ocked it. From his red leather wallet he took out a
ten dollar bill and laid it on the table beside Hester.

"Tell the boys not to stay late, an' not to drive the horses hard,"
he said quietly, and went off to bed.

Hester blew out the lamp and sat still in the dark a long time. She
left the bill lying on the table where William had placed it. She
had a painful sense of having missed something, or lost something;
she felt that somehow the years had cheated her.

The little locust trees that grew by the fence were white with
blossoms. Their heavy odor floated in to her on the night wind and
recalled a night long ago, when the first whip-poor-Will of the
Spring was heard, and the rough, buxom girls of Hawkins Gap had held
her laughing and struggling under the locust trees, and searched in
her bosom for a lock of her sweetheart's hair, which is supposed to
be on every girl's breast when the first whip-poor-Will sings. Two
of those same girls had been her bridesmaids. Hester had been a very
happy bride. She rose and went softly into the room where William
lay. He was sleeping heavily, but occasionally moved his hand before
his face to ward off the flies. Hester went into the parlor and took
the piece of mosquito net from the basket of wax apples and pears
that her sister had made before she died. One of the boys had
brought it all the way from Virginia, packed in a tin pail, since
Hester would not risk shipping so precious an ornament by freight.
She went back to the bed room and spread the net over William's
head.

Then she sat down by the bed and listened to his deep, regular
breathing until she heard the boys returning. She went out to meet
them and warn them not to waken their father.

"I'll be up early to get your breakfast, boys. Your father says you
can go to the show." As she handed the money to the eldest, she felt
a sudden throb of allegiance to her husband and said sharply, "And
you be careful of that, an' don't waste it. Your father works hard
for his money."

The boys looked at each other in astonishment and felt that they had
lost a powerful ally.

_Library_, May 12, 1900

_The Namesake_

Seven of us, students, sat one evening in Hartwell's studio on the
Boulevard St. Michel. We were all fellow-countrymen; one from New
Hampshire, one from Colorado, another from Nevada, several from the
farm lands of the Middle West, and I myself from California. Lyon