every young son of America had his chance to help. With a strong,
tireless body aching for soldier's work, America, his mother, refused
him work. He wasn't allowed.

Lance groaned, sitting in his one big chair in his one small room. There
were other problems. A Liberty Loan drive was on, and where could he lay
hands on money for bonds? He had plunged on the last loan and there was
yet something to pay on the $200 subscription. And there was no one and
nothing to fall back on except his salary as reporter for the
_Daybreak._ His father had died when he was six, and his mother eight
years ago; his small capital had gone for his four years, at Yale. There
was no one--except a legend of cousins in the South. Never was any one
poorer or more alone. Yet he must take a bond or two. How might he hold
up his head not to fight and not to buy bonds. A knock at the door.

"Come in," growled Lance.

The door opened, and a picture out of a storybook stood framed and
smiling. One seldom sees today in the North the genuine old-fashioned
negro-woman. A sample was here in Lance's doorway. A bandanna of red and
yellow made a turban for her head; a clean brownish calico dress stood
crisply about a solid and waistless figure, and a fresh white apron
covered it voluminously in front; a folded white handkerchief lay,
fichu-wise, around the creases of a fat black neck; a basket covered
with a cloth was on her arm. She stood and smiled as if to give the
treat time to have its effect on Lance. "Look who's here!" was in large
print all over her. And she radiated peace and good-will.

Lance was on his feet with a shout. "Bless your fat heart, Aunt
Basha--I'm glad to see you," he flung at her, and seized the basket and
slung it half across the room to a sofa with a casualness, alarming to
Aunt Basha--christened Bathsheba seventy-five years ago, but "rightly
known," she had so instructed Lance, as "Aunt Basha."

"Young marse, don' you ruinate the washin', please sir," she adjured in
liquid tones.

"Never you mind. It's the last one you'll do for me," retorted Lance.
"Did I tell you you couldn't have the honor of washing for me anymore,
Aunt Basha?"

Aunt Basha was wreathed in smiles.

"Yassir, young marse. You tole me dat mo'n tree times befo', a'ready,
sir."

"Well--it's final this time. Can't stand your prices. I _can't_ stand
your exorbitant prices. Now what do you have the heart to charge for
dusting off those three old shirts and two