Elizabeth Spellman opened her eyes, turned on her pillow, and minutely studied the face of her sleeping husband. To her, Mahlon Spellman was not a vain, pompous, erratic little man of fifty. When she looked at him she saw the man who had courted her, of whose moral and mental attainments she had been so sure. She had visioned him as a future deacon of the Methodist Church, a prominent member of the School Board and the city council, and her vision had materialized; reality had been better than the Dream. He was Chairman of the County Republican Committee, frequently a delegate to state conventions, the Methodist Sunday School Superintendent, the richest dry-goods merchant of the town. As she studied his features that particular September morning, she choked down a rising flutter of satisfaction. Mahlon, as he lay there, represented success, influence, wealth. He slept as fastidiously as he walked abroad; he seemed conscious of his dignity and pride even as he lay unconscious.

Her home, of which she was inordinately proud, was his gift to her. The very satisfactory life she was living was possible because she was under the shelter of his sufficient hands. The child she mothered was the offspring of her love for him. She did not know that the elements in him which she mentally labelled “neat” and “thorough,” were denominated “fussy” by his neighbours. She lauded the scrupulous cleanliness and precision which kept him constantly flicking invisible dust from his sleeve and straightening his tie. To her this only meant that personally he was as scrupulous as she was herself; to her these traits never revealed the truth that Mahlon was an egoist, who kept himself constantly foremost in his own mind, a man selfish to a degree that would have been unendurable had not his selfishness encompassed his pride in her, their child, and their home as the fulfilment of one branch of his personality. His craze for power she denominated laudable ambition. The position in which he was able to place her socially, she accepted as her due; she spent her days prettifying her really beautiful home, doing everything in her power to pamper Mahlon physically, to uphold and further his ambitions, because she was comfortably certain that there was no eminence to which she could boost him that she might not share in proud security with him. Among the demands of society, her position as a Colonial Dame, a pillar of the Church, leader of social activities, charities, and the excruciating exactions she bestowed upon the office of motherhood, she was a busy person.

At that minute she sighed with satisfaction, thinking of her wonderful achievement in marrying Mahlon Spellman; but with the thought came the memory of the duties that such a marvellous alliance entailed. At the present minute it was her duty to slip from their bed so quietly that Mahlon, the bread winner, the bearer of large gifts, the roof of the house, might have a few minutes more sleep. She slipped her feet into her bedroom shoes, tiptoed to the closet, and gathering up her clothing, stole softly to her one of the three bathrooms of the town, where, with exacting care, she made her toilet for the morning, aided by the magnificence of a tin tub and a marble bowl that absorbed stains with disconcerting ease.

She glanced from the window to watch the small town of Ashwater waking to the dawn of the first Monday of September. It lay among the hills and valleys of rolling country. A river wound around it following a leisurely course toward the sea. Ashwater was one of the oldest towns of the state, peopled by self-respecting merchants, professional men who took time to follow the ramifications of their business in a deliberate manner, and retired farmers who were enjoying, in late life, the luxury of being in close touch with social, political, and religious activities.

It was early morning. The sun was slanting across the hills, showing the country brilliant in autumnal foliage. A blood-red maple lifted like a flame in her line of vision, and close to it was the tapestry of buckeye and the rich brown of oak. The big white colonial house in which she, the wife of the wealthy dry-goods merchant, lived, was surrounded with gorgeous colour from every shrub, bush, and tree that would endure the rigours of winter. She looked approvingly on the white picket fence that shut off her small world from the worlds of her less fortunate neighbours. She approved of the screening evergreens that made homing places for the birds, and the gorgeous beds of chrysanthemums brocading the smooth turf of the lawn. Her view from the bathroom window was restricted, but mentally she envisaged her surroundings and knew that they made a picture which would indicate to any passer-by that here was a home of wealth and comfort. She was certain that any one going by would think it a home of happiness.

She stood a minute before the mirror, studying her pretty little face. She was nearly twenty years younger than her husband, an exacting woman, perfectly capable of muttering “prunes and prisms” by the hour for the shaping of her mouth as she moved about her occupation of being her husband’s wife, her daughter’s mother, her own social Influence. Elizabeth Spellman believed in Influence. It was her duty to set a shining example. She had no vision of a modest candle—when she let her light “so shine” she meant it to be a headlight, and of no mean proportions at that. As she patted her hair in place, set the bow at her throat with exact precision, she smiled with pleasure over the picture her mirror held facing her. But Elizabeth Spellman was a woman who firmly held duty above pleasure, or rather, who found her greatest pleasure in her personal conception of her duty; so she turned from the mirror, gathered up her belongings, and leaving everything in place, went hurriedly down the hall. She softly opened a white door and her eyes instantly sought a small bed, standing in a room made dainty with pale pinks and blues. She hurried to the bed, and bending, laid her hand upon the little girl sleeping there.

“Mahala,” she said softly, “you must wake up now, dear. It’s the first day of school, you know, and you mustn’t spoil a year, that I hope will be extremely beneficial to you, by being late. And certainly you must not slight your other duties in order to be on time.”

Elizabeth Spellman said this because she was the kind of woman who would say exactly this without the slightest regard as to whether her little daughter were sufficiently awake either to hear or to understand it. She said it in order to give herself the satisfaction of knowing that in case Mahala did hear any part of it she would have got the right impression. She believed in impressions quite as firmly as she believed in influence—possibly even more strongly—for if one did not make a good impression, she would lose her influence, or, fatal thing! have none to lose. Elizabeth Spellman was a firm believer in the fact that, if the twig is bent in the proper direction, the tree will be inclined in the right manner.

Mahala opened her eyes and looked at her mother. Then she shut them and tried to decide how long she might lie still before she made a move to get up. She discovered that there was no time to waste that morning. A firm hand turned back the covers and gripped her shoulder. So she mustered a smile, swung her feet to the floor, and still half asleep, stumbled down the hall before her mother.

Her bath thoroughly awakened her. She was old enough to have been of some help to herself, but helping herself with her toilet was not a point stressed by her mother, who took particular pride and pleasure in bathing the exquisitely shaped little body under her hands. She examined the ears particularly. She made sure there were no obtrusive “boos” disfiguring the small nose by the use of a handkerchief stretched over a hairpin. Mahala’s hair curled naturally around her face. Her mother assisted the long heavy back hair occasionally. She now unwound the golden curls from their papers and brushed them into place with exquisite precision. Every small undergarment she put upon the child was of fine material, hand made, elaborately trimmed. A mirror was lifted from the closet and set upon the floor before which Mahala had to stand and see that her stocking seams were straight in the back. The ruffles of her pantalettes were carefully fluffed; her slippers were securely buttoned. Her petticoats and her wide-skirted dress were in the height of style and of expensive material. The finishing touch to her toilet was a white apron having a full skirt, and wide shoulder pieces meeting at the band, then curving to form deep pockets. From an open drawer a handkerchief was taken from a box and carefully scented.

“Please, Mother, put some on me,” begged Mahala.

Elizabeth Spellman laughed softly. She tipped the contents of the bottle against the glass stopper which she touched in several spots on the golden curls and over the shoulders.

“My little girl likes to be sweet like a flower, doesn’t she?” she asked.

And the child answered primly: “Yes, Mama, so that Papa will be pleased with me.”

Whereupon her mother immediately kissed her and commended her for thinking of anything that would be a pleasure to her father.

As she gathered up Mahala’s nightdress and turned the bed to air, she said to the child: “Now run, dear, and waken your father, but remember you must not muss yourself or spend too much time.”

Mahala hurried down the hall, softly opened the door to her parents’ bedroom, and poised on her tiptoes. Her heart was racing. Her eyes were big pools having dancing lights. Her muscles cried for exercise. She wanted to make a flying leap and land on the bed, but she knew what her reception would be if she did; so she crossed the room very primly and laid a soft hand on her father’s face.

“Papa, dear,” she said, “wake up! School begins this morning and you won’t be in time to have breakfast with me unless you hurry.”

She leaned over and kissed him and patted his face, but, when he reached up and drew her down in his arms, she was instantly on the defensive.

“Papa, be careful!” she cautioned. “Mother has my curls made and I am all dressed for school. She wouldn’t like it if you were to muss me.”

Instantly Mahlon’s arms relaxed.

“No, she wouldn’t like it,” he said, “and neither would I. Give Papa another kiss and run to your music, like a little lady.”

So Mahala hurried back to her room, where she took in her arms a beautiful wax doll, almost as large as herself, carefully carrying it down the stairs and into the living room. With her keen eyes she surveyed this familiar place, but the same stiffly starched lace curtains depended from the fringed lambrequins, the same gorgeous flowers spread among the scrolls of the Brussels carpet, the same mahogany chairs stood, each in its exact spot, each picture covered its size in the original freshness of the wall paper. She could not see a thing to arrest or interest her, so she proceeded to the parlour, where the big square piano stood among the real treasures of the house: rosewood sofa and chairs, a parlour table having leaves, cabinets for books and bric-a-brac, a loaded what-not, and the roses of the velvet carpet so big and so bright that it was a naughty trick of Mahala to pretend she stubbed her toes and stumbled over them. Here the lace curtains fell from velvet draperies and spread widely on the floor; a china dog guarded glass-encased hair flowers on the mantel, while the morning-glories climbing up the wall paper must have sprung from the same exuberant soil that furnished the originals of the carpet roses.

Mahala swept this room also with a bird-alert glance and seeing not the change of a fleck of dust anywhere, set Belinda on a chair beside the piano stool and surveyed her minutely.

“Belinda, can’t you sit like a little lady?” she said reprovingly. “Two curls over each shoulder, the rest down your back; heels touching, toes out. If I got to wear a silk dress every day, let me tell you, I’d swish it properly.”

She spread the silken skirts, fixed the curls, and placed a hymn book in the hands of the doll. Carefully spreading her own skirts, she climbed to the piano stool. Hearing her mother’s step on the stairs, in a sweet little voice she began singing, to her own accompaniment: “I thank thee, Father, for the light.” Then she slid from the stool, exchanged the hymn book in the doll’s lap for a piece of sheet music, and climbing back, began practising her lesson. She worked with one eye on the door of the living room and the other on the keyboard. Every time her mother’s back was turned, she stuck her feet straight out, and with propulsion attained by setting her hands against the piano, whirled in a circle on the stool, first to the left until the stool was too low, and then to the right until the stool was the required height. She was so dexterous at this that she could accomplish one revolution between the measures of the music in places where a rest occurred. Her face was sparkling with suppressed laughter whenever she feelingly struck a chord and then accomplished a revolution before catching the next note and continuing her exercise. But she was quite serious, seemingly intent upon her work, when her mother stepped to the door to announce: “Your time is up, Mahala. You have still a few minutes remaining that you might profitably spend with your needle.”

Mahala slipped to the floor, put away her music and Belinda’s, and going to the living room, took from a cupboard a small sewing basket. She sat down in a rocking chair beside the window, placing the doll in a chair near her. She put a piece of sewing into her hands and gravely reproved her for careless work. Her own fingers were weaving a needle in and out, executing a design in cross stitch in gaudy colours on a piece of cardboard. When her mother was within hearing she leaned toward the doll and said solicitously: “Now be careful, my dear child. You never will be a perfect lady unless you learn to take your stitches evenly. No lady makes a crooked seam.”

But, when her mother stepped to the adjoining dining room, with her brows drawn together she said sternly to the doll: “Belinda, if you don’t sit up straight and make your stitches even, I’ll slap you to pieces. You needn’t look as meek as a mouse. I shall do it for your own good; although, of course, it will hurt me more than it does you.”

When the breakfast bell rang, Mahala folded her sewing neatly, returned to the basket the piece she had given Belinda, put the basket where it belonged, and the doll on the sofa, and then walked to the dining-room door. She held her apron wide at each side and made a low formal courtesy to each of her parents exactly as if she had not seen them before that morning.

Primly she said: “Good morning, Papa dear. Good morning, dear Mama. I hope you slept well during the night.”

This drilling Elizabeth Spellman insisted upon because she considered it very pretty when there were guests in the house. When there were not, she thought it better to have it rehearsed in order that it should become habitual.

When they were seated at the table Mrs. Spellman and Mahala bowed their heads while Mr. Spellman addressed the Lord in a tone which was meant to contain a shade more deference than he would have tried to put into addressing the President or a Senator. He thanked the Lord for the food that was set before them, asked that it might be blessed to their good, prayed that all of them might execute the duties of the day faithfully, and returned all of their thanks for the blessing they were experiencing. Then they ate the food for which they had given thanks because it was very good food. They had every reason to be thankful for such cooking as Jemima Davis had accomplished in their kitchen during all the years of their wedded life.

It was just as Mr. Spellman was buttering his fourth pancake that the voice of Jemima Davis arose in the regions of the back porch in a shrill shriek. Mahala laid down her fork and stared with wide, expectant eyes. Mrs. Spellman started to rise from her chair. Mr. Spellman pushed back his own chair and looked at his wife.

“Now, now,” he said admonishingly, “be calm. You are familiar with Jemima’s divagations.”

Another shriek, wilder than the first, broke upon them.

“I will attend to this myself,” said Mr. Spellman.

Arising, he vanished in the direction of the kitchen. Finding that room empty, he proceeded to the back porch and there, at the corner of the house, he saw Jemima tugging at the rear anatomy of Jimmy Price. Jimmy Price was the village handy-man. His task that morning was to mow the Spellman lawn and trim the grass around the trees. Just why he should have been standing on his head in the rain barrel was a question Mahlon Spellman did not wait to ask until he had upset the barrel and allowed Jimmy the privilege of backing out. When Jimmy lifted his drenched tow head and sallow, freckled face, there was no need for explanation. In one hand he grasped a pair of sheep shears which he used to clip the grass around the snowball and lilac bushes. Exactly why or how he had lost them in the barrel was not a matter of concern to his employer. At the precise minute that Jimmy backed from the barrel, soaked and spluttering, Mahlon was felicitating himself upon the presence of mind which had kept his wife and daughter from witnessing a sight so ludicrous. At the same time he realized that he could not so easily control the neighbours and the street. Mahlon felt like a fool to be seen in proximity to such a ridiculous sight, and he hated feeling like a fool more than almost any other calamity that could possibly overtake him. In a voice highly touched with exasperation he cried: “James Price, is it quite impossible for you to perform your work without having some sort of fool accident or doing some ludicrous thing every fifteen minutes? Are you a man or a monkey? You don’t seem happy unless you are making a back-alley spectacle of yourself,”—“and me,” Mahlon added in his consciousness.

Jimmy wiped the muck of the barrel bottom and the water from his face, and looked at his employer.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” he said humbly.

“I wonder what for,” muttered Mahlon Spellman, and turning, marched back to the dining room where he resumed his place. As Mahlon went, Jimmy squared his shoulders, smoothed his dripping hair, set in place a tie he was not wearing, and flipped a very real bit of soil from his sleeve in Mr. Spellman’s best manner.

Jemima launched the back porch broom at Jimmy’s head and he dodged it expertly.

“You poor bumpkin, you,” she cried. “Don’t you dare be aping the master!”

“But I was merely following the natural impulses of a gentleman,” said Jimmy, as he used the sheep shears to flirt slime from his sleeves, while Jemima suddenly retreated, but not before Jimmy in deep satisfaction noted her heaving shoulders.

Mrs. Spellman opened her lips and an inquisitive little “What——?” escaped therefrom.

“Nothing of the slightest importance, my dear,” said Mr. Spellman, waving his hand to indicate that the matter was of such slight moment that it might be carried away in the wake of the gesture without consuming any of their valuable time for its consideration.

Mrs. Spellman bowed her head in acceptance of her husband’s ultimatum. Mahala distinctly pouted. In the back of her small head she knew that her mother would leave the breakfast table and go immediately to the kitchen for information. She would be sent to school and might never learn why Jemima had screamed so wholeheartedly. It was not fair; but then, Mahala reflected, there were few things that were fair where young people were concerned. That being the case, she lingered at the table, watched her chance, and slipped to the kitchen.

“Jemima, what made you scream so?” she whispered as she watched the doorway behind her.

Jemima wiped the batter from the pancake spoon with expert finger: “That half-wit Jim Price laid the sheep shears on the rain barrel,” she said scornfully. “Of course they fell in and of course he went in head first when he tried to get them out!”

Mahala clapped her hands over her mouth and danced until her curls flew.

“Careful, honey, careful,” whispered Jemima.

Instantly Mahala became a demure little maiden again. Her glance swept the kitchen as it had the other rooms and rested on a basket of clothes standing ready for the washerwoman. She backed to the table, asking questions of Jemima, snatched up a fine big apple, and with a swallow-swift dip, tucked it under the sheet covering the basket at the handle, covered to be sure, yet visibly there to the experienced eye.

“Mahala, what are you doing?” asked her mother at the door.

Mahala’s swift glance took in her nightdress in her mother’s hands. She lifted her face to Jemima: “Thank you for my good breakfast,” she said. “Allow me, Mama!” She took the nightdress from her mother’s hands, tucked it under the sheet at the handle opposite the apple, and ran after her books.

“Jemima, did you ever see such a darling, thoughtful child?” asked Elizabeth Spellman, and Jemima answered wholeheartedly: “I never did! God bless her!”

Mahala watched the filling of her book satchel with an occasional anxious glance toward the kitchen, but nothing happened; the apple had not been discovered. With the satchel strap over her shoulder and a bottle of ink in her hand, accompanied by her mother, Mahala went down the front walk. Mrs. Spellman opened the gate for her, kissed her good-bye, and stood waiting until she should turn to look back and throw a last kiss from the corner, the rounding of which carried her from sight.

All the neighbours were familiar with this proceeding. They were familiar with the demure step and studied grace with which Mahala turned the corner and threw back the kiss; and those whose range of vision covered the corner were also familiar with the wild leap for freedom with which the child flew down the street, the corner having been accomplished with due decorum. She sped up the steps of an attractive home, rang the bell and waited for a dark, lean little girl of her own age, dressed quite as carefully as she, to join her on their way to school.

The contrast between the children was very marked. Edith Williams was a sallow little creature, badly spoiled in the home of the leading hardware merchant whose only brother had died and left his child to her uncle’s care. She was not attractive. She was full of complaining and fault-finding. Her little heart bore a grudge against the world because she had not health and strength with which to enjoy the money left by her father, which her uncle would have allowed her to use had she not been naturally of a saving disposition.

It was a strange thing that children so different should have been friends. It is quite possible that their companionship was not due to natural selection, but to the fact that they lived near each other, that they constantly met going in the same direction to church, to school, and to entertainments, and that they had been sent to play together all their lives. This morning they kissed, and with their arms locked, started on their way to school.

Two blocks down the street they passed a big brick house surrounded by a thick hedge of evergreen trees inside a high iron fence having heavy, ornate gates. There were a few large trees scattered over the lawn and a few flowering bushes, while among them stood cast-iron dogs, deer, and lions. This was the home of Martin Moreland, the wealthiest man in the county, the president and the chief stockholder of the bank, a man whose real-estate and financial operations scattered over several adjoining counties.

While Mrs. Spellman had been dressing her little girl for school, Mrs. Moreland had been trying to accomplish the same feat with her only son; but her efforts had vastly different results. Junior was a handsome boy of eleven, with a good mind. His mother was trying to rear him properly. His father was ostensibly trying to do the same thing, but in his secret heart he wanted his son to be the successor not only to his business but also to his methods of doing business.

Mr. Moreland was a man of forty, tall and slender, having a fair complexion, light hair, and a fine, athletic figure. His eyes were small, deep-set, and penetrating, a baffling pair of eyes with which to deal. They looked straight in the face every one with whom he talked and reinforced a voice of persuasive import. But no man or woman ever had been able to see the depths of the eyes of Martin Moreland, and no man or woman ever had been perfectly sure that what his persuasive voice said was precisely the thing that he meant.

Mrs. Moreland was five years older than her husband, and it was understood in the town that he had married her because of her large inheritance from her father. She tried to be a good wife, a good mother, neighbour, and friend. She tried with all her might to love and to believe in her husband, and yet almost every day she noted some tendency in him that bred in her heart a vague fear and uncertainty, and years of this had made the big, raw-boned, dark-haired, dark-eyed woman into a creature of timid approaches, of hesitation. Sometimes there was almost fear in her eyes when she looked at Martin Moreland.

This morning she had tried repeatedly to awaken her son. Over and over she called to him: “Junior, you must get up and dress! Don’t you remember that school begins to-day? You mustn’t be late. It would be too bad to begin a new year by being tardy.”

From a near-by room Martin Moreland listened with a slight sneer on his handsome face. When his wife left the boy’s room in search of some article of clothing, he stepped to the side of the bed, shook Junior until he knew that the boy was awake, and then slid a shining dollar into his hand.

“Get up and put on your fine new suit,” he said. “You’ll cut a pretty figure being late for school. The son of the richest man in town should be first. He should show the other children that he is their natural leader. Come now, stir yourself.”

Junior immediately slid out of bed and began putting on the clothing his mother had laid out for him, slipping the money into a pocket before she saw it. As he dressed, an expression of discontent settled on his handsome young face. Everything in his home was sombre, substantial, and very expensive, but he knew that it was not a happy home. At the last minute he entered the dining room, wearing a shirt of ruffled lawn, long trousers, and a blouse of dark blue velvet with a flowing tie of dark blue lined with red. His wavy black hair was like his mother’s, so were his dark eyes, but his face was shaped very much on the lines of his father’s. He dropped to his chair and looked at the table with eyes of disapproval.

“Why can’t we ever have something fit to eat?” he asked.

“That is exactly what I am wondering,” added his father.

Mrs. Moreland surveyed the table critically.

“Why, what is the trouble?” she asked anxiously. “Everything seems to be here. The food looks all right. How can you tell that it doesn’t suit you, when you haven’t even tasted it?”

“I am going on the supposition,” said the elder Moreland, “that Hannah hasn’t greatly changed since supper last night, which wasn’t fit for a dog.”

“Then I’d better discharge her at once, and try to find some one else,” said Mrs. Moreland with unexpected spirit.

In his own way the banker retreated.

“What good would that do?” he asked shortly. “You would let the next woman you hire spoil things exactly the same way you have Hannah. We might as well go on eating the stuff she gives us as to have somebody else do the same thing.”

Then he proceeded to eat heartily of the food that was set before him. But Junior fidgeted in his chair, pushed back his plate, and refused to eat anything until the clanging of the first bell on the school house reached his ears. Then he jumped up, and, running into the hall, snatched his cap from the rack and clapped it on the back of his head. He stood hesitating a second, then, returning to the dining room, caught up all the food he could carry in his hands, rushing from the house without taking the satchel of books his mother had ready for him.

A minute later Mrs. Moreland saw them and hurried after him. He turned at her call, but he would not stop. He went on down the street munching the food he carried, while she stood looking after him, unconsciously shaking her head. In her heart, depression and foreboding almost equalled any hope she had concerning him, yet it was on hope for him that she lived.

Earlier than any of these households, Marcia Peters opened a door that led to a garret of her small house and called: “Jason!” As she stood waiting to hear the sound of a voice that would indicate that the lad was awake, her hand rested against the door casing in a position of unconscious grace. She was unusually tall for a woman, her clothing so careless as completely to conceal her figure. Her hair was drawn straight back and wadded in a tight knot on the top of her head at the most disfiguring angle possible. She did expert laundry work and mending for a living. Her home was a tiny house, owned by the banker, on the outskirts of town. She made no friends and very seldom appeared on the streets.

“Jason!” she repeated sharply, and immediately thereafter she heard the boy’s feet on the floor. A few minutes later he came hurrying down the stairway on the run. If he had stopped to think of it, he might have realized that most of his life he had been on the run. He ran all over town, collecting and delivering Marcia’s work. Between times he ran errands for other people for the nickels and dimes that they paid him. Mostly he was late and ran to school. This continuous running on scant fare kept him pale and lean, but the exercise developed muscle, the strength of which was untried, save on work. There was a wistful flash across his thin, homely face at times, and continuous loneliness in his heart. Being the son of the village washerwoman he had always been snubbed and imposed upon by other children, while he never had experienced the slightest degree of mother love from Marcia. He milked the cow, watered and fed the chickens, and then hurried to the Spellman home to bring a big basket of clothes for his mother to wash. With these he stopped at the grocery of Peter Potter, on Market Street, for packages of food which he carried home on the top of his clothes basket, and in handling them his fingers struck the apple. How good of Jemima Davis! She had tucked in a teacake, a cooky, a piece of candy, or an apple for him before. Next time he must surely thank her. The apple was firm and juicy and tasted as if flavoured with flowers. He must surely muster courage the next time to thank her, but not if Mrs. Spellman was in the kitchen. She might not know that Jemima gave away her apples. He had heard her say in a sweetly inflected voice when money was being raised in church for foreign missions: “We will give fifty dollars”; but he had never known her to give an apple to a hungry boy. Then a thought as delicious as the apple struck him. Maybe——just maybe——He did not even dare think it. But she never had joined the other children in trying to shame him. Maybe——

His position in school always had been made difficult and bitter to him by cruel, thoughtless children. It did not help that he had an excellent mind and very nearly always stood at the head of his classes. In school he had a habit of setting his elbows on his desk, grasping his head with a hand on either side, and, leaning forward, he really concentrated. He knew that his only chance lay in thoroughly learning his lessons. He could not be clothed as were the other children, his mother’s occupation shut him from social intercourse with them; he was not invited to their little parties and merry-makings. If he ever rose to a position of wealth and distinction like Mr. Moreland or Mr. Spellman, it must be through thorough application during school hours, because he had short time outside. The result was that his nervous fingers, straying through a heavy shock of silky reddish hair slightly wavy, kept it forever standing on end, and this, coupled with his lean, freckled face, made him just a trifle homelier than he would have been had his mother carefully dressed and brushed him as were most of the other children.

In school he allowed himself only one distraction. When he had pored over a book until his brain and body demanded relaxation, then he resorted to the pleasant diversion of studying the loveliest thing Number Five afforded. He studied Mahala Spellman. He was familiar with every flash of her eyes, every light on her face, each curl on her head. When she folded her hands and repeated: “Our Father Which art in Heaven,” during morning exercises, she was like an angel straight down from the skies. When she hid behind her Geography and surreptitiously nibbled a bit of candy, or flipped a note to Edith Williams, the laughter on her face, the mischief in her eyes,—Heaven had nothing in the way of angels having eyes to begin to compare with the dancing blue of her eyes,—the varying rose of her cheeks, the adorable sweetness of her little pampered body were irresistible.

Jason hurried into the kitchen. Setting the basket on the floor he snatched off the groceries and laid them on the table and looked around to see if there was anything further he might do that would be of help before he left for school.

“That basket is about twice as heavy as usual,” he said, “I am afraid it means a hard day for you.”

Marcia Peters looked at the boy and in the deeps of her eyes there was a slight flicker that he did not catch. Neither did he notice that one of her hands slightly lifted and reached in his direction; the flicker was so impalpable, the hand controlled so instantly, that both escaped his notice.

“Elizabeth Spellman entertained the Mite Society last week,” she said tersely, “and, of course, she used stacks of embroidered linen and napkins that I must send back in perfect condition. You had better take your books and march to school now, and be mighty careful that you keep at the head of your class. It’s your only hope. Never forget that.”

Jason crossed the room, and from a shelf in the living room took down a stack of books. He never forgot.

“I’ll do my best,” he said, “but it isn’t as easy as you might think.”

“I don’t know what I ever did or said,” retorted Marcia, “that would give you the impression that I thought anything about life was easy for either one of us. ‘Easy’ is a funny word to use in connection with this house.”

Jason found himself standing straight, gripping his books, and looking into her eyes.

“I’m sorry you have to work so hard,” he said.

His glance left the face of the woman before him and ran over the small mean kitchen, the plain, ugly living room. Without seeing it actually, he mentally saw the house outside, and the unprepossessing surroundings. There was a catch in his breath as he again faced Marcia.

“I’ll try very hard,” he told her, “and maybe it won’t be long until I can be a lawyer or a doctor or rent a piece of land, and then I’ll take care of you like a real lady.”

And again a close observer could have seen a stifled impulse toward the boy on the part of the woman; but it was not of sufficient impetus that the boy caught it, for he hesitated a second longer, then turning on his heel, he ran from the room and made his way down the street, happy to discover that for once he had plenty of time.

So it happened that at the same hour these four children were on the different streets of Ashwater, all headed toward the village school house, a grade and high school combined in one brick building designed for the educational purposes of the town. The day labourers of the village had passed over those same streets earlier that morning. The people that the children met were doctors and lawyers going to their offices, and the housewives of the village, many of them with their baskets on their arms, going to do their morning shopping. Front walks were being swept and rugs shaken from verandas. Walking demurely arm in arm, chattering to each other, went Mahala Spellman and Edith Williams. At the same time they saw an approaching figure and their arms tightened around each other.

Down the street toward them came a woman that all the village knew and spoke of as Crazy Becky. She wore the usual long, wide skirt of the period, with the neat, closely fitting waist. Her dress was of a delicately flowered white calico carefully made, her face and head covered by a deep sunbonnet well drawn forward. The children were accustomed to having only a peep of her face with its exquisite modelling, delicate colouring, and big, wide-open, blue-gray eyes with long, dark lashes. Sometimes a little person, passing her closely and peering up, caught a gleam of wavy golden hair surrounding her face. Over one shoulder, firmly gripped in her hand, was a long red osier cut from the cornels bordering the river. From it there waved behind her as she walked, a flag of snow-white muslin, neatly tacked to its holder and carefully fringed on the lower edge. In the other hand she carried an empty basket. On her face was a look of expectancy. Always her eyes were flashing everywhere in eager search for something.

Seeing the children coming in all directions, she stationed herself on the steps leading to the lawn of a residence that stood slightly above the street, and facing the passers-by, she began to offer them the privilege of walking under her white flag. In a mellow voice, sweet and pathetic, she began timidly: “Behold the White Flag! Mark the emblem of purity.” Then, gathering courage, she cried to those approaching her: “If you know in your hearts that you are clean, pass under the flag with God’s blessing. If you know that your hearts are filled with evil, bow your heads, pass under, and the flag will make you clean.”

The people passing Rebecca acted in accordance with the dictates of common human nature. Those who knew her, humoured her, and gravely bowing their heads, passed under the flag to her intense delight. Several strangers in the village who had not seen her before and did not understand her pathetic history, stared at her in amazement and hurried past. It had been such a long stretch from the days when John had cried in the wilderness that he was forgotten. As always, there were the coarse and careless who sneered at Rebecca and said rough, provoking things to her. After these she hurled threats of a dreadful nature and the serene beauty of her face was marred with anger for a few moments.

Edith Williams walked slowly and gripped Mahala tighter.

“Let’s run across the street,” she whispered. “I’m afraid of her.”

Mahala tightened her grip on her little friend: “I sha’n’t run from her,” she said. “I’m not afraid of her. She’s never yet hurt anybody who treated her politely. She only fights with naughty boys who tease her. Smile at her and say: ‘Good morning! Please, may I pass under your flag?’ and she will do anything in the world for you. Mama always walks under Becky’s flag. Watch me and do it as I do.”

Then Mahala, who had been taught all her life that she was to set an example for the other children of Ashwater, dropped her arm from Edith’s, and gripping her ink bottle and her books, bravely concealed the flutter of fear that was in her small heart. She marched up to Rebecca and made her a graceful bow.

“Good morning,” she said with suave politeness. “Please, may I pass under your flag this morning?”

Encouraged by the pleased smile Rebecca gave her, she added: “I try very hard to be a good child.”

“God has a blessing for all good children. Pass under the flag,” said Rebecca. She drew up her form to full height, extended her arm and held the flag in the morning sunlight. There was beauty in her figure, there was beauty in the expression of her perfectly cut face, there was grace in her attitude, and the white banner, hanging from its red support, really appeared like an emblem of purity. A queer thrill surged through Mahala. She bowed her head and with precise steps passed under the flag reverently.

Then Edith Williams repeated her words and walked under the flag also, joining Mahala who was waiting for her. Close behind them came Junior Moreland surrounded by a crowd of boys of whom he was evidently the leader. He was a handsome lad in the morning light, and the beauty of his face and figure was emphasized by his rich suit of velveteen, his broad collar, and his tie of silk. The instant he saw Rebecca he whispered to the other boys: “Oh, look! There’s Crazy Becky. Come on, let’s have some sport with her.”

Immediately the boys rushed in a crowd toward Rebecca, led by Junior. They made faces at her, they tried to snatch the flag which she held at arm’s length high above their heads, they tweaked her skirts, and one of them, more daring than the others, slipped behind her and pulled the bonnet from her head by the crown, exposing her face and uncoiling a thick roll of waving gold hair. In an effort to be especially daring, to outdo all the others, Junior sprang high and snatched the flag from her hand in a flying leap. Then he trailed it in the dirt of the gutter. He pulled off his cap, and bowing from the waist before her, he offered the soiled emblem to her. To Rebecca this was the most horrible thing that could happen. Her deranged brain was firm in the conviction that it was her mission in life to keep that flag snow-white, to use it as the emblem of purity. Instantly, a paroxysm of anger shook her. Her face became distorted; she dropped the flag and started after the offender. Junior was afraid of Rebecca in a spasm of anger, because he knew that the strongest man in town could not hold her when she became violent. So he dodged from under her clutching fingers and ran toward the school house.

Mahala and Edith heard the cries and turned just in time to see the white flag polluted.

“Oh, the wicked, wicked boy!” cried Mahala. She dragged Edith out of the way of the oncoming rush, but as she did so, her eyes swiftly searched the board walk over which they had been passing. One of her feet moved forward from beneath the hem of her skirts and a toe tip was firmly set on the end of a loose board. As Junior approached, running swiftly, that board lifted slightly so that he tripped over it and fell sprawling, soiling his hands, his face, and sliding over the walk on his velvet suit. Unable to stop in her rush after him, Rebecca tripped and fell on him in a heap. Jason turned a corner and came in sight, reading one of his books as he walked.

Instantly he understood. He dropped his books on a strip of grass between the fence and the walk, and ran to Rebecca. He helped her to her feet, and knowing her aversion to having her head and face seen by the public, he flew to find and replace her bonnet. He found the white flag and did what he could to straighten and clean it, and, as he put it into her hand, he said to her: “Never mind, you can wash it, you know. You can make it white again in only a little while. If I were you, I’d go back home and wash it right away.”

The fact that some one was sympathizing with her, was helping her, comforted Rebecca. She looked at Jason intently.

“You are a good boy,” she said. “You have a white soul. I will go back and make the flag white again.”

She turned and went back toward the small house where she lived alone on the outskirts of the village.

Junior stood scowling, beating the dust from his clothing. He was jarred and angry. He wanted to reinstate himself, to dominate some one. Jason was his legitimate prey. He advanced, blocking the other boy’s way. Jason tried to extricate himself. He wanted to avoid trouble. He put out his hands to keep the boys from pulling at his clothing and tried to back from the crowd. As he did so he found Mahala Spellman by his side. She had been in the same room in school with him ever since they had begun going to school. To his amazement he heard her whisper at his elbow: “Out early and late like you are, I bet you ain’t afraid of any boy in the whole world.”

Jason stopped suddenly. His figure stiffened and straightened. A queer light passed over his face. At his elbow Mahala whispered: “Carrying those big, heavy baskets like you do, I bet your arms are strongest of any boy in this town.”

Jason’s fists clenched. His arms flexed involuntarily. At his elbow came the whisper: “Remember the bugs!”

Jason’s mind flew to a poem in one of the school readers. Into his brain rushed the lines:

and again, with the kaleidoscopic rush of memory:

The son of the wealthiest man in town was standing before him, tweaking his coat, tormenting him. Suddenly Jason doubled his fists and struck his hardest blow. Junior fell back among the other boys. They started to close in around Jason, but they found a valiant figure blocking their way. With her arms stretched wide, stood Mahala. Her eyes were dark and her voice was high and shrill.

“Now you just keep back, you mean boys!” she screamed. “You just keep out of this! Junior started this, you just let him and Jason fight it out!”

Because there is a thing in spirit, and a power in right and fair play that a mob always feels, silent and acquiescing, the other children stepped back, and as they did so, the velvet-clad Junior glanced around him. On his face, it could be seen, that he was afraid. In his heart he knew that he was wrong. He was smarting from Jason’s blow. He would have liked to run, but he had his position to maintain as the leader of the other boys; he had been their leader all his life. He was accustomed to the admiration and the praise of the girls. There was nothing to do but to prove that he was not a coward; so he drew up and rushed Jason. The two began to fight. Jason was taller, more slender, a few months older, and there was untested strength in his arms, in the back and the legs that had carried heavy baskets of clothing and delivered bundles; the body that had been scantily fed and thoroughly exercised was the tougher, the quicker. Only a few blows proved to Junior that he was soft and practically helpless in Jason’s hands. In the delirium of victory, Jason seized the velvet coat at the neck and tore it off Junior. He snatched a ball bat from the hands of one of the boys, and hanging the coat on it, he waved it, crying: “Behold the black flag of riches! Pass under it and be damned!”

Then the children shouted with laughter, which so intoxicated Jason that he went to the further extent of dragging the coat through the gutter exactly as Junior had dragged the white flag. He threw the soiled, rumpled thing at Junior’s feet. At the wildness of his daring, the children stood hushed and silent. Then, suddenly, they pretended to threaten Jason, but it was evident to him that they were delighted, that they were only trying to make Junior feel that they were sorry that he had been thrashed and soiled.

It was Mahala who picked up the coat, crying: “Oh, Junior, your beautiful new coat is ruined!”

She began brushing the dust from it with her hands. Jason stared at her in amazement, which changed to a slow daze when he saw that her swift fingers were enlarging an ugly tear across the front of the coat even while, with a face of compassion, she handed it back to Junior.

So Jason “learned about women from ’er.”

Junior took the coat from her hands, smarting, crestfallen and soiled, and turned back toward his home, choking down gulping sobs that would rise in his throat, while the other children went to school. As they started, Mahala worked her way from among the others and dropped back beside Jason, who was left standing alone. “Did you find your apple?” she whispered. She slipped her hand into her pocket, took from it her dainty little handkerchief, and offered it to him to wipe the dirt and perspiration from his face. Jason refused to accept it, but when she insisted, he did take it; instead of using it for the purpose for which it had been offered he slipped it into the front of his blouse. Seeing this, Mahala suddenly ran to overtake the other children, but when she reached Edith Williams she found her crying and shaking with nervousness.

“I just hate you, Mahala Spellman,” she said. “I am never going to play with you any more, not if you get down on your hands and knees and beg me till you are black and blue in the face! I just hate you!”

Mahala met this with the sweetest kind of a smile.

“I’d like to know what I’ve done to you, Edith Williams,” she said innocently.

“You know what you have done to me, and I tell you I hate you, and I am going to tell your mother on you!”

Mahala looked at her reflectively.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you did,” she said. “It would be presackly like you. Doing things like that is why you haven’t got a friend but me, and you have not got me any more. I’m done with you! You needn’t hang around me any more.”

Then Mahala turned a little back, very straight, with very square shoulders and a very high head, and marched down the street toward the school house, while the other girls crowded around her, delighted that she and Edith were having trouble.

Almost exploding with rage over his humiliation, hurt from his punishment, and thoroughly frightened at the condition of his new suit, Junior started back home, while with each step that he took in that direction his mental stress increased. In culmination he entered the room bellowing, while his father and mother were still at breakfast. His mother threw up her hands and cried out in horror over his condition. His father was not only shocked and angry over whatever it was that had returned to him in such a condition the boy who was the pride of his heart, the very light of his eyes, but he had a lively remembrance of what that velvet suit had cost him and the pride he had taken in purchasing it for Junior because he meant always that he should be the best-dressed boy in the town. He seized Junior, shook him violently, and raised his hand to strike, all other emotions submerged in the one impulse that made money his God even above love. Junior tore from his hands, and running to his mother, dodged behind her. His father pursued him. Mrs. Moreland arose, spreading her skirts and her arms to cover Junior.

“Wait, Martin! Wait!” she cried.

It was evident that her heart was bound up in the boy far above any financial considerations, and it was also evident that she was afraid of the angry man she was facing; but she was not so much afraid that she was not willing to interpose her own body, if by so doing she could screen the boy. At the same time she cried to him, “Junior! Tell your father what happened to you. Explain!”

Under the shelter of her protection, Junior stopped crying. He wiped his eyes and faced his father defiantly.

“If I was on the City Council like you are, I’d fix up the sidewalks of this nasty old town so the boards wouldn’t fly up and throw folks down and ruin their clothes,” he cried.

His father stared at him in amazement. Instantly Junior’s mother agreed with him.

“That is quite true, Martin,” she said. “Only last week Jenny Sherman tripped on a loose board on her way to church. She almost broke her knee and ripped the whole front out of a very expensive silk dress. Some of these days somebody’s going to sue this town for damages and you will have the biggest part of them to pay. The only wonder is that Junior is not in worse shape than he is.”

Reassured by her backing, Junior came from behind her, but he still held her arm. Martin Moreland surveyed the pair scornfully.

“Will you please explain,” he said to his wife, “how merely tripping and falling could get Junior into his present condition?”

Realizing that this was impossible, and anger and humiliation surging up in him, Junior cried out: “Of course, just falling only started it. The minute I was down that mean old coward of a Jason Peters took his chance to jump on my back and start a fight when I couldn’t help myself. I took off my coat and gave it to one of the boys to hold while I beat him up as he deserved, and when he couldn’t do anything with me, before I saw what he intended, Jason snatched my coat and tore it and dragged it in the gutter on purpose.”

This immediately transferred Martin Moreland’s wrath and cupidity from Junior to Jason.

“Why didn’t you tell your teacher?” he thundered.

“It happened on the street. I wasn’t fit to go to school,” Junior made explanation.

The elder Moreland lost control of himself. His power had been defied. The tangible proof of his wealth had been dragged in the gutter. The child of his heart had been hurt and shamed. Martin Moreland did not stop to remember that he had been at the point of hurting the boy himself; what he really was overpoweringly angry about was that he felt Junior’s condition to be a blow aimed vicariously at his own person. In his heart he knew how many hands would be raised against him, if by chance a first hand were raised by a leader. He knew what would happen to any man attacking him; he would see to it that a blow struck at him through his boy, even by another boy, should be so punished that another offence of the kind could never occur. He turned to his wife.

“You see how quick you can wash Junior and put him into his other suit,” he said. “I will take him back to school in the carriage. I intend to have it understood by the Superintendent and the teachers that the son of the heaviest tax payer and the president of the School Board has some rights!”

An hour later the door of Room Five was suddenly flung wide and on the threshold stood the imposing figure of the banker, beside him his son, clothed in his second best suit, his composure quite recovered. The boy marched in and found a vacant seat among his classmates. Miss Mehitable Ashcroft dropped the book she was holding and stared at the banker. A whiteness slowly overspread her face. She had been teaching school so many years that she should have been fortified for anything; but she was not. As she grew older the nerve strain of each day of noise and confusion bit deeper into her physical strength. She lifted a bewildered hand to smooth down the graying hair that dipped over her ears and lifted to a meagre coil at the back, and then her hands fell and began fingering the folds of a black calico skirt liberally sprinkled with white huckleberries. Suddenly she found her voice and quaveringly she said: “Good morning, Mr. Moreland. We are so glad to see you. Won’t you have a chair?”

Mr. Moreland was a tall man with a heavy frame. The lines in his face at that minute were not pleasant. He had eyes of intense vision; in anger they were ugly eyes. They went flashing over the room from pupil to pupil until they found and settled on the white face of Jason Peters. There was something of the look on Jason’s face that was on the face of the banker as their eyes met and clashed; a hate of arrogant fearlessness. Martin Moreland lifted a shaking finger.

“I have come,” he said, “to accompany Jason Peters to the office of the Superintendent. I will have it understood that while I am the president of the School Board and while I am the heaviest tax payer in this town, the sons of washerwomen, or the sons of any one else, will not undertake, in a cowardly and underhand manner, to abuse my son.”

Martin Moreland was an imposing figure; he knew better than any one else exactly how imposing. He never saw himself in a mirror or reflected on a plate-glass window he was passing, without making sure that the imposing part of him was well in evidence. He was at his tallest, his coldest, his most arresting moment as he rolled out “my son” at the awed children, pausing to allow his words to sink deeply, and well gratified to note that they did.

The frightened children sat in silence in their seats. Mahala Spellman looked at Jason, studying his set white face; then she glanced at Junior, his head again lifted in prideful assurance; and then her gaze travelled to his father. She studied him intently, and slowly upon her little face there gathered a look of intense indignation. But on the faces of the other children there could be seen only the deep impression that had been made as to the power of riches.

“Jason,” said the teacher, “you will accompany Mr. Moreland to the office of the Superintendent.”

For one instant Jason sat very still; then he arose and left the room. It was a long time before he returned. When he came back his eyes were dry but he was white and shaken. It was evident to every one that he had been beaten until he was scarcely able to cross the room and reach his seat.

Facing the school, Mehitable Ashcroft studied the children. She hated herself as badly as she hated a number of them. She could see the brilliant spot on the cheek and the bright eyes of Mahala Spellman. She knew that if she asked her she would arise in her place and tell the truth about what must have happened on the way to school. She knew that she should have done this before she allowed Jason to leave the room. She knew, too, that he should not have been sent to be beaten and humiliated unless he deserved it. From what she knew of his character and his work in school, she was certain that he did not deserve it. On the faces of a part of the children she could read the message that they were trying to convey to her that an injustice had been committed; that she had countenanced an unfair thing. On the remainder of the faces she could read the fact that they, too, had this realizing sense but that they intended, the minute school was dismissed, to crowd around Junior and follow his leadership. She had no doubt in her heart that whatever had happened would be carried further and that Jason would again experience taunts and treatment that were unjust. She stood there—hating herself that she did nothing and said nothing. In looking back over the years during which she had held her position because of many occurrences of a similar nature, she might have found the answer as to why she was already nervous and prematurely ageing—as to why she hated her profession and herself. She had needed her position so badly, what she must do to hold it had been made so clear to her.

At the noon hour as the children left the school grounds, Junior was strutting proudly at the head of a group of boys, bragging about what his father could do to the old Superintendent, about what he had done to Jason, and about what was coming to any other boy who got smart with him. While this was occurring on a corner Mahala passed by, surrounded by a crowd of admiring little girl friends, who were followed by Edith Williams, darkly frowning, walking alone.

Mahala’s quick eyes saw what was going on. Her heart was rebelling at injustice. She stopped on the sidewalk, pointed her finger at Junior, and began a sing-song chant:

Then the other little girls and some of the boys, with the flexibility of childhood, pointed their fingers at Junior and began shrieking, “Cowardy calf!” until he was furious. But he was helpless among such numbers as were ranged against him, so, breaking from the group, he ran down the street with all his might. As far as he could hear, a shrill chorus followed him: “Cowardy calf! Cowardy calf!”

Jason lingered in the lower hallway until the other children had left the school grounds and were some distance ahead of him; then he followed. In passing down Market Street on his way home, he saw Peter Potter standing at the door of his grocery with a heaped basket in his hand, looking up the street and down the street, evidently wondering why his delivery wagon was not standing before his door as it should have been. Instantly, Jason changed his course and headed toward Peter, because he and Peter were friends. The time had been when Peter was the leading grocer of the village, but he had not been able to make his way against the new methods and the seductive advertising of an opponent who, in recent years, had been able to take a good deal of his trade. Peter was not suffering from either cold or hunger. His fifty years had left his British face round and jolly. He was not sufficiently energetic to exert himself to an extent that would bring him back his lost opportunities. Instead of trying to regain his position, he tried by closeness in all his dealings to recover his losses, but he only succeeded in narrowing his soul, which had been fashioned rather narrow in the making.

When he saw Jason coming toward him he began to smile. He had asked several boys passing to deliver the groceries and they had refused; but here was a boy who would not refuse. Here was a boy who frequently had helped him for very small pay. Peter explained that, for some reason, his wagon had not returned from the ten o’clock delivery and these later orders were wanted for the dinners of some of his customers. Jason immediately shouldered the heavy basket and started on a long trip across town. When he returned the delivery slips, Peter understood that Jason would not have time to go home for his dinner, so he cut him a very small piece of cheese and gave him a handful of crackers to pay for having delivered the orders. Jason started back to school munching as he went.

His body was stiff and sore, but his heart was crushed. The boys knew that he had tried to get away without trouble; several of the girls had seen Junior push and maltreat him; at his elbow there had been the whisper that nerved him—yet when his hour came he had stood alone. He had felt Mahala’s eyes on him, but he would not let himself look at her, in the fear that he would seem to be asking her help, and so involve her in trouble. All of them, the teacher included, had kept still. He was to understand that Junior was to do with him exactly as he chose. He was a few months older, he was taller, he was stronger, but because he was poor and Junior was rich, he must endure taunt, insult, even submit to being pushed and pulled. A slow red rimmed Jason’s ears. He lifted a hand to allay the pricking in his scalp. Would he follow alleys and back streets, and dodge and hide from Junior, or would he meet him unafraid? He had no reason to fear Junior, but he remembered strong men who deeply feared the power behind the boy. As Jason slowly walked toward the school house, his brain and blood were in tumult.

When the last companion left her, Mahala had two blocks for sober reflection. She was ashamed of herself. She had incited Jason to strike Junior; when his father came into the school room she should have faced him bravely and cried out the truth. Maybe she could have saved Jason a beating. Never having suffered a blow herself, Mahala did not fully realize just what had happened to Jason. She did know that she had not been brave or fair in school. At least she had shamed Junior on the street and let him see what she thought of him. That made her feel better, and Jason knew she felt sorry for him. He did know that; but what must he think of her? And what ailed Edith Williams? Would Edith start to school early and tell the other girls things that would make them desert Mahala and be friends with her?

A daring thought flashed in Mahala’s brain. She knew how to hold her ascendancy. Dinner was not quite ready when she entered the house. She kissed her mother, and slipping to the living room, she snatched her charm string from its place in the little mahogany sewing-table pocket, and hid it in the folds of her dress. Her mother would attend the Mite Society, held on Monday so that ladies of wealth might feel their superiority through having freedom to attend, and those that worked might gauge their inferiority by the amount of extra work they would be compelled to do in order to find time for the meeting. Mahala felt wildly daring; but her position demanded some risk. She darted across the door yard, tucked the heavy glittering string in a grassy corner of the fence, and managed her return unobserved. Now if only her mother would not be so silly as to follow her to the gate—but she was! So Mahala was forced to walk to the corner demurely, throw back a farewell kiss, and disappear. Then she must wait a palpitant interval, fly back on guilty feet, thrust a small hand through the fence, draw out the precious charm string, carefully, and race headlong toward the corner again. Safely past it, she might pause and hang the glittering length around her neck in gleaming festoons to her knees. Edith Williams would turn the other girls against her, would she? Mahala proudly swung the string before her and made a tongue-exposing face at an invisible Edith. She knew what would happen, and she was secure in her knowledge. The first little girl who saw her ran straight to her side and remained; the others came as they appeared around diverse corners—and remained. Every one of them had a charm string, but what meagre little things compared with the magnificence of the string of the merchant’s daughter who might have the sample button from every emptied box as it left his shelves, to whom wonderful buttons of brass and glass and bone and pearl came in handfuls at every trip to New York to buy goods. Mahala’s eyes were shining, her heart was throbbing. She knew the history of every button on her string: “Post Commander Johnston cut that right from the vest of his soldier suit, and that’s the top left-hand one from Papa’s dress vest, and that is from the coat of Mama’s best friend——” she told them over like a rosary as they slipped through her fingers—great, brass-rimmed circles of glass with gay flower faces showing through, carved insets of bird and animal, globes of every size, colour, and cutting that ever held fast a garment worn by man or woman—Edith Williams indeed!

Mahala could scarcely step for the eager crowd around her. She disposed of the rule that charm strings were not to be brought to school by leaving hers with the teacher with a polite little speech, and got it safely back in place before her mother’s return from the Mite Society. Such is the reward of a slight degree of daring. Edith Williams! Indeed, twice over!

That night in her bedroom, when Mahala’s mother was undressing her, she saw the empty pocket with eyes that nothing escaped, and exclaimed: “Oh, Mahala! You couldn’t have lost your beautiful embroidered linen handkerchief. I purposely make your pockets so very deep.”

Mahala hesitated. Her first impulse was to say that she had lost the handkerchief because she knew that her mother would disapprove of her even speaking to the son of their washerwoman. But her astute mother had cut off that avenue of escape by pointing out the depth of her pocket. So she assumed a look which she knew her mother considered angelic, she clasped her little hands before her and lifted her face, exclaiming: “Oh, Mama dear, please excuse me! I gave it to a poor boy to wipe his tears.”

Instantly Mrs. Spellman gathered Mahala in her arms and kissed her passionately. She sat down in a chair, drawing the child to her lap. She was thoroughly delighted.

“Tell me, darling, tell me what happened,” she said.

Mahala, in detail, told of the troubles of the morning. She told precisely the truth where it concerned Rebecca and the desecration of the white flag. She left untold her part in any occurrence where she knew her mother would disapprove. When the story was finished, Mrs. Spellman felt that Junior Moreland was not being properly reared; that Jason had been abused; and that her Mahala was growing into precisely the kind of a woman that she wanted her to be. She went on undressing the child with customary precision, hanging each of her garments upon a hook, having her set her shoes in a certain spot with the toes even, patiently and carefully brushing and stroking her hair and winding it upon the curlers for the morning. Then together they knelt beside Mahala’s bed while she said her prayers. Then the mother prayed. She asked of the Lord that He would make of her little girl a good child, an obedient child, and one having a fair mind and a tender heart. She begged that Mahala might be given the courage always to set a good example before her playmates. Then she tucked her into bed, kissed her repeatedly, and turning out the lamp, she left her to go to sleep.

As soon as the door was closed Mahala threw back the covers and sat up in bed. She listened until she heard the door of the living room close, then she expertly scratched a match and relighted the lamp. She was so accustomed to doing this that she managed the hot chimney without burning her fingers. She took the big wax doll, a gift from her father after one of his trips to New York, made it kneel beside the bed and then, in exact imitation of her mother’s voice and mannerisms, she prayed for the doll the same prayer that her mother had used for her, to all intent. But if Mrs. Spellman had been listening she would have heard her own tones and accents saying: “And Oh, our Heavenly Father, help my little girl to always show the other bad, naughty children exactly how they should behave, and how their hair should be curled, and how clean their aprons should be, and how nice they ought to keep their slippers, and how they should be polite to grown-up people, and slap each other good and hard when they need it, and look like I do, and behave like I do. Amen!”

Then she opened the door to the adjoining room, and slipping in, she returned with an armload of clothing which she laid upon the bed. She pressed down the wrapped-up curls and tied them with a handkerchief; over them she put the carefully curled front which her mother wore with her Sunday bonnet and then she put the bonnet on her head. She stripped up her nighty and slipped into her mother’s hoop skirt, and pulling the nightdress down over the circling hoops of the skirt, she looked at herself in the mirror and clapped her little hands tight over her mouth to suppress a shriek at the ludicrous aspect she presented. She unfolded a Paisley shawl and arranged it over her shoulders; then she opened a fan and posturing with it, minced up and down before the glass, wearing on her face an expression of sanctified piety. She made a journey about the room exactly in imitation of her mother, touching things here and there and repeatedly making little speeches to the doll. Sometimes as she passed the glass, she stuck out her tongue at her reflection, and tilting her skirts, did daring improvisations, dancing to tunes she softly hummed to accompany her performance.

When she was thoroughly tired of every ludicrous thing she could think of to do, she proved how very efficient her mother’s teaching had been by returning everything to its place in such an exact manner that the estimable lady never realized that her precious possessions had been touched.

In his home that night, Martin Moreland spent the supper hour telling his wife, in Junior’s presence, what he had done at the school, how terribly he had had Jason punished, and ended by admonishing Junior always to let him know if he was imposed upon or any of the other children did not treat him with respectful deference. He gave Junior a piece of money, telling him to take his books and go to his room and study his lessons for the coming day.

Junior said good-night to his father, kissed his mother, took up his books, and obediently went upstairs to his room. There he promptly climbed from the back window, slid down the slanting roof to a shed, from which he jumped to the ground. Following the alleys, he made his way down town where he spent the money for a deck of cards, a number of clay pipes, and a package of smoking tobacco. Then he whistled at the back gates of several of the boys who were his particular friends and all of them crept up the alley beside the bankers house, entered the barn loft, and made a deep nest in the hay so that the candle light they used would not show from the outside. There they smoked and played cards until it became so late that they dared not remain longer.

Jason hurried home from school, fed the chickens, which were pets of his that he had bought with his earnings, milked the cow, and worked in the garden until it was dark. Then he came to the house, carefully washed, combed his hair, and sat down to a very scant supper that was awaiting him. Marcia did not speak to him or pay the slightest attention to his movements. She busied herself about the house or with some needlework. It was her custom to mend all the lace and fine linen that needed repairing in the washing that was sent to her, adding an extra charge to her bill. When he had finished, Jason washed the dishes he had used, put away the food, took his book, and sat down to a diligent study of his lessons.

At an early hour Marcia ordered him to go to bed, so he climbed the narrow stairway to the garret and undressed by the light of the moon shining in the uncurtained window. He was so sore and stiff that he soon fell asleep.

Immediately after he had gone, Marcia unlocked the door to one room of the small house which was always closed. Jason had never even peeped inside it. This room she entered and threw aside her working clothes. She bathed, unloosed and combed out a coil of beautiful curling hair, looping it in loose waves over her head. She rouged her cheeks and lips and powdered her face, hands, and arms. She opened her closet door, and taking out an attractive dress, put it on, transforming herself into a startlingly beautiful woman. From a drawer she took a book and sat down to read, but occasionally she lifted her head and listened intently. Presently she arose and went through the living room and the kitchen in the dark, and standing at the door, softly inquired: “Who is there?”

On hearing a low-voiced reply she opened the door and admitted Martin Moreland, who led the way to her room. She followed, closing and locking the door behind her, and turned to him with a smiling face, which gradually changed to one of doubt and uncertainty when she saw that he was in a state of almost ungovernable anger. His voice was shaking as he gave her Junior’s version of what had happened during the day and then she noticed that in his hand he carried a cruel whip. He told her that he was going upstairs and beat the life half out of Jason. He was going to teach him for once and all that he could not interfere with the son of a rich man. He made the matter infinitely worse than it had been. Then he started toward the door.

Marcia caught his arm.

“But, Martin,” she cried, “how are you going to account to Jason for your presence here?”

And he retorted: “I don’t have to account to that brat for anything. He may as well understand that I came to teach him a lesson. He may as well know that I am master of this house, and of anything else of which I choose to be master!”

As he started up the stairway Marcia followed him. Then, realizing that Jason must not see her as she was, she turned back. She stood at the foot of the stairs, her hands clenched, listening to the sounds that came down to her. Several times she started up the stairs, but each time she remembered, and white and shaking, kept from sight.

Finally, when the banker left Jason’s room, she went to her own, closed her door and locked it on the inside. When he turned the knob she refused admission, but after repeated hammering and threats she finally yielded and unlocked the door. He entered, sat down in the best chair, and lighting a cigar, began to smoke.

He said to her sneeringly: “You can take your time to cool off. That boy has got to realize once and for all that it is quite impossible for him to interfere in any way with any of the pleasures or the inclinations of my son.”

Later she served him with wine and cake and delicious buttered biscuits, and when he had made himself thoroughly at home, he took his leave. After he had gone, she again locked herself in her room, tore off the fine clothing she had worn, and throwing it aside, pasted down her hair, slipped into her old dress, and, softly climbing the stairs, entered Jason’s room. He was stretched on the bed in a light sleep, breathing hard. His face was white and full of suffering. She stood over him, looking down at him for a long time. Then she straightened the covers and slipped from the room. She went back to her own room, locked the door, and threw herself on her knees beside the bed, her arms stretched out among the finery she had worn, her face buried in the silken covers.

In these homes and in this environment the four children advanced until they entered the first year of high school.