efore she revived. The room was still
foul with gas-fumes, and very cold, for they had not rekindled the fire
when they had returned after dinner.

He feebly opened the window, even the door. A passing woman cried, "Gas
in the room! My Gawd! my old man almost croaked himself last year with
one of them quarter meters." She bustled in, a corpulent, baggy,
unclean, kindly, effectual soul, and helped him fan the gas out of the
room. She drove away other inquisitive neighbors, revived Mother
Appleby, and left them with thick-voiced words of cheer, muttering that
"her old man would kill her if she didn't get a hustle on herself and
chase that growler."

With the broken window-pane stuffed up, the gas lighted, and the fire
started, the Applebys faced life again, and were very glad. They
couldn't have been long under the gas; Father's eons of drowning
struggle must have been seconds. Propped up in bed, Mother refused a
doctor and smiled--though confusedly, with the bewilderment of one who
had felt the numbness of death.

"I'll tell you how it is," cried Father. "We-- _Lord!_ how glad I am to
have you again! It's like this: We felt as if we'd gone the very limit,
and nothing ever would come right again. But it's just like when we were
a young married couple and scrapped and were so darn certain we'd have
to leave each other. That's the way it's been with us lately, and we
needed something big like this to get our nerve up, I guess. Now we'll
start off again, and think, honey, whatever we do will be a
vict'ry--it'll be so much bigger than nothing.

"Let's see. New York doesn't want us. But somewhere there must be a
village of folks that does. We'll start out right now, walking through
New York, and we'll hunt till we find it, even if we have to go clean
out to San Francisco. Gee! think, we're free, no job or nothing, and we
could go to San Francisco! Travel, like we've always wanted to! And we
won't have any more pride now to bother us, not after--that. I'll play
the mouth-organ for pennies! Come on, we'll start for Japan, and see the
cherry-blossoms. Come on, old partner, we're going to pioneer, like our
daddies that went West."

And he struck up "Susanna" on his mouth-organ.

CHAPTER XIII

The Applebys didn't start for Japan on Christmas Eve. Also, they didn't
go defiantly with pack on back through the streets of New York, like
immigrants to youth. It took Mother Appleby two days to recover from gas
and two mor