t his
hand, he put the load down in the hall and said: "But while you're
getting that million, you're wasting God's ten talents, boy. Can't you
see that if you would use your force, your keenness, and persistence
helping mankind in some way--teaching, preaching, lending a hand to
the poor, or helping to fight organized greed, you would get more of
God's work done than you will by squeezing the daylights out of your
fellow-men, making them hate money because of your avarice, and end by
doling it out to them in charity? That's my point, boy. That's why I
don't want your railroad job."

They had dropped the basket in the bare room. The general had not so
much as a chair or a desk. He looked it over, and Barclay's eyes
followed his. "What are you going to do for furniture?" asked the
younger man.

The general's thin face wrinkled into a smile. "Well," he replied, "I
suppose that if a raven can carry dry-goods, groceries, boots and
shoes and drugs, paints and oils,--and certainly the ravens have been
bringing those things to the Wards for eight years now, and they're
all paid for,--the blessed bird can hump itself a little and bring
some furniture, stoves, and hardware."

Barclay limped into his room, while the general rubbed the dust off
the windows. In a minute John came stumbling in with a chair, and as
he set it down he said, "Here comes the first raven, General, and now
if you'll kindly come and give the ravens a lift, they'll bring you a
table." And so the two men dragged the table into the office, and as
they finished, Ward saw General Hendricks coming up the stairs, and
when the new room had been put in order,--a simple operation,
--General Ward hurried home to help Mrs. Ward get in their dahlia
roots for the winter.

As they were digging in the garden, covering the ferns and wrapping
the magnolia tree they had lately acquired, and mulching the
perennials, Mrs. Mary Barclay came toward them buffeting the wind. She
wore the long cowlish waterproof cloak and hood of the period--which
she had put on during the cloudy morning. Her tall strong figure did
not bend in the wind, and the schoolbooks she carried in her hand
broke the straight line of her figure only to heighten the priestess
effect that her approaching presence produced.

"Well, children," she said, as she stood by the Wards at their work,
"preparing your miracles?" She looked at the bulbs and roots, and
smiled. "How wonderful that all the beauty of the