days—days which he filled to the brim with fun and frolic and joyous shouts as before—and yet with a change.

The shouts were less shrill and the yells less prolonged when Bobby was near the house. No toads nor cats graced the parlor floor, and no bugs nor snakes tortured Miss Wetherby's nerves when Bobby's bed was made each day. The kitchen woodbox threatened to overflow—so high were its contents piled—and Miss Wetherby was put to her wits' end to satisfy Bobby's urgent clamorings for errands to run.

And when the four long days were over and Saturday came, a note—and not Bobby—was sent to the city. The note was addressed to "Miss Ethel Wetherby," and this is what Ethel's amazed eyes read:

My Dear Niece:—You can tell that singer man of Robert's that he is not going back any more. He is going to live with me and go to school next winter. I am going to adopt him for my very own. His father and mother are dead—he said so.

I must close now, for Robert is hungry, and wants his dinner.

Love to all,
ANN WETHERBY.

The Lady in Black

The house was very still. In the little room over the porch the Lady in Black sat alone. Near her a child's white dress lay across a chair, and on the floor at her feet a tiny pair of shoes, stubbed at the toes, lay where an apparently hasty hand had thrown them. A doll, head downward, hung over a chair-back, and a toy soldier with drawn sword dominated the little stand by the bed. And everywhere was silence—the peculiar silence that comes only to a room where the clock has ceased to tick.

The clock—such a foolish little clock of filigree gilt—stood on the shelf at the foot of the bed; and as the Lady in Black looked at it she remembered the wave of anger that had surged over her when she had thrust out her hand and silenced it that night three months before. It had seemed so monstrous to her that the pulse in that senseless thing of gilt should throb on unheeding while below, on the little white bed, that other pulse was so pitiably still. Hence she had thrust out her hand and stopped it. It had been silent ever since—and it should remain silent, too. Of what possible use were the hours it would tick away now? As if anything mattered, with little Kathleen lying out there white and still under the black earth!

"Muvver!"

The Lady in Black stirred restlessly, and glanced toward the closed door. Behind it she knew was a little lad with wide blue eyes and a dimpling mouth who wanted her; but she wished he would not call her by that name. It only reminded her of those other little lips—silent now.

"Muvver!" The voice was more insistent.

The Lady in Black did not answer. He might go away, she thought, if she did not reply.

There was a short silence, then the door-knob rattled and turned half around under the touch of plainly unskilled fingers. The next moment the door swung slowly back on its hinges and revealed at full length the little figure in the Russian suit.

"Pe-eek!" It was a gurgling cry of joyful discovery, but it was followed almost instantly by silence. The black-garbed, unsmiling woman did not invite approach, and the boy fell back at his first step. He hesitated, then spoke, tentatively, "I's—here."

It was, perhaps, the worst thing he could have said. To the Lady in Black it was a yet more bitter reminder of that other one who was not there. She gave a sharp cry and covered her face with her hands.

"Bobby, Bobby, how can you taunt me with it?" she moaned, in a frenzy of unreasoning grief. "Go away—go away! I want to be alone—alone!"

All the brightness fled from the boy's face. His mouth was no longer dimpled, and his eyes showed a grieved hurt in their depths. Very slowly he turned away. At the top of the stairs he stopped and looked back. The door was still open, and the Lady in Black still sat with her hands over her face. He waited, but she did not move; then, with a half-stifled sob, he dropped on the top step and began to bump down the stairs, one at a time.

Long minutes afterward the Lady in Black raised her head and saw him through the window. He was down in the yard with his father, having a frolic under the apple tree.

A frolic!

The Lady in Black looked at them with somber eyes, and her mouth hardened at the corners. Bobby down there in the yard could laugh and dance and frolic. Bobby had some one to play with him, some one to love him and care for him; while out there on the hillside Kathleen was alone—all alone. Kathleen had no one—

With a little cry the Lady in Black sprang to her feet and hurried into her own room. Her hands shook as she pinned on her hat and shrouded herself in the long folds of her black veil; but her step was firm as she swept downstairs and out through the hall.

The man under the apple tree rose hurriedly and came forward.

"Helen, dearest,—not again, to-day!" he begged. "Darling, it can't do any good!"

"But she's alone—all alone. You don't seem to think! No one thinks—no one knows how I feel. You don't understand—if you did, you'd come with me. You wouldn't ask me to stay—here!" choked the woman.

"I have been with you, dear," said the man gently. "I 've been with you to-day, and every day, almost, since—since she left us. But it can't do any good—this constant brooding over her grave. It only makes additional sorrow for you, for me, and for Bobby. Bobby is—here, you know, dear!"

"No, no, don't say it," sobbed the woman wildly. "You don't understand—you don't understand!" And she turned and hurried away, a tall black shadow of grief, followed by the anguished eyes of the man, and the wistful puzzled eyes of the boy.

It was not a long walk to the tree-embowered plot of ground where the marble shafts and slabs glistened in the sunlight, and the Lady in Black knew the way; yet she stumbled and reached out blindly, and she fell, as if exhausted, before a little stone marked "Kathleen." Near her a gray-haired woman, with her hands full of pink and white roses, watched her sympathetically. She hesitated, and opened her lips as if she would speak, then she turned slowly and began to arrange her flowers on a grave near by.

At the slight stir the Lady in Black raised her head. For a time she watched in silence; then she threw back her veil and spoke.

"You care, too," she said softly. "You understand. I've seen you here before, I'm sure. And was yours—a little girl?"

The gray-haired woman shook her head.

"No, dearie, it's a little boy—or he was a little boy forty years ago."

"Forty years—so long! How could you have lived forty years—without him?"

Again the little woman shook her head.

"One has to—sometimes, dearie; but this little boy was n't mine. He was none of my kith nor kin."

"But you care—you understand. I 've seen you here so often before."

"Yes. You see, there's no one else to care. But there was once, and I 'm caring now—for her."

"For—her?"

"His mother."

"Oh-h!" It was a tender little cry, full of quick sympathy—the eyes of the Lady in Black were on the stone marked "Kathleen."

"It ain't as if I did n't know how she'd feel," muttered the gray-haired little woman musingly, as she patted her work into completion and turned toward the Lady in Black. "You see, I was nurse to the boy when it happened, and for years afterward I worked in the family; so I know. I saw the whole thing from the beginning, from the very day when the little boy here met with the accident."

"Accident!" It was a sob of anguished sympathy from Kathleen's mother.

"Yes. 'T was a runaway; and he did n't live two days."

"I know—I know!" choked the Lady in Black—yet she was not thinking of the boy and the runaway.

"Things stopped then for my mistress," resumed the little gray-haired woman, after a moment, "and that was the beginning of the end. She had a husband and a daughter, but they did n't count—not either of 'em. Nothin' counted but this little grave out here; and she came and spent hours over it, trimmin' it with flowers and talkin' to it."

The Lady in Black raised her head suddenly and threw a quick glance into the other's face; but the gray-haired woman's eyes were turned away, and after a moment she went on speaking.

"The house got gloomier and gloomier, but she did n't seem to mind. She seemed to want it so. She shut out the sunshine and put away lots of the pictures; and she wouldn't let the pianner be opened at all. She never sat anywhere in the house only in the boy's room, and there everything was just as 'twas when he left it. She would n't let a thing be touched. I wondered afterward that she did n't see where 't was all leadin' to—but she did n't."

"'Leading to'?" The voice shook.

"Yes. I wondered she did n't see she was losin' 'em—that husband and daughter; but she did n't see it."

The Lady in Black sat very still. Even the birds seemed to have stopped their singing. Then the gray-haired woman spoke:

"So, you see, that's why I come and put flowers here—it's for her sake. There's no one else now to care," she sighed, rising to her feet.

"But you haven't told yet—what happened," murmured the Lady in Black, faintly.

"I don't know myself—quite. I know the man went away. He got somethin' to do travelin', so he was n't home much. When he did come he looked sick and bad. There were stories that he wa'n't quite straight always—but maybe that wa'n't true. Anyhow, he come less and less, and he died away—but that was after she died. He's buried over there, beside her and the boy. The girl—well, nobody knows where the girl is. Girls like flowers and sunshine and laughter and young folks, you know, and she did n't get any of them at home. So she went—where she did get 'em, I suppose. Anyhow, nobody knows just where she is now. . . . There, and if I have n't gone and tired you all out with my chatter!" broke off the little gray-haired woman contritely. "I 'm sure I don't know why I got to runnin' on so!"

"No, no—I was glad to hear it," faltered the Lady in Black, rising unsteadily to her feet. Her face had grown white, and her eyes showed a sudden fear. "But I must go now. Thank you." And she turned and hurried away.

The house was very still when the Lady in Black reached home—and she shivered at its silence. Through the hall and up the stairs she went hurriedly, almost guiltily. In her own room she plucked at the shadowy veil with fingers that tore the filmy mesh and found only the points of the pins. She was crying now—a choking little cry with broken words running through it; and she was still crying all the while her hands were fumbling at the fastenings of her somber black dress.

Long minutes later, the Lady—in Black no longer—trailed slowly down the stairway. Her eyes showed traces of tears, and her chin quivered, but her lips were bravely curved in a smile. She wore a white dress and a single white rose in her hair; while behind her, in the little room over the porch, a tiny clock of filigree gilt ticked loudly on its shelf at the foot of the bed.

There came a sound of running feet in the hall below; then:

"Muvver!—it's muvver come back!" cried a rapturous voice.

And with a little sobbing cry Bobby's mother opened her arms to her son.

The Saving of Dad

On the boundary fence sat James, known as "Jim"; on the stunted grass of the neighboring back yard lay Robert, known as "Bob." In age, size, and frank-faced open-heartedness the boys seemed alike; but there were a presence of care and an absence of holes in Jim's shirt and knee-breeches that were quite wanting in those of the boy on the ground. Jim was the son of James Barlow, lately come into the possession of the corner grocery. Bob was the son of "Handy Mike," who worked out by the day, doing "odd jobs" for the neighboring housewives.

"I hain't no doubt of it," Bob was saying, with mock solemnity. "Yer dad can eat more an' run faster an' jump higher an' shoot straighter than any man what walks round."

"Shucks!" retorted the boy on the fence, with a quick, frown. "That ain't what I said, and you know it."

"So?" teased Bob. "Well, now, 'twas all I could remember. There's lots more, 'course, only I furgit 'em, an'—"

"Shut up!" snapped Jim tersely.

"'Course ev'ry one knows he's only a sample," went on Bob imperturbably. "An' so he's handsomer an'—"

"Will you quit?" demanded Jim sharply.

"No, I won't," retorted Bob, with a quick change of manner. "You 've been here just two weeks, an' it hain't been nothin' but 'Dad says this,' an' 'Dad says that,' ever since. Jiminy! a feller'd think you'd made out ter have the only dad that's goin'!"

There was a pause—so long a pause that the boy on the grass sent a sideways glance at the motionless figure on the fence.

"It wa'n't right, of course," began Jim, at last, awkwardly, "crowin' over dad as I do. I never thought how—how 't would make the rest of you fellers feel." Bob, on the grass, bridled and opened his lips, but something in Jim's rapt face kept him from giving voice to his scorn. "'Course there ain't any one like dad—there can't be," continued Jim hurriedly. "He treats me white, an' he's straight there every time. Dad don't dodge. Maybe I should n't say so much about him, only—well, me an' dad are all alone. There ain't any one else; they're dead."

The boy on the grass turned over and kicked both heels in the air; then he dug at the turf with his forefinger. He wished he would not think of his mother and beloved little sister May just then. He opened his eyes very wide and winked hard, once, twice, and again. He tried to speak; failing in that, he puckered his lips for a whistle. But the lips twitched and would not stay steady, and the whistle, when it came, sounded like nothing so much as the far-away fog-whistle off the shore at night. With a snort of shamed terror lest that lump in his throat break loose, Bob sprang upright and began to turn a handspring with variations.

"Bet ye can't do this," he challenged thickly.

"Bet ye I can," retorted Jim, landing with a thump at Bob's side.

It was after supper the next night that the two boys again occupied the fence and the grass-plot. They had fallen into the way of discussing at this time the day's fires, dog-fights, and parades. To-day, however, fires had been few, dog-fights fewer, and parades so very scarce that they numbered none at all. Conversation had come to a dead pause, when Jim, his eyes on the rod of sidewalk visible from where he sat, called softly:

"Hi, Bob, who's the guy with the plug?"

Bob raised his head. He caught a glimpse of checkered trousers, tail-coat, and tall hat, then he dropped to the ground with a short laugh.

"Yes, who is it?" he scoffed. "Don't ye know?"

"Would I be askin' if I did?" demanded Jim.

"Humph!" grunted the other. "Well, you'll know him fast enough one of these days, sonny, never fear. There don't no one hang out here more'n a month 'fore he spots 'em."

"'Spots 'em'!"

"Sure! He's Danny O'Flannigan."

"Well?"

Into Bob's face came a look of pitying derision.

"'Well,'" he mocked. "Mebbe 't will be 'well,' an' then again mebbe 't won't. It all depends on yer dad."

"On dad!"

"Sure! He's Danny O'Flannigan, the boss o' this ward."

"But what has that got to do with my dad?"

"Aw, come off—as if ye did n't know! It all depends whether he's nailed him or not."

"'Nailed him'!"

"Sure. If he nails him fur a friend, he gits customers an' picnics an' boo-kays all the time. If he don't—" Bob made a wry face and an expressive gesture.

The frown that had been gathering on Jim's brow fled.

"Ho!" he laughed. "Don't you worry. Dad always nails folks—never misses hittin' 'em on the head, either," he added, in reckless triumph, confident that there was nothing "dad" could not do.

The boy on the grass sat up and stared; then he lay back and gave a hoarse laugh—a long, chuckling laugh that brought the frown back to Jim's face.

"Well, what you laughin' at?" demanded Jim sharply.

"Oh, gee, gee!—that's too good!" gurgled the boy on the grass, rolling from side to side. "The saint, the sample, the pattern, the feller what treats 'em square, a-sellin' his vote! Oh, gee, gee!"

The ground suddenly shook with the impact of two sturdy little feet, and Bob found his throat in the grasp of two strong little hands.

"Bob Sullivan, quit yer laughin' an' tell me what you're talkin' about," stormed a shrill treble. "Who's a-sellin' their vote?"

Bob squirmed and struggled.

"A feller—can't talk—without—breathin'!" he choked.

"Well, then,—breathe!" commanded Jim, jerking his companion to a sitting posture and loosening his clasp on his throat. "Now—who's a-sellin' their vote?"

"Ye said it yerself, I didn't," snarled Bob sullenly.

"Said what?"

"That yer dad would nail Danny O'Flannigan, sure."

"And is that sellin' his vote?"

"What else is it, then?" demanded Bob wrathfully. "He votes as Danny says, an' Danny sends him trade, an'—oh, oh, q-quit it—q-quit it—I say!" choked Bob, breath and speech almost cut off by the furious clutch of Jim's lean little fingers.

"I won't quit it; I won't!" stormed Jim, shaking his victim with a force that was as strong as it was sudden. "You know I never meant it that way; an' dad won't sell his vote; he won't—he won't—he won't!"

The next instant a wrathful, palpitating Bob lay alone on the grass, while a no less wrathful and palpitating Jim vaulted the fence at a bound and disappeared into the next house.

Jim awoke the next morning with a haunting sense that something had happened. In a moment he remembered; and with memory came rage and a defiant up tilting of the chin.

As if dad—dad could do this thing! Very possibly—even probably—Handy Mike had long ago gone down before this creature in the checkered trousers and tall hat; but dad—dad was not Handy Mike!

The ins and outs, the fine points, the ethics of it all were not quite clear to Jim; but the derision in Bob's laugh was unmistakable; and on that derision and on that laugh hung his unfaltering confidence that dad would not, could not, do anything to merit either.

For three nights the boys shunned the fence and the back yard. On the fourth night, as if by common impulse, each took his accustomed place, wearing an elaborate air of absolute forgetfulness of the past. There had been two fires and a parade that day, so any embarrassment that the situation held was easily talked down. Not until Handy Mike on the side porch of his dilapidated cottage had greeted a visitor did there come a silence between the two boys. Even then it did not last long, for Bob broke it with a hoarse whisper.

"It's Danny O'Flannigan, sure's a gun! It's gittin' mos' 'lection-time, an' he's drummin' 'em up. Now, jest watch pap. He hain't no use fur Danny. Oh, of course," he added, in hurried conciliation, "'t ain't as if it made any difference ter pap. Pap works fur the women-folks, an' women don't cut much ice in pol'tics."

And Jim did watch—with his eyes wide open and his hands so tightly clenched they fairly ached. He could not hear the words, but he could the voices, and he noted that for the first five minutes one was jovial, the other sullen; and for the next five minutes one was persuasive, the other contradictory; and for the third five minutes one was angry and the other back to its old sullenness. Then he saw that Danny O'Flannigan jerked himself to his feet and strode away, leaving Handy Mike stolidly smoking on the side porch.

"Humph!" muttered Bob. "Danny hung to longer 'n I thought he would.
Must be somethin' special's up."

It was on the next night that Jim, from his perch on the back fence, saw the checkered trousers and tall hat on his own doorstep. Bob, on the grass below, could not see, so Jim held his breath while the door opened and his father admitted Danny O'Flannigan to the house.

Jim's heart swelled, and his eyes flashed with pride. Now, we should see how a man dealt with this thing. Surely now there would be no fifteen minutes' dallying. Danny O'Flannigan would soon find out what sort of a person he had to deal with. He would see that dad was not Handy Mike.

It was on Jim's lips to speak to Bob, that Bob might share with him the sight of Danny O'Flannigan's discomfiture. He longed to display this overwhelming proof of the falseness of Bob's assertion that dad would sell his vote; but—best let by-gones be by-gones; he had punished Bob for that, and, after all, Handy Mike was Bob's father. He could tell Bob of it later—how dad had sent Danny O'Flannigan to the right-about at once. Yes, that was the better way.

So Jim schooled himself to hide his exultation, and he listened with well-feigned interest to Bob's animated account of the morning's fire.

Two, three, five minutes passed, and Danny O'Flannigan had not come out. Jim hitched about on his narrow perch, and sent furtive glances across the expanse of yard to his own door. Six, seven, ten minutes passed; Jim's throat grew dry, and his fingers cold at their tips. His eyes had long ago ceased to look at Bob; they were fixed in growing horror on that closed door, behind which were dad—and that man. Eleven, thirteen, fifteen minutes passed.

"I—I'm goin' in now," faltered Jim. "I—I reckon I don't feel well," he finished thickly, as he slipped to the ground and walked unsteadily across the yard.

In the woodshed he stopped short at the kitchen door. A murmur of voices came from far inside, and Jim's knees shook beneath him—it was not so—it could not be possible that dad was still talking! Jim stole through the back hallway and out on to the grass beneath the sitting-room windows on the other side of the house. The voices were louder now—the visitor's very loud.

Jim raised his head and tried to smile.

Of course!—dad was sending him about his business, and the man was angry—that was it. It had taken longer than he thought, but dad—dad never did like to hurt folks' feelings. Some men—some men did not care how they talked; but not dad. Why, dad—dad did not even like to kill a mouse; he—

There came the sound of a laugh—a long, ringing laugh with a gleeful chuckle at the end. Jim grew faint. That was—dad!

Ten seconds later the two men in the sitting-room were confronted by a white-faced, shaking boy.

"Maybe you did n't know, Mr. O'Flannigan," began Jim eagerly, "maybe you did n't know that dad don't speak sharp. He ain't much for hurtin' folks' feelings; but he means it just the same—that he won't do what you want him to do. He's square and straight—dad is, an' he don't dodge; but maybe you thought 'cause he laughed that he was easy—but he ain't. Why, dad would n't—"

"Tut, tut, not so fast, my boy," cut in Danny O'Flannigan pompously.
"Your father has already—"

A strong hand gripped O'Flannigan's shoulder, and an agonized pair of eyes arrested his words.

"For God's sake, man," muttered Barlow, "have you no mercy?
Think—have you no son of your own that believes you 're almost—God
Himself?"

For a brief instant Danny O'Flannigan's eyebrows and shoulders rose in an expressive gesture, and his hands made a disdainful sweep; then his eyes softened strangely.

"As you please," he said, and reached for his hat with an air that was meant to show indifference. "Then the deal is off, I suppose."

"There!" crowed Jim, as the door clicked behind the checkered trousers. "There, I knew you'd do it, dad. Just as if— Why, dad, you 're—cryin'! Pooh! who cares for Danny O'Flannigan?" he soothed, patting the broad shoulders bowed low over the table. "I would n't cry for him!"

Millionaire Mike's Thanksgiving

He was not Mike at first; he was only the Millionaire—a young millionaire who sat in a wheel chair on the pier waiting for the boat. He had turned his coat-collar up to shut out the wind, and his hatbrim down to shut out the sun. For the time being he was alone. He had sent his attendant back for a forgotten book.

It was Thanksgiving, but the Millionaire was not thankful. He was not thinking of what he had, but of what he wanted. He wanted his old strength of limb, and his old freedom from pain. True, the doctors had said that he might have them again in time, but he wanted them now. He wanted the Girl, also. He would have her, to be sure, that very evening; but he wanted her now.

The girl had been very sweet and gentle about it, but she had been firm. As he could recollect it, their conversation had run something like this:

"But I want you myself, all day."

"But, Billy, don't you see? I promised; besides, I ought to do it. I am the president of the club. If I shirk responsibility, what can I expect the others to do?"

"But I need you just as much—yes, more—than those poor families."

"Oh, Billy, how can you say that, when they are so very poor, and when every one of them is the proud kind that would simply rather starve than go after their turkey and things! That's why we girls take them to them. Don't you see?"

"Oh, yes, I see. I see I don't count. It could n't be expected that
I'd count—now!" And he patted the crutches at his side.

It was despicable in him, and he knew it. But he said it. He could see her eyes now, all hurt and sorrowful as she went away. . . . And so this morning he sat waiting for the boat, a long, lonely day in prospect in his bungalow on the island, while behind him he had left the dearest girl in the world, who, with other petted darlings of wealth and luxury, was to distribute Thanksgiving baskets to the poor.

Not that his day needed to be lonely. He knew that. A dozen friends stood ready and anxious to supply him with a good dinner and plenty of companionship. But he would have none of them. As if he wanted a Thanksgiving dinner!

And thus alone he waited in the wheel chair; and how he abhorred it—that chair—which was not strange, perhaps, considering the automobile that he loved. Since the accident, however, his injured back had forbidden the speed and jar of motor cars, allowing only the slow but exasperating safety of crutches and a wheel chair. To-day even that seemed denied him, for the man who wheeled his chair did not come.

With a frown the Millionaire twisted himself about and looked behind him. It was near the time for the boat to start, and there would not be another for three hours. From the street hurried a jostling throng of men, women, and children. Longingly the Millionaire watched them. He had no mind to spend the next three hours where he was. If he could be pushed on to the boat, he would trust to luck for the other side. With his still weak left arm he could not propel himself, but if he could find some one—

Twice, with one of the newspapers that lay in his lap, he made a feeble attempt to attract attention; but the Millionaire was used to commanding, not begging, and his action passed unnoticed. He saw then in the crowd the face of a friend, and with a despairing gesture he waved the paper again. But the friend passed by unheeding. What happened then was so entirely unexpected that the Millionaire fell back in his chair dumb with amazement.

"Here, Mike, ye ain't on ter yer job. Youse can't sell nuttin' dat way," scoffed a friendly voice. "Here, now, watch!" And before the Millionaire could collect his wits he saw the four papers he had bought that morning to help beguile a dreary day, snatched into the grimy hands of a small boy and promptly made off with.

The man's angry word of remonstrance died on his lips. The boy was darting in and out of the crowd, shouting "Poiper, here's yer poiper!" at the top of his voice. Nor did he return until the last pair of feet had crossed the gangplank. Then in triumph he hurried back to the waiting man in the wheel chair and dropped into his lap a tiny heap of coppers.

"Sold out, pardner! Dat's what we be," he crowed delighted. "Sold out!"

"But—I—you—" gasped the man.

"Aw, furgit it—'t wa'n't nuttin'," disdained the boy airily. "Ye see, youse got ter holler."

"To—to 'holler'!"

"Sure, Mike, or ye can't sell nuttin'. I been a-watchin' ye, an' I see right off ye wa'n't on ter yer job. Why, pardner, ye can't sell poipers like ye was shellin' out free sody-checks at a picnic. Youse got ter yell at 'em, an' git dere 'tention. 'Course, ye can't run like I can"—his voice softened awkwardly as his eyes fell to the crutches at the man's side—"but ye can holler, an' not jest set dere a-shakin' 'em easy at 'em, like ye did a minute ago. Dat ain't no way ter sell poipers!"

With a half-smothered exclamation the Millionaire fell back in his chair. He knew now that he was not a millionaire, but a "Mike" to the boy. He was not William Seymore Haynes, but a cripple selling papers for a living. He would not have believed that a turned-up collar, a turned down soft hat, and a few jerks of a newspaper could have made such a metamorphosis.

"Youse'll catch on in no time now, pardner," resumed the boy soothingly, "an' I'm mighty glad I was here ter set ye goin'. Sure, I sells poipers meself, I does, an' I knows how 't is. Don't look so flabbergasted. 'T ain't nuttin'. Shucks! hain't fellers what's pardners oughter do a turn fur 't odder?"

The Millionaire bit his lip. He had intended to offer money to this boy, but with his gaze on that glowing countenance, he knew that he could not. He had come suddenly face to face with something for which his gold could not pay.

"Th-thank you," he stammered embarrassedly. "You—you were very kind." He paused, and gazed nervously back toward the street. "I—I was expecting some one. We were going to take that boat."

"No! Was ye? An' he did n't show up? Say, now, dat's tough—an'
T'anksgivin', too!"

"As if I cared for Thanksgiving!" The words came tense with bitterness.

"Aw, come now, furgit it!" There was a look of real concern on the boy's face. "Dat ain't no way ter talk. It's T'anksgivin'!"

"Yes, I know—for some." The man's lips snapped shut grimly.

"Aw, come off! Never mind if yer pal did n't show up. Dere 's odders; dere 's me now. Tell ye what, youse come home wid me. Dere won't be no boat now fur a heap o' time, an' I 'm goin' ter T'anksgive. Come on! 'T ain't fur. I'll wheel ye."

The man stared frankly.

"Er—thank you," he murmured, with an odd little laugh; "but—"

"Shucks! 'Course ye can. What be ye goin' ter do?—set here? What's the use o' mopin' like dis when youse got a invite out ter T'anksgivin'? An' ye better catch it while it's goin', too. Ye see, some days I could n't ask ye—not grub enough; but I can ter-day. We got a s'prise comin'."

"Indeed!" The tone was abstracted, almost irritable; but the boy ignored this.

"Sure! It's a dinner—a T'anksgivin' dinner bringed in to us. Now ain't ye comin'?"

"A dinner, did you say?—brought to you?"

"Yeaup!"

"Who brings it?"

"A lady what comes ter see me an' Kitty sometimes; an' she's a peacherino, she is! She said she 'd bring it."

"Do you know—her name?" The words came a little breathlessly.

"You bet! Why, she's our friend, I tell ye! Her name is Miss Daisy
Carrolton; dat 's what 't is."

The man relaxed in his chair. It was the dearest girl in the world.

"Say, ain't ye comin'?" urged the boy, anxiously.

"Coming? Of course I'm coming," cried the man, with sudden energy.
"Just catch hold of that chair back there, lad, and you'll see."

"Say, now, dat's sumpin' like," crowed the boy, as he briskly started the chair. "'T ain't fur, ye know."

Neither the boy nor the Millionaire talked much on the way. The boy was busy with his task; the man, with his thoughts. Just why he was doing this thing was not clear even to the man himself. He suspected it was because of the girl. He could fancy her face when she should find that it was to him she was bringing her turkey dinner! He roused himself with a start. The boy was speaking.

"My! but I 'm glad I stopped an' watched ye tryin' ter sell poipers. T'ink o' youse a-settin' dere all dis time a-waitin' fur dat boat—an' T'anksgivin', too! An' don't ye worry none. Ma an' Kitty 'll be right glad to see ye. 'T ain't often we can have comp'ny. It's most allers us what's takin' t'ings give ter us—not givin' ourselves."

"Oh," replied the man uncertainly. "Is—is that so?"

With a distinct shock it had come to the millionaire that he was not merely the disgruntled lover planning a little prank to tease the dearest girl in the world. He was the honored guest of a family who were rejoicing that it was in their power to give a lonely cripple a Thanksgiving dinner. His face grew red at the thought.

"Ugh-uh. An', oh, I say, what is yer name, pardner?" went on the boy. "'Course I called ye 'Mike,' but—"

"Then suppose you still call me 'Mike,'" retorted the man, nervously wondering if he could play the part. He caught a glimpse of the beaming face of his benefactor—and decided that he must play it.

"A' right, den; an' here we be," announced the boy in triumph, stopping before a flight of steps that led to a basement door.

With the aid of his crutches the man descended the steps. Behind him came the boy with the chair. At the foot the boy flung wide the door and escorted his guest through a dark, evil-smelling hallway, into a kitchen beyond.

"Ma! Kitty! look a-here!" he shouted, leaving the chair, and springing into the room. "I 've bringed home comp'ny ter dinner. Dis is Mike. He was sellin' poipers down ter de dock, an' he lost his boat. I told him ter come on here an' eat wid us. I knowed what was comin', ye see!"