II

"Jim," whispered the Brier, across the bed by which they watched in the dim light.

"Yes," said the sixteen-year-old man of the family. "You heard what the doctor said?" "Yes."

"Jim-I'm sorry."

The boy looked up quickly with a soft light in his eyes, but he did not answer, for the wasted form between them was threatening to stir.

Becky got up softly and went out under the stars. One year had passed since they turned their backs in disdain upon the simple home of their forefathers and set their faces toward the city. One year! Could it possibly be that all this struggle and heartache could be compassed by a twelvemonth? Becky sat down on the little rickety steps and drew her thin knees up under her chin. The rows upon rows of "neat little cottages" stretched out before her in the starry twilight. But somehow, they were not "snuggled" together. Bare, squalid, povertystricken they fairly jostled each other for elbow room on the stark and sterile waste place on which they had been built; and old papers and rags, like the bleaching bones on the Sahara, marked the path of the wayfarer across the desert. Far in

the distance twinkled the lights of the big, cruel, uncaring Town. Yes, it was running over with ice cream parlors and picture-shows, indeed, but they were there for the ones who could pay the price of what they had to offer. The electric car glinted by, "only half a block away," but it, too, was for the ones who could pay.

The Brier hugged her thin knees tighter, and stared back across that year of awakening-that year which was to teach them that the blessings of the city are not for the very poor. She saw it all again their arrival in their Land of Promise and she experienced again, in all its keenness, the stab of that first disappointment. The Brier did not spare herself; again, in her recollections, she arrived at the narrow steps of this new pine box which was to stand for "home." She explored its two pitiful, hot, little rooms. She noted again the rough little shelf of gallery, the few tiny blindless windows. In memory she showed herself the squalid, unsanitary surroundings as they had at first struck her, and, worst of all, the faces of the "young people" with whom she and Sallie had planned to have such a sociable time.

How

Then she remembered their first desperate attempts to make their dream of a home come true. they had at once furnished their little pine box house

on the installment plan with furniture which, piece by piece, had afterward, in default of payment, returned to the store from whence it had come. She recalled their futile struggles to raise flowers and vegetables in their few square feet of unfenced yard from which all the true soil had long since been washed away. And she laughed bitterly and sobbed at the same time over their dream of a night school. -Night school for children whose minds and hearts and bodies were aching from the long, long day of pitiless toil!

Then she remembered those first dreamlike visits to the city after the day's work was done; but she remembered, too, that each had cost almost a day's earnings, and that they soon had to cease. The very ribbons which she and Sallie had so lightly bought after their first pay day, now came back to haunt her. If she only had the price of them now for ice for the fevered patient beyond those hot planks there!

With the thought of the sick mother and of the fearful, losing fight which she had waged, the Brier's own disappointments were suddenly swallowed up by the vast tragedy which shadowed that best of mothers.

The doctor had said that besides this fever-the result of overwork-there was a spot on her lungs!

She must have plenty of fresh air, and eggs and milk and cream in abundance, before the spot could be cured.

The Brier let go her knees and put her thin little hands over her eyes. Was it all a dream-that little home in the country among the cool green trees with acres of plenty stretching out under the sunshine on every side with chickens and ducks and geese, and old Boss, sometimes stubborn, but always generous, lowing in the barnyard? Was it all a dream?

And was this reality?-this world where every single soul had to work from sun up to sunset, forever and ever and ever?-where long hours and poor food left the lungs a prey to spots that only waited a chance to fasten and grow and grow and grow-?

The Brier pressed her thin fingers tighter over her burning eyes. Was this reality-this world where it took every cent one could possibly make to purchase the simple clothes one needed, and coarse fare enough to make one able to work?

Oh, to dream again!

Sallie touched her on the arm.

back from town with the medicine.

Sallie had come

The two sisters

entered the sickroom together where Jim was sitting beside the patient. The younger boys slipped