glad to have him, and then
one day I heard them talk about going to Australia. Mrs. Smith didn't
like the house since Paul was gone. She stops and listens as if she
expects to hear him round the corner, and she don't want to go in his
room, and she acts queer. Mr. Smith thinks that if she got away where
everything was different, she would forget sooner, or if she didn't
forget she wouldn't remember with so much pain.

His brother wrote from Australia and asked them to come there a long
time ago. He is in the sheep business and doing very well. They talked
it over and talked it over, and now they have decided to go. It most
killed me, cause this is the only home I ever knew, and I didn't know
what would become of Billy. I felt I couldn't take him back to the room.
I said to Mrs. Smith one day that it kinda kicked my feet from under me
to think of Billy losing his home and the mother and things he has had
for two years. She looked at me a long time and then she said, "Nan,
Billy don't need to lose his home." I said, "What do you mean?" "I will
take him with me," she said. It took my breath away for a minit to think
of losing Billy, as he is all I got, and I guess she saw it in my face
cause she said quickly, "You can come too." I did not say nothing for a
long time. I thought that this was my chance, I would get away from the
old crowd, get away from all the things I hate and yet seemed kinda
drawed to. I could leave this life that may be will take me down and
down, and Billy and I could commence over again in a new country. Then I
thought of you, Kate, and how you are coming out soon, and if both Billy
and me was gone, you would have nothing to hold to, and I know you, and
I know you would go straight to Hell. There would be no half way place
for you, you would keep on sliding. And, Kate, I couldn't leave you.
Billy can get on without me, he won't never know no difference, but you
would be all alone, and it's hard enough to try to be decent when once
you've been in stir--even with friends to help you, and when you come
out, Kate, I am going to be waiting for you at the gate, and you are
going to make a fight and win out and live decent.

I thought of all this when I sat there looking at Mrs. Smith and then I
said, "No, I can't go, but you can take Billy." She said, "Nannie, I
won't take a baby unless I can adopt him and make him really mine. I
don't want any father and mother to come and take him when I have grown
to lo