It ain't none of my business to tell what for," said Joe, though his
lips ached to tell what he knew.

"Maw says all you fellows are jealous 'cause he talks so pretty and
wears such stylish clothes."

"We might, too, if we got 'em like he done," Joe began, then checked
himself. "Say, Mittie, why don't yer maw like me?"

"She says you haven't got any school education and don't talk good
grammar."

"Don't I talk good grammar?" asked Joe anxiously.

"I don't know," said Mittie; "that's what she says. How long did you go
to school?"

"Me? Oh, off and on 'bout two year. The old man was always poorly, and
Maw, she had to work out, till me an' the boys done got big enough to
work. 'Fore that I had to stay home and mind the kids. Don't I talk like
other fellers, Mittie?"

"You talk better than some," said Mittie loyally.

After he left her, Joe reviewed the matter carefully. He thought of the
few educated people he knew--the boss at the shops, the preacher up on
Twelfth Street, the doctor who sewed up his head after he stopped a
runaway team, even Ben Schenk, who had gone through the eighth grade.
Yes, there was a difference. Being clean and wearing good clothes were
not the only things.

When he got home, he tiptoed into the front room, and picking his way
around the various beds and pallets, took Berney's school satchel from
the top of the wardrobe. Retracing his steps, he returned to the
kitchen, and with his hat still on and his coat collar turned up, he
began to take an inventory of his mental stock.

One after another of the dog-eared, grimy books he pondered over, and
one after another he laid aside, with a puzzled, distressed look
deepening in his face.

"Berney she ain't but fourteen an' she gits on to 'em," he said to
himself; "looks like I orter."

Once more he seized the nearest book, and with the courage of despair
repeated the sentences again and again to himself.

"That you, Joe?" asked Mrs. Ridder from the next room an hour later. "I
didn't know you'd come. Yer paw sent word by old man Jackson that he was
at Hank's Exchange way down on Market Street, and fer you to come git
him."

"It's twelve o'clock," remonstrated Joe.

"I know it," said Mrs. Ridder, yawning, "but I reckon you better go. The
old man always gits the rheumatiz when he lays out all night, and that
there rheumatiz medicine cost sixty-five cents a bottle!"

"All right," said Joe with a resignation born of experience, "but don't