ying this and that of the simplest kind, and
then the baby, a nice, plump, blue-eyed boy who grew apace and was the
delight of both. What more could she ask for? That was certainly
content.

He took out a small life insurance, though it almost broke her heart to
think of his dying. And she never dreamed of the baby. He was so well
and strong and joyous. Yet a few days' illness swept him out of the
world, and almost broke their hearts. Then a little girl came. She liked
girls the best, they were more to the mother. She could make their
clothes, they could go out together. Then lovers would come and
marriage, and all the everyday interest of new lives.

One sad day James Boyd was brought home dead. Something had gone wrong
with the machinery and before it could be stopped his life had been
beaten out. Neighbors were kind to her, the employer took charge of the
funeral, but there were other sorrows and losses in the world.

She had one brother of whom she had seen very little, as he had gone
West when a mere boy. He had a big farm and five children and he wrote
for her to come out, as his wife had recently died. The steady home
looked so inviting. Yes, she would go.

The life insurance had been well invested by a friend of her husbands'.

"Don't disturb it," he counseled. "You may not like it there and want to
come back, and your brother may marry again. There's enough to give you
a nice start in something."

If she had never gone! How many times she had wondered! For midway in
the journey there was a horrible accident in a small town where two
roads crossed. The child flew out of her arms and she lay unconscious.
There was no hospital. Kindly neighbors took in the wounded and the
dead.

When she came to herself one morning the child was fretting and she
nursed it. She could not remember distinctly, but they were both alive
and she gave thanks as she hugged the child to her heart.

"Will you have some breakfast? You had a good natural sleep last night,
and the baby is all right. The other poor baby was killed and its mother
is dying, maybe dead now. There was so much confusion. The baggage car
was wrecked and burned, the trunks lost, and it seems so hard to get on
track of relatives. Some cannot be identified."

The listener shuddered. Then the breakfast came and she ate it with an
eager appetite.

"You might try getting up by and by. The railroad company are doing all
they can and sending passengers to their d