be afraid of. That is the biggest kind of heaven I know,
but I guess it ain't for us. We got in wrong from the start, but oh,
Kate, I do wish things was different. I don't care so much for myself,
but I do want to get Billy out of this life where thieving and being a
crook is the natural thing, and a person on the level is looked upon as
being queer. Sometimes when I see Billy do some little thing or have a
look in his face like Jim, my heart most stops beating. I don't pray,
but I do say, "Oh, if there is such a thing as a God, don't let Billy
grow up like his father." And, there are a lot of your little ways that
I would just as soon not see cropping out in him.

Well, good night, I am glad you are getting along so well. I can't send
you any money this time, cause I am flat broke since I paid your storage
bill, but I will give you twenty next month. Do write me a decent
letter, Kate. Your last letter was simply a touch from the beginning to
the end, and between you and your friends, I am kept pretty well cleaned
up.

_Nan_.

VI

_Dear Kate_:

Say, but I am a happy girl! What do you think, Billy and me is in the
country. I am going to stay a week, and Billy is going to stay always, I
hope. After I had made that first visit to Mrs. Smith, I kept seeing
that place with the pigs and the chickens and the trees and the lake and
the nice green grass and the kids rolling over on it, and the room here
got smaller and hotter, and Billy got whiter, and I felt I couldn't
stand it, so I sat down and wrote Mrs. Smith, and asked her if she
wouldn't take Billy to board. She was real nice and came over to see me
one day, and ended up by taking me and Billy back with her. She asked me
to stay a week so Billy would get used to her and the place and not be
lonesome. The manager kicked, but I said I was sick, and I got a week's
leave. Mrs. Smith offered to take Billy for nothing, but I wouldn't
stand for that and we settled on $3.50 for his board. I offered to pay
more, but she would not listen to me. She says he will be company for
her baby, and that two is easier to take care of than one anyway.

This life here don't seem real to me. I went to bed at nine o'clock,
which I don't remember I have ever done in my life before. Even as a kid
I was on the streets until ten or eleven o'clock and, in the last three
years, three in the morning has been my bye-bye time. I went up to a
little room under the roof, and lay awake unti