gh what will happen, Lew. The minute I'm out of high
school, I'll have to go to work with Dad in Miller's factory. Gee! How I
hate the place! Think of working nine hours a day in such a dirty, smoky,
noisy old hole, where you can't get a breath of fresh air, or see the sky,
or hear the birds. Just to think about it is enough to make a fellow feel
blue."

"But maybe you won't have to go into the factory at all," argued Lew.
"Maybe you can find some other job you like better."

"No, I shall have to go into the factory," repeated Charley sadly. "Dad
says I've got to get to work the minute I've graduated, and earn the most
money possible. And there's no other place where I can get as much as they
pay at Miller's. Dad says I can get two-fifty a day at the start and maybe
three dollars."

Charley paused and sighed, then added, "What's three dollars a day if you
have to be penned up like an animal to earn it? I'd rather take half as
much if I could work out in the open and do something I like."

"Why don't you tell your father so?"

"I have--dozens of times. But he says it isn't a question of what I want
to do. It's a question of making the most money possible and helping him.
He says he's supported me for more than eighteen years and now I have to
help him for a year or two anyway."

"That's a shame!" cried Lew.

"No, it isn't, Lew," explained Charley. "It's all right about helping Dad.
He's been mighty good to me, and he's in the hole now. You see, Dad and
Mother have been married twenty years and Dad's worked hard all this time
and saved his money to build a house. And just about the time Dad was
ready to begin building, prices began to go up. Dad held off, thinking
they would drop. But they got higher instead, and finally Dad told the
carpenters to go ahead, lest prices should go higher still. Now the house
is going to cost almost double what Dad expected it would, and the awful
prices of everything else take every cent Dad can earn. With such a big
mortgage on the place, Dad says he's just got to have my help or he may
lose the house and all he has saved in those twenty years. It's all right
about helping Dad, Lew. I want to do that, but I can't bear to think of
going to work in that factory."

"It's too bad, Charley. I had hoped so much that we could go to college
together."

"Lew, if I could go to college I'd work my head off to do it. You know
that. If only I could go to college and learn about the birds and