n the
claim, we slept from exhaustion.

No matter with what finality things seem to end, there is always a next
day and a next. During those first few hours the extent of our disaster
had dazed us. Then, the odds seemed so overwhelmingly against us that
there was no use in going on. The only trouble was that we couldn't
stop. Post office or no post office, there was the mail. Print shop or
no print shop, there were the proof notices.

We were like the cowboy who, hanging to a running steer's tail, was
dragged against the hard ground and through brush until he was cut,
battered and bruised.

Fearing he would be killed, the other cowboys, who watched, shouted
wildly to him, "Let go! Let go!"

"Let go, hell!" he yelled back. "It's all I can do to hold on!"

Then there was Great-uncle Jack Ammons, back in the earlier days of
Illinois, who had become critically ill from some lingering disease of
long standing. One day the doctor called Aunt Jane aside and said,
"Jane, if Jack has any business matters to attend to, it had better be
done at once. I don't think he can last another forty-eight hours."

From the bedroom came a weak, irritable voice, "Jane! Jane! Where's my
boots?"

Uncle Jack got up, fought the disease, and lived and prospered for many
a year. We came of a family who died with their boots on.

I don't know whether it was a streak of Great-uncle Jack or whether,
like the cowboy, we held on because we could not let go. The latter,
perhaps, for we saw no way of escape. Many times, I think, people get
too much credit for hanging on to things as a virtue when they are
simply following the line of least resistance. We saw no means of
escape, and were too stunned to plan.

Of one thing we were sure. We would not go back home for help. There
would have to be some way of telling our father of the misfortune so as
to soften the blow as much as possible, but we were determined not to
add to his burdens, which were already too heavy for him.

"If the railroad company takes us to the state line," declared Ida
Mary, "it will have to take us crated--or furnish us covering." In the
garish morning light, indeed, we felt rather naked in those flimsy, torn
clothes, the only garments we now owned.

"We can't go back, anyhow," I reminded her. "We can't leave things
unfinished. The proof notices have to finish running, and Sam Frye will
be throwing the mail sack in at the door." It was easier to get into
things than to g