e and apart from things of the earth.
Brotherton, looking at the old man, felt a candor one might have in
addressing a state of mind. So the big voice spoke gently:

"Here, Mr. Adams," called Brotherton. "Won't you come back here and talk
to me?" But the shopkeeper felt that he should put the elder man at his
ease, so he added: "You're a wise guy, as the Latin fathers used to say.
Anyway, if Jasper ever gets to a point where he thinks marriage will pay
six per cent. over and above losses, you may be a kind of
step-uncle-in-law of mine. Tell me, Mr. Adams--what about children--do
they pay? You know, I've always wanted children. But now--well, you see,
I never thought but that people just kind of picked 'em off the bushes
as you do huckleberries. I'm getting so that I can't look at a great
crowd of people without thinking of the loneliness, suffering and
self-denial that it cost to bring all of them into the world. Good Lord,
man, I don't want lots of children--not now. And yet,
children--children--why, if we could open a can and have 'em as we do
most things, from sardines to grand opera, I'd like hundreds of them.
Yet, I dunno," Mr. Brotherton wagged a thoughtful head.

But Amos Adams rejoined: "Ah, yes, George, but when you think of what it
means for two people to bring a child into the world--what the journey
means--the slow, inexorable journey into the valley of the shadow means
for them, close together; what tenderness springs up; what sacrifices
come forth; what firm knitting of lives; what new kind of love is
bred--you are inclined to think maybe Providence knew what it was about
when it brought children into life by the cruel path."

Mr. Brotherton nodded a sympathetic head.

"Let me tell you something, George," continued Amos. "It's through their
hope of bettering the children that Grant has moved his people in the
Valley out on the little garden plots. There they are--every warmish day
thousands of mothers and children and old men, working their little
plots of ground, trudging back to the tenements in the evening. The love
of children is the one steady, unswerving passion in these lives, and
Grant has nearly harnessed it, George. And it's because Nate Perry has
that love that he's giving freely here for those poor folks a talent
that would make him a millionaire, and is running his mines, and his big
foundry with Cap Morton besides. It's perfectly splendid to see the way
a common fatherhood between him and