kes
the hands to be dirty"--looking at his blackened fingers--"but it saves
the to buy coal."

"That is good, Albert," said Miss Margery, heartily, "better than
earning pennies for yourself. Can you show me where the Callahans live?
Anne tells me Peggy is your classmate."

"Yes, madam, lady," answered Albert, "it's the second house on the path
back of those trees."

"There's the house," exclaimed Anne, a few minutes later. "I know
that's it. It's little and it's brown and look at the roses--and the
children! It's like the old woman that lived in a shoe."

Indeed, the little brown house was overflowing with children. Peggy,
with a baby in her arms, sat in a broken rocking-chair on the porch. Two
little girls were making mud-pies near by. A tow-headed boy, watched
from an up-stairs window by two admiring small boys, was walking around
the edge of the porch roof, balancing himself with outstretched arms. A
neat negro woman, emptying an ash-can in the adjoining yard, caught
sight of him and shrieked, "Uh, John Edward! is that you on the porch
roof? or is it Elmore? Whichever you be, if you don't go right in, I'll
tell yo' ma. You Bud and tother twin, you stop leanin' out of that
window. Peg, uh Peg! thar's a boy on the porch roof and two leanin' out
the window. They all goin' to fall and break their necks."

The boy on the roof stuck out his tongue, and said, "Uh, you tell-tale!"
then walked on around the porch and climbed in the window.

"I done it," he shouted to his twin brother. "You dared me to and I done
it. Now I double-dare you to climb the chimbley."

Peggy came out to reprove the reckless climber, and then, seeing the
approaching visitors, came forward to greet them. She invited Miss
Margery and Anne into the front room where her mother sat at a
sewing-machine that was running like a race-horse. Mrs. Callahan shook
hands and then took a garment from her work-basket and began to make
buttonholes.

"My machine makes such a racket," she explained, "I always keep finger
jobs for company work. There's so many fact'ries nowadays that
Keep-at-it is the only sewin'-woman that makes a livin'. You'd be
s'prised to see how much Peggy helps me. She can rattle off most as
many miles as me on that old machine in a day."

"Peggy tells me you are in trouble, Mrs. Callahan," said Miss Margery,
coming directly to the cause of her visit.

"Well, not exactly. Nobody ain't dead or sick," Mrs. Callahan answered
cheerfully.