thought that housekeeping would be so much easier if she had just
one pretty thing to keep house toward. If I had not been so selfish,
she could have had the dresser before she died. I had fifteen
dollars,--enough to buy it,--but when I came to look in the catalogue
to choose one I found that for fifteen dollars more I could get a
whole set. I thought how proud ma would be of a new bedstead and
wash-stand, so I set in to earn that much more. But before I could get
that saved up ma just got tired of living, waiting, and doing without.
She never caused any trouble while she lived, and she died the same
way.

"They sent for me to come home from the place where I was at work. I
had just got home, and I was standing by the bed holding ma's hand,
when she smiled up at me; she handed me Lennie and then turned over
and sighed so contented. That was all there was to it. She was done
with hard times.

"Pa Ford wanted to buy her coffin on credit,--to go in debt for
it,--but I hated for ma to have to go on that way even after she was
dead; so I persuaded him to use what money he had to buy the coffin,
and I put in all I had, too. So the coffin she lies in is her own. We
don't owe for _that_. Then I stayed at home and kept house and cared
for Lennie until she was four years old. I have been washing dishes in
this hotel ever since."

That is Connie's story. After she told me, I went to the landlady and
suggested that we help a little with Lennie's finery; but she told me
to "keep out." "I doubt if Connie would accept any help from us, and
if she did, every cent we put in would take that much from her
pleasure. There have not been many happy days in her life, but the
Fourth of July will be one if we keep out." So I kept out.

I was delighted when Mrs. Pearson invited me to accompany her to
Manila to witness the bucking contest on the Fourth. Manila is a
pretty little town, situated in Lucerne Valley. All the houses in town
are the homes of ranchers, whose farms may be seen from any doorstep
in Manila. The valley lies between a high wall of red sandstone and
the "hogback,"--that is what the foothills are called. The wall of
sandstone is many miles in length. The valley presents a beautiful
picture as you go eastward; at this time of the year the alfalfa is so
green. Each farm joins another. Each has a cabin in which the rancher
lives while they irrigate and make hay. When that is finished they
move into their houses in "town." Be