together, to the top of our bent."

"My, but I'm glad you like them, Mother," said Kate. "They are all
I've got to show for ten years of my life."

"Not by a long shot, Katie," said Mrs. Bates. "Life has made a real
woman of you. I kept watchin' you to-day comin' over; an' I was
prouder 'an Jehu of you. It's a debatable question whether you have
thrown away your time and your money. I say you've got something to
show for it that I wish to God the rest of my children had. I want you
should brace your back, and stiffen your neck, and make things hum
here. Get a carpenter first. Fix the house the way it will be most
convenient and comfortable. Then paint and paper, and get what new
things you like, in reason--of course, in reason--and then I want you
should get all of us clothes so's there ain't a noticeable difference
between us and the others when we come together here or elsewhere. Put
in a telephone; they're mighty handy, and if you can scrape up a
place--I washed in Nancy Ellen's tub a few weeks ago. I never was wet
all over at once before in my life, and I'm just itching to try it
again. I say, let's have it, if it knocks a fair-sized hole in a
five-hundred-dollar bill. An' if we had the telephone right now, we
could call up folks an' order what we want without ever budgin' out of
our tracks. Go up ahead, Katie, I'll back you in anything you can
think of. It won't hurt my feelings a mite if you can think of one or
two things the rest of them haven't got yet. Can't you think of
something that will lay the rest of them clear in the shade? I just
wish you could. Now, I'm going to bed."

Kate went with her mother, opened her bed, pulled out the pins, and
brushed her hair, drew the thin cover over her, and blew out the light.
Then she went past the bed on her way to the door, and stooping, she
kissed her mother for the first time since she could remember.

Then she lighted a lamp, hunted a big sheet of wrapping paper, and
sitting down beside the living room table, she drew a rough sketch of
the house. For hours she pored over it, and when at last she went to
bed, on the reverse of the sheet she had a drawing that was quite a
different affair; yet it was the same house with very few and easily
made changes that a good contractor could accomplish in a short time.
In the morning, she showed these ideas to her mother who approved all
of them, but still showed disappointment visibly.

"That's nothing but