The Press., 1895-08-22
w. C. T. U. DEPARTMENT. q. L. Harbour, in Youths Companion.)
 FAN

A slender girl of about fifteen years, with jet-black eyes of remarkable bright ness and a tangled mass of shining black hair falling over her brow from beneath | the form brim of a ragged straw hat, stood at my mothers door one morning in November, and asked:
 "Can you just lend me cup of coffee and cup of sugar and flour enough for a bakin' of bread? I'll pay it all back when can."
 My mother had never seen the girl be- fore. She was untidy in her dress; her shoes were not mates, and they were but tonless and full of holes.
 "What is your name ?" my mother ask ed.
 "Fan."
 And your other name ?"
 "Tracy."
 Where do you live?'
 "Oh, just little ways down the road, the first house from here. believe they call it the old Peters place."
 We knew the place very we'll. No one had lived there for years. The house, which was in the woods a short distance from the river, had been shabby in its best days, and now was little better than hovel. Scarcely pane of glass was whole, and such of the doors as remained were off their hinges. The floors were sunken and the plaster was falling from hO Io man habitation.
 The girls appearance seemed to indi- cate that the new family was in harmony with the condition of the house.
 "Do your parents live there ?" my moth CT asked.
 ''I ain't got but one parent-my dad. We just come here three days ago, and was told he could live in the old Peters house rent free, and if he can get work we'll settle here." "HOw many are there of you2"
 "Just dad and me and my little brother Carey; he's only six, and little for his ago."
 My mother gave the girl the articles for which she asked, whereupon she said. with sudden outburst:
 "I'll tell you, honest now, that mebbe l sha'n't be able to pay you back these things. Dad ain't got work yet, and mebbe he won't get anything to do; but if he does, and if can, I'll pay you back"
 We did not see the girl again for a week, but in that time we learned little more about the Tracy family.
 Mrs. Hornby came over to our house one afternoon to ''set awhile" Mrs. Hornby was an elderly person of so much leisure that she spent most of her time in ''setting awhilen in the homes of her neighbors; but she had so much gossip to relate that she was not, as rule, un- | welcome.
 You've heard about 9 man named Tracy and his two children moving into the old Peters place, haven't you, Mis- Harley?" asked Mrs. Hornby.
 "Yes," replied my mother. "The girl has been up here to borrow some things"
 TOh, I reckon so! I guess they live mostly on what they can borrow They'd better call it begging, and be done with it. Have they paid you back ?"
 No; but the girl was honest enough to tell me she couldn't pay me back if her father did not get work here."
 "Work ?" calculated Mrs. Hornby, contemptuously. II guess that all the 1uorl1 +bo+ Troox, Fo1lo1, dooo 1rop)t b,,r+ him much nor do his family any good. He spends most of his time down to Jim Fifer's saloon near the ferry. My! I'd lead the way and carry an axe if the wom- en of this neighborhood would go down there some night and tear down that sa- loon to the ground"
 ''Then the Tracy's are so poor because their father is a drinking man?"
 "Yes; and you may well say poor. l was going by the old Peters place yes- terday, and just thought I'd step in and see how the children were getting along in that old she'll"
 "Have they made the old place at all habitable?"
 "Well, the man has exerted himself enough to hang 8 door or two and patch the floor up some. They don't use but two rooms, and all but one window in them are boarded up. They've got a rusty old cook-stove, one or two old chairs, battered and patched-up old bedstead, little pine table and an old red cupboard, and that's ev'ry stick of furniture they have, excepting what that girl, Fan, has made out of some old box es. She's terror, that Fan is !''
 "One must allow good deal for her surroundings and the influence she has probably been under all her life" :" said my mother.
 "Well, she needn't be so saucy anyhow. She just as aood as told me that she didn't thank me for coming around, and I going there with the kindest motives l! And when asked her if she didn't have broom to keep the place clean with she had the impudence to ask me if couldn't lend~her mine, as l probably hadf no use for it, or I wouldn't have so much time to
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