ed, with the stamp of
acquiescent patience in their homely faces, they came on with the swing,
but none of the usual spirit, of drilled men. They asked no questions, but
went where they were led, and the foulness of the close-packed steerage
seemed to cling about them. For a time the depot rang to the rhythmic
tramp of feet, and when, at a sign from the interpreter, it stopped, two
bewildered children, frowsy and unwashed, in greasy homespun, sat down and
gazed at Miss Torrance with mild blue eyes. She signed to a boy who was
passing with a basket slung before him, and made a little impatient
gesture when the man slipped his hand into his pocket.

"No," she said; "you'll make me vexed with you. Tell him to give them all
he has. They'll be a long while in the cars."

She handed the boy a silver coin, and while the children sat still,
undemonstratively astonished, with the golden fruit about them, the man
passed him a bill.

"Now get some more oranges, and begin right at the top of the line," he
said. "If that doesn't see you through, come back to me for another
bill."

Hetty Torrance's eyes softened. "Larry," she said, "that was dreadfully
good of you. Where are they all going to?"

"Chicago, Nebraska, Minnesota, Montana," said the man. "There are the cars
coming in. Just out of Castle Garden, and it's because of the city
improvements disorganizing traffic they're bringing them this way. They're
the advance guard, you see, and there are more of them coming."

The tramp of feet commenced again, but this time it was a horde of diverse
nationality, Englishmen, Irishmen, Poles, and Finns, but all with the
stamp of toil, and many with that of scarcity upon them. Bedraggled,
unkempt, dejected, eager with the cunning that comes of adversity, they
flowed in, and Hetty Torrance's face grew pitiful as she watched them.

"Do they come every week like this and, even in our big country, have we
got room for all of them?" she said.

There was a curious gleam in the man's brown eyes. "Oh, yes," he said.
"It's the biggest and greatest country this old world has ever seen, and
the Lord made it as a home for the poor--the folks they've no food or use
for back yonder; and, while there are short-sighted fools who would close
the door, we take them in, outcast and hopeless, and put new heart in
them. In a few short years we make them men and useful citizens, the equal
of any on this earth--Americans!"

Hetty Torrance nodded, and th