es that he
gets at Mason's. Oh, why aren't good things as free as bad ones!" she
cried out in her distress.

"But what can I do?" was the question to which her thoughts ever came
back. "I must save Jack, for he's all mother and I have; but how?"

"What can one girl do, without money and without friends--almost?"
thought Alice, remembering, with a shudder, that a drunkard's daughter
is apt to have few influential friends.

Alice Rawson was clear-headed though young. She thought the matter
over during the next day, as she went about her work in the house,
waiting on her invalid mother, making the cottage tidy, and cooking
their plain meals.

"It's no use to talk," she said to herself; "Jack means to do what's
right. And it's even worse to scold or be cross to him, for that only
makes him stay away more." And she gave the pillow she was stirring up
a savage poke to relieve her feelings.

"I know, too," she went on, pausing with the other pillow in her hand,
"that when he's there with the boys, it's awful hard never to spend a
cent when the others do. It looks mean, and Jack hates being mean;"
and she flung the pillow back into its place with such spirit that it
went over on to the floor.

"What are you banging about so for?" asked her mother, from the next
room.

"Oh, nothing. I was thinking, mother," she answered. And she went on
thinking.

"What would be best would be to have some other place just as
pleasant, and warm, and free as Mason's,--some _good_ place." Alice
sighed at this thought.

"It can't be here at home, because it takes so much money to have it
warm and light; and besides, his friends wouldn't feel free to come,
and it would be lonely for him."

"Alice, what _are_ you muttering about?" called Mrs. Rawson.

"Nothing, mother; I'm only making a plan."

"If I could get books and papers," she went on, closing the door, and
starting for the kitchen; "but Jack is too tired to read much."

Suddenly a new thought struck her, and she stood in the middle of the
kitchen like a statue.

"I wonder--I do wonder why a place couldn't be fixed--a room
somewhere! I believe people would help if they only thought how good
it would be for boys. That would be splendid!" And she looked anything
but a statue now, for she fairly beamed with delight at the thought.

"I don't suppose I can do much alone," she said later, as the plan
grew more into shape; "but it's for Jack, and that'll help me talk to
people, I'm