hich is more than she'll be able to say for _her_ children if
she ever has any! Now go!"

For Value Received

A soft yellow haze lay over the San Jacinto plain, deepening into
purple, where the mountains lifted themselves against the horizon. Nancy
Watson stood in her cabin door, and held her bony, moistened finger out
into the tepid air.

"I believe there's a little breath of wind from the southeast, Robert,"
she said, with a desperate hopefulness; "but the air doesn't feel
rainy."

"Oh, I guess the rains'll come along all right; they gener'lly do." The
man's voice was husky and weak. "Anyway, the barley'll hold its own
quite a while yet."

"Oh, yes; quite a long while," acquiesced his wife, with an eager,
artificial stress on the adjective. "I don't care much if the harvest
isn't earlier'n usual; I want you to pick up your strength."

She turned into the room, a strained smile twitching her
weather-stained face. She was glad Robert's bed was in the farthest
corner away from the window. The barley-field that stretched about the
little redwood cabin was a pale yellowish green, deeper in the
depressions, and fading almost into brown on the hillocks. There had
been heavy showers late in October, and the early sown grain had
sprouted. It was past the middle of November now, and the sky was of
that serene, cloudless Californian blue which is like a perpetual
smiling denial of any possibility of rain.

"Is the barley turning yellow any?" queried the sick man feebly.

Nancy hesitated.

"Oh, not to speak of," she faltered, swallowing hard.

Her husband was used to that gulping sob in her voice when she stood in
the door. There was a little grave on the edge of the barley-field. He
had put a bit of woven-wire fence about it to keep out the rabbits, and
Nancy had planted some geraniums inside the small inclosure. There were
some of the fiery blossoms in an old oyster can at the head of the
little mound, lifting their brilliant smile toward the unfeeling blue of
the sky.

"There's pretty certain to be late rains, anyway," the man went on
hoarsely. "Leech would let us have more seed if it wasn't for the
mortgage." His voice broke into a strained whisper on the last word.

Nancy crossed the room, and laid her knotted hand on his forehead.

"You hain't got any fever to-day," she said irrelevantly.

"Oh, no; I'm gettin' on fine; I'll be up in a day or two. The
mortgage'll be due next month, Nancy," he went o