ht _happen_ to have a soda."

But young Joe had suffered too long to be quickly silent. "You ain't
_got_ no pa to get you soda!" persisted he.

"Joe!" commanded his father, "stop pesterin' them kids or I'll _lick_
you!"

And Joe, drunk with the joy of having what the Cadaras had not,
shrieked, "You ain't _got_ no pa to lick you! You ain't _got_ no pa to
lick you!"

THE STONE[12]

[Note 12: Copyright, 1919, by The Pictorial Review Company.
Copyright, 1920, by Henry Goodman.]

BY HENRY GOODMAN

From _The Pictorial Review_

"Martha Sloan is goin' the way o' Jim," said Deems Lennon to his wife.
"See," and he pointed through the open window toward the cemetery. "I
seen her before Jim's stone, beggin' on her knees an' mumblin' with her
hands stretched out. She been that way a number o' times when I come
upon her as I was fixin' up the graves."

Mrs. Lennon, a stout, pleasant-faced woman, looked in the direction
indicated by her husband. Together they watched Martha Sloan,
white-haired, thin, and bent, making her way up the cemetery path. She
was nervous and her walk was broken by little, sudden pauses in which
she looked about.

"Poor soul," said Mrs. Lennon, "she's afraid. She ain't been herself
sence Dorothy died. Losin' the two children right after Jim has broken
her up completely."

"She's afraid for herself," said her husband. "If you heard her up there
by that stone you'd have thought she was speakin' to some one alive, to
some one who could do her things."

"Oh well, that's enough to make any one queer," Mrs. Lennon said. Then
she stopped, and watched the figure on the hillside.

"Look," said Mrs. Lennon, "look at her. She's down on her knees."

Deems stood by her near the window.

"That's it," he exclaimed. "That's exactly what she's been doing now for
some time. I heard her speak. I don't know where she got the idea. She
thinks Jim's following her--reaching out for her--trying to grasp her. I
heard her plead. I don't know what'll come of it."

They were both startled when, as suddenly as Martha Sloan had knelt, she
rose from her place before the gravestone and, moving in nervous haste,
ran down the pathway.

"Deems, we must go to her," said Mrs. Lennon. "Maybe we can do something
for her." And as they both hurried into the kitchen and out of the
house, Martha Sloan, panting and white-faced with fright, rushed to the
house.

"Deems," she gasped. "Deems, it's Jim. He's reaching out. He'