s. There was so much
that was wrong about it. I tried to keep the pace and could not. I wish
I could tell you what the country has done for me."

We were walking along slowly, side by side, the girl perfectly passive
but glancing around at me from time to time with a wondering look.
I don't know in the least now what prompted me to do it, but I began
telling in a quiet, low voice--for, after all, she was only a child--I
began telling her about our chickens at the farm and how Harriet had
named them all, and one was Frances E. Willard, and one, a speckled one,
was Martha Washington, and I told her of the curious antics of Martha
Washington and of the number of eggs she laid, and of the sweet new milk
we had to drink, and the honey right out of our own hives, and of the
things growing in the garden.

Once she smiled a little, and once she looked around at me with a
curious, timid, half-wistful expression in her eyes.

"Maggie," I said, "I wish you could go to the country."

"I wish to God I could," she replied.

We walked for a moment in silence. My head was whirling with thoughts:
again I had that feeling of helplessness, of inadequacy, which I had
felt so sharply on the previous evening. What could I do?

When we reached the corner, I said:

"Maggie, I will see you safely home."

She laughed--a hard, bitter laugh.

"Oh, I don't need any one to show me around these streets!"

"I will see you home," I said.

So we walked quickly along the street together.

"Here it is," she said finally, pointing to a dark, mean-looking,
one-story house, set in a dingy, barren areaway.

"Well, good night, Maggie," I said, "and good luck to you."

"Good night," she said faintly.

When I had walked to the corner, I stopped and looked back. She was
standing stock-still just where I had left her--a figure I shall never
forget.

I have hesitated about telling of a further strange thing that happened
to me that night--but have decided at last to put it in. I did not
accept Mr. Vedder's invitation: I could not; but I returned to the room
in the tenement where I had spent the previous night with Bill Hahn the
Socialist. It was a small, dark, noisy room, but I was so weary that
I fell almost immediately into a heavy sleep. An hour or more later I
don't know how long indeed--I was suddenly awakened and found myself
sitting bolt upright in bed. It was close and dark and warm there in
the room, and from without came the muffled