do with us?"

Katie did not reply. She had no reply.

"At last I got in the telephone office. That's considered a fine place to
work. They're like Miss Osborne; they believe it is one of the
fundamental principles of life that all must have pleasures. But they
were like the pleasures of Centralia--not God-fearing, exactly, but so
dutiful. They didn't have anything to do with 'calls.'

"The real pleasures were going over the wire. It was my business to make
the connections that arrange those pleasures. A little red light would
flash--sometimes it would flash straight into my brain--and I'd say
'Number, please?'--always with the rising inflection. Then I'd get the
connection and Life would pass through the cords. That was the closest I
came to it--operating the cords that it went through. There was a whole
city full of it--beautiful, laughing, loving Life. But it was on the
wire--just as in Centralia it had been in the pictures--and in the box.
And oh I used to get so tired--so tight--operating the cords for Life.
Sometimes when I left my chair the whole world was one big red light. And
at night they danced dances for me--those little red lights."

She brushed her hand before her eyes as if they were there again and she
would push them away. "Katie," she suddenly burst forth, "if you ever do
pray--if you believe in praying--pray sometimes for the girl who goes to
Chicago to find what you call the 'joy of living.' Pray for the pilgrims
who go to the cities to find their Something Somewhere. And whatever you
do, Katie--whatever you do--don't ever laugh at the people who kill
themselves because they're tired of not having any fun!"

"But wasn't there _any_ fun, dear?" Katie asked after a moment.

Ann did not speak, but looked at Katie strangely. "Yes," she said.
"Afterwards. Differently."

They were silent. Something seemed to be outlining itself between them.
Something which was meaning to grow there between them.

"There came a time," said Ann, "when all of life was not going over
the wire."

And still Katie did not speak, as if pushed back by that thing shaping
itself between them.

"Your Something Somewhere," said Ann, very low, "doesn't always come
in just the way you were looking for it. But, Katie, if you get _very_
tired waiting for it--don't you believe you might take it--most any
way it came?"

It was a worn and wistful face she turned to Katie. Suddenly Katie
brushed away the thing that would grow u