t; it was to you
he came back. _And you'll miss him yet._ Think this is going to keep up?
Think you're going to interest those rich folks as much next year as you
did this? Five years from now you'll be on your knees with a _brush_ to
keep those kids warm and fed."

He'd like to get the truth out of her! Somehow things wouldn't seem so
_rotten_ if he could know that she sometimes lay in her bed at night and
cried for Joe Cadara.

It was quiet to-night; all the Cadara children and all the Doanes were
out looking for the government goat. The government goat was increasing
her range. She seemed to know that, being a government goat, she was
protected from harm. If a government goat comes in your yard, you are a
little slow to fire a tin can at her--not knowing just how treasonous
this may be. Nobody in Cape's End knew the exact status of a government
goat, and each one hesitated to ask for the very good reason that the
person asked might know and you would then be exposed as one who knew
less than some one else. So the government goat went about where she
pleased, and to-night she had pleased to go far. It left the
neighborhood quiet--the government goat having many guardians.

Joe Doane felt like saying something to Mrs. Cadara. Not the rough, wild
thing he had wanted to say a moment before, but just say something to
her. He and she were the only people around--children all away and his
wife up-stairs with a headache. He felt lonesome and he thought she
looked that way--standing there against the sea in light that was
getting dim. She and Joe Cadara used to sit out on that bulkhead. She
moved toward him, as if she were lonesome and wanted to speak. On his
side of the fence, he moved a little nearer her. She said,

"My, I hope the goat's not lost!"

He said nothing.

"That goat, she's so tame," went on Joe Cadara's wife with pride and
affection, "she'll follow anybody around like a dog."

Joe Doane got up and went in the house.

It got so he didn't talk much to anybody. He sometimes had jokes, for
he'd laugh, but they were jokes he had all to himself and his laughing
would come as a surprise and make others turn and stare at him. It made
him seem off by himself, even when they were all sitting round the
table. He laughed at things that weren't things to laugh at, as when
Myrtie said, "Agnes Cadara had a letter from Mrs. MacCrea and a
_mourning_ handkerchief." And after he'd laughed at a thing like that
which nobo