ue. No one knew where Aloysius got his information. He had news that
Winnebago's two daily papers never could get, and wouldn't have dared to
print if they had.

"Did you hear about Myrtle Krieger," he would begin, "that's marryin'
the Hempel boy next month? The one in the bank. She's exhibiting her
trewsow at the Outagamie County Fair this week, for the handwork and
embroid'ry prize. Ain't it brazen? They say the crowd's so thick around
the table that they had to take down the more pers'nal pieces. The first
day of the fair the grand-stand was, you might say, empty, even when
they was pullin' off the trottin' races and the balloon ascension. It's
funny--ain't it?--how them garmints that you wouldn't turn for a second
look at on the clothesline or in a store winda' becomes kind of wicked
and interestin' the minute they get what they call the human note. There
it lays, that virgin lawnjerie, for all the county to look at, with pink
ribbons run through everything, and the poor Krieger girl never dreamin'
she's doin' somethin' indelicate. She says yesterday if she wins the
prize she's going to put it toward one of these kitchen cabinets."

I wish we could stop a while with Aloysius. He is well worth it.
Aloysius, who looked a pass between Ichabod Crane and Smike; Aloysius,
with his bit of scandal burnished with wit; who, after a long, hard
Saturday, would go home to scrub the floor of the dingy lodgings where
he lived with his invalid mother, and who rose in the cold dawn of
Sunday morning to go to early mass, so that he might return to cook the
dinner and wait upon the sick woman. Aloysius, whose trousers flapped
grotesquely about his bony legs, and whose thin red wrists hung
awkwardly from his too-short sleeves, had in him that tender, faithful
and courageous stuff of which unsung heroes are made. And he adored his
clever, resourceful boss to the point of imitation. You should have seen
him trying to sell a sled or a doll's go-cart in her best style. But we
cannot stop for Aloysius. He is irrelevant, and irrelevant matter halts
the progress of a story. Any one, from Barrie to Harold Bell Wright,
will tell you that a story, to be successful, must march.

We'll keep step, then, with Molly Brandeis until she drops out of the
ranks. There is no detouring with Mrs. Brandeis for a leader. She is the
sort that, once her face is set toward her goal, looks neither to right
nor left until she has reached it.

When Fanny Brandei