ies, his mouth
open; and Jimmie hobbled in, bent almost double, thin hand on
crippled knee. Julie slipped politely away.

Then the news came out. The woman from the "Family Society" had
called that day and had advised Grandma to put the children into
a Home. When Grandma would not listen, the woman went on to the
shop and talked with Grandpa.

"Her telling us they wasn't getting enough milk and vegetables!"
Grandma scolded, wiping her eyes with one hand and smoothing back
Rose-Ellen's curls with the other. "Saying Jimmie'd ought to be
where he'd get sunshine without roasting. Good as telling me we
don't know how to raise children, and her without a young-one to
her name."

Grandpa blew his nose. "Well, it takes money to give the kids the
vittles they ought to have."

"I won't go away from my own house!" howled Jimmie.

Rose-Ellen and Dick blinked at each other. It was one thing to
scrap a little and quite another to be entirely apart. And the
baby. . . .

"Would Miss Piper take . . . Sally?" Rose-Ellen quavered.

Grandma nodded, lips tight.

"They shan't!" Rose-Ellen whispered.

"Nonsense!" Daddy said hoarsely, his hands tightening on Jimmie's
shoulder and Rose-Ellen's. "It's better for families to stick
together, even if they don't get everything they need. Ma, you
think it's better, don't you?"

He looked anxiously at his parents and they looked pityingly at
him, as if he were a boy again, and before they knew it the whole
family were crying together, Grandpa and Daddy pretending they
had colds.

Then came a knock at the door, and Grandma mopped her eyes with
her apron and answered. Julie's mother stood there, a comfortable
brown woman with shining black hair and gold earrings, the
youngest Albi enthroned on her arm. Mrs. Albi's eyebrows had
risen to the middle of her forehead, and she patted Grandma's
shoulder plumply.

[Illustration: Mrs. Albi]

"Now, now, now, now!" she comforted in a big voice. "All will be
well, praise God. Julie, she tell me. All will be well."

"How on earth can all be well?" Grandma protested. "I don't see
no prospects."

"This summer as you know," said Mrs. Albi, "we went into Jersey.
For two months we all pick the berries. Enough we earn to put-it
food into our mouth. And the keeds! They go white and skinny, and
they come home, like you see it, brown and fat." Her voice rose
and she waved the baby dramatically. "Not so good the houses, I
would