you grieve and think me worth loving. Anyway, I couldn't earn what she
did, and I was afraid, for a great city is heartless to the poor. One
morning she fainted and couldn't get up. I can see the awful look in her
eyes now. She knew what was coming. I didn't. I tried to be brave and
to work. Oh it's no use to go on with that! It was just worse and worse.
She was lovely and delicate, she was my mother, and I adored her. Oh
Man! You won't judge harshly?"

"No!" cried the Harvester, "I won't judge at all, Ruth. I see now. Get
it over if you must tell me."

"One day she had been dreadfully ill for a long time and there was no
food or work or money, and the last scrap was pawned, and she simply
would not let me notify the charities or tell me who or where her people
were. She said she had sinned against them and broken their hearts,
and probably they were dead, and I was desperate. I walked all day from
house to house where I had delivered work, but it was no use; no one
wanted anything I could do, and I went back frantic, and found her
gnawing her fingers and gibbering in delirium. She did not know me, and
for the first time she implored me for food.

"Then I locked the door and went on the street and I asked a woman. She
laughed and said she'd report me and I'd be locked up for begging.
Then I saw a man I passed sometimes. I thought he lived close. I went
straight to him, and told him my mother was very ill, and asked him
to help her. He told me to go to the proper authorities. I told him I
didn't know who they were or where, and I had no money and she was a
woman of refinement, and never would forgive me. I offered, if he would
come to see her, get her some beef tea, and take care of her while she
lived, that afterward----"

The Girl's frail form shook in a storm of sobs. At last she lifted her
eyes to the Harvester's. "There must be a God, and somewhere at the
last extremity He must come in. The man went with me, and he was a young
doctor who had an office a few blocks away, and he knew what to do. He
hadn't much himself, but for several weeks he divided and she was more
comfortable and not hungry when she went. When it was over I dressed
her the best I could in my graduation dress, and folded her hands, and
kissed her good-bye, and told him I was ready to fulfill my offer; and
oh Man!----He said he had forgotten!"

"God!" panted the Harvester.

"We couldn't bury her there. But I remembered my father had said he ha