The herald., 1896-01-19

cried and Billy looked silly and serious
by turns and declared she was afraid
O. them snakes; guessed he was
marked"
They worked steadily after that for
some time, interrupted only by an oc-
casional ejaculation from Billy,
"Them dirty snakes! I always hated
'em!" or suppressed laugh from Briggs
or Pierre, when Billy would look silly
again and apologize.
Mrs. Briggs wondered meanwhile
why the Laws should have sent her
such a gourmand. Billy's appetite
was something prodigious and he in-
sisted that ''he didn't know how Mr..
Briggs aud Pierre could work at all;
they didn't eat nothing" while Mrs.
Briggs was at loss to understand
how he could work at all and get
through with the processes of digestion
at the same time.
One afternoon the wind blew. They
could not work. Billy Nc, with all
the big patronizing words and manners
at his command, asked the privilege of
pen and ink, "to write letter." Mrs.
Briggs respect distinctly arose, for
she found he could write a better hand
than anyone in the house; besides, it
was addressed to his brother. She mad
forgotten that tramps could have
brothers or any human relations what
ever.
Now that he was in reality human,
she wished she could get hold of him
in some way, to help him. She tried
little temperance talks-she had been
dutiful member of the w. G. L. u
but Billy always rose to the occasion,
protesting that he never tasted a drop
in his life. "Oh, may be, glass or
two of beer now and then"
II she suggested that he might
find steady place, he would tell
her how hard it was to find a
job now that suited him. "This rheu-
matiz is 80 bad, you know, and stiff
ems me up So"
She was getting discouraged and in
clined to fall back on the survival Of
the fittest theory, and Briggs declared
it was no Use helping such as Billy.
Happily for Mira. Briggs and Billy,
her thoughts we're straying one morn
ing here and there, and fell at last
upon a little scrubby houeysuckle she
had been intending for two years to
transplant. She went out to look at
it and saw that the dry, adobe soil had
parted in wide, deep cracks about it,
and the ragged looking thing was try
ing to blossom. There we're few
straggly sprays here and there.
"Poor thing" she said, II neglect you
every year. How can I expect any
thing of you out in this dry adobe?"
Her thoughts were full of tenderness
for the poor starved I liant.
Surely Dscartes and Buckle were
right about "intuition" and "women,"
for Angie Briggs knowledge was GER
tainly not extensive, scraps she had
picked up here and there, mere crumbs
from the masters table, yet she looked
at the glory of her climbing sofrano, a
mass of rich yellow blossoms, then to
the poor little honeysuckle outside the
garden enclosure.
Her w. Q. T. U. mind broadened with
almost involuntary deductions; her
Presbyterian heart welled with new
emotions.
"Oh," she said, 81 see the ethics Of
the saloon. thought they were all 80
bad. and those other places, too, bnt
maybe we're all to blame. There's
little work-poor wages-no right to
the riches of nature. These men can't
support wives and families, and human
natures just the same, for sociability
and mating. Yes, we're all to blame.
1 thought evil was over there-good
here; but we're all pretty much alike
Just difference of SOIL"
The sofrano here, the honeysuckle
outside-maybe Billy's trying to bios
som like the honeysuckle and can't.
was sorry for the honeysuckle and
I'm not for Billy-he eats so much and
has such patronizing Irish ways. II
see now, it's the way I've been looking
at things. 1 thought 1 was the 80
franc, but the honeysuckle is just as
sweet, only for that dry, hard ground
and was trying to talk some scien-
tific temperance to Billy. ought to
ask his pardon, the saloon is about the
only place he has there is always
warmth and welcome there. And we
Presbyterians ask Billy to work and
not to tipple, and fancy we are Billy's
friends. Yet how odd it would look to
see Billy come to church in his old
clothes we would look so coldly at