llenged by these very fastidious
descendants of Carolina and Tennessee.

Mallston's wife had lately added a son to his family. He had two sons
before, also two daughters. From any standpoint it seemed an unnecessary
addition when the economist considers that he had no means of support
except his big-fingered paws, and these, though very willing, depended
on chance jobs and days' works given him by other men. In face of these
facts the youngest was there as well as the oldest--scarcely seven; the
second, scarcely five; and the third and fourth, aged three and a half
and two--in his rented house of one room, containing beds in opposite
corners, a table and a cooking-stove in front of the fireplace. A
generous family and scant provision for it being the mode in Fairfield,
however, Mallston may not have seen his desperate position, especially
with summer and harvest wages coming. Just now he was out of a job,
having finished a ditching contract, and his black, speculative eyes
looked anxiously at the photographer.

"Come, clear now!" exclaimed that young man with some authority to his
loafers: "I am going to have some sitters."

The landlady and her grandchild were already coming to take advantage of
morning sunlight and the domestic lull before dinner. With them came a
curious neighbor in ill-made, trailing calico and dejected sun-bonnet,
who walked with her hands on her hips and puckered her upper lip, with
consciousness of the loss of two front teeth, when she laughed. As they
proceeded at a pace regulated by the toddling child, they encountered an
old woman with no teeth at all, whose nose and chin leaned very much
toward each other: her grizzled hair curled under a still more dejected
sun-bonnet, and, setting down a basket of clothes, she stood panting
from exertion and wiping her wan face on the bonnet cape.

"I'm a-garn to hick'ry that Bill," she exclaimed weakly. "I tole him to
carry me wash-water, and here he is stannin' round thish yer car! George
and John's just out, too, and so's Foster. Soon's they git the'r vittles
they up and leave me to do the best I kin. Laws! who's garn to pay out
money fer fortygraphs? If folks all had to work as hard as I do, they
wouldn't have no money fer no such things, so they wouldn't. It 'ud
stan' 'em in hand to be savin'."

"Why don't you drive off some yer good-fer-nothin' boys and make 'em do
somethin', Mis' Stillman?" bantered the neighbor.

"Well, they've all been a-work