and the churn, shut out from all things that
humanize and make living something more than a brute struggle against
hunger and cold.

Ida greeted them smilingly, but her face was quivering with a sadness
which she could hardly conceal. Bradley pushed on desperately toward
her. At length, as the crowd began to thin out, he moved up and thrust
his long arm in over the shoulders of the women.

"Won't you shake hands with me, too?" he said, and his voice trembled.

She turned quickly, and her face flashed into a smile--a smile
different, somehow, from that with which she had greeted the others,
and they saw it. It warmed his melancholy soul like a sudden ray of
June sunlight.

Her hand met his, strong and firm in its grasp. "Ah! Mr. Talcott, I'm
glad to see you."

The farmers' wives began to leave, saying good-by over and over again.
They clung to the girl's hand, gazing at her with wistful eyes. It
seemed as if they could not bear to let her go out of their lives
again.

"We may never see you again, dearie," one old woman said, "but we
never'll forgit you. You've helped us. I reckon life won't seem quite
so hard now. We kind o' see a glimmer of a way out."

The tears were on her face, and Ida put her arms about the old lady's
neck and kissed her, and then turned away, unable to speak. The
chairman, followed by Bradley and Ida, made his way down the steps and
out on the grounds, where the streams of people were setting back
toward the city. The chairman placed Miss Wilbur in a carriage, and
said, "I'll see you at the hotel."

"Won't you ride?" she asked.

"No, thank you," he replied, with a jovial gleam in his eyes, and Ida
said no more in protest. Bradley, in great trepidation, took a seat
beside her.

"Well, Brother Talcott, what do you think of such a meeting as that?"
she asked, after the carriage started, turning upon him with sudden
intensity.

"It was like that first meeting of the Grange, when I heard you speak
first, only this is more earnest--more desperate, I should say."

"Yes, these people _are_ desperate. It is impossible for the world to
realize the earnestness of these farmers. Just see the interest the
women-folks take in it! No other movement in history--not even the
anti-slavery cause--appealed to the women like this movement here in
Kansas. Why, sometimes I go home and walk the floor like a crazy
woman--I get so wrought up over it. While our great politicians split
hairs on the tariff, p