ate after him she began
to partake daintily of the food he had left. "He's awfully touchy," she
mused; "don't think of nothing but his work. Bother him while he is at
it, and you have a fight on your hands."

Her breakfast eaten, Dora went to the kitchen to heat some water for
dish-washing. She had filled a great pan at the well in the back yard
and was standing by the range when she heard some one descending the
stairs. It was Mrs. Trott, wearing a bedraggled red wrapper, her
stockingless feet in ragged slippers, her carelessly coiled hair falling
down her fat neck. She was about forty years of age, showed traces of
former beauty, notwithstanding the fact that the sockets of her gray
eyes were now puffy, her cheeks swollen and sallow.

"Is there any hot coffee?" she asked, with a weary sigh. "My head is
fairly splitting. I was just dozing off when I heard you and John making
a clatter down here. I smelled smoke, too. I was half asleep and dreamed
that the house was burning down and I couldn't stir--a sort of
nightmare. Say, after we all left yesterday didn't Jim Darnell come to
see me?"

"No, not him," Dora replied, wrinkling her brow, "but another fellow
did. A little man with a checked gray suit on. He said he had a date
with you and looked sorter mad. He asked me if I was your child and I
told him it was none of his business."

"That was Pete Seltzwick," Mrs. Trott said, as she filled a cup with
coffee from the pot on the stove and began to cool it with breath from
her rather pretty, puckered and painted lips. "You didn't tell him who
we went off with, did you?"

"No, I didn't," the child replied, then added, "Do you reckon Aunt Jane
would like some coffee before she gets up?"

"No. She's sound asleep, and will get mad if you wake her. Oh, my head!
My head! And the trouble is I can't sleep! If I could sleep the pain
would go away. Did John leave any money for me? He didn't give me any
last week."

"No," Dora answered, "he said the hands hadn't been paid off yet. You
know he doesn't talk much."

Mrs. Trott seemed not to hear. Groaning again, she turned toward the
stairway and went up to her room.

CHAPTER II

John had passed out at the scarred and battered front door, crossed the
floor of the veranda, and reached the almost houseless street, for he
lived on the outskirts of the town, which was called Ridgeville. On the
hillside to the right was the town cemetery. The fog, shot through with
golde