ars of absence. He was with a road called the Great Northern,
already a Second Assistant Passenger Agent and with great prospects, so
the family thought. Eugene could see that all the boys and girls, like
Angela, were ruggedly and honestly truthful. They were written all over
with Christian precept--not church dogma--but Christian precept, lightly
and good naturedly applied. They obeyed the ten commandments in so far
as possible and lived within the limits of what people considered sane
and decent. Eugene wondered at this. His own moral laxity was a puzzle
to him. He wondered whether he were not really all wrong and they all
right. Yet the subtlety of the universe was always with him--the mystery
of its chemistry. For a given order of society no doubt he was out of
place--for life in general, well, he could not say.

At 12.30 dinner was announced from the door by Mrs. Blue and they all
rose. It was one of those simple home feasts common to any intelligent
farming family. There was a generous supply of fresh vegetables, green
peas, new potatoes, new string beans. A steak had been secured from the
itinerant butcher who served these parts and Mrs. Blue had made hot
light biscuit. Eugene expressed a predilection for fresh buttermilk and
they brought him a pitcherful, saying that as a rule it was given to the
pigs; the children did not care for it. They talked and jested and he
heard odd bits of information concerning people here and there--some
farmer who had lost a horse by colic; some other farmer who was
preparing to cut his wheat. There were frequent references to the three
oldest sisters, who lived in other Wisconsin towns. Their children
appeared to be numerous and fairly troublesome. They all came home
frequently, it appeared, and were bound up closely with the interests of
the family as a whole.

"The more you know about the Blue family," observed Samuel to Eugene,
who expressed surprise at the solidarity of interest, "the more you
realize that they're a clan not a family. They stick together like
glue."

"That's a rather nice trait, I should say," laughed Eugene, who felt no
such keen interest in his relatives.

"Well, if you want to find out how the Blue family stick together just
do something to one of them," observed Jake Doll, a neighbor who had
entered.

"That's sure true, isn't it, Sis," observed Samuel, who was sitting next
to Angela, putting his hand affectionately on his sister's arm. Eugene
noted th