The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-16
BY HELENA DAVIS.

Little Nan was the child of poor par ents who had emigrated to the far West to make home on the plains where rain fell so seldom that one crop in three years was about the average amount raised in that desolate country. As there had been two successive crop-failures when this story opens Nans father found himself In a troubled quandary as to how he could manage to pull through till an- other year when rains might fall to bless the soil and produce plenty for man and beast.
 One day as Nan, her father and mother sat at their frugal dinner the father sighed, shook his head and said: ''There's B only two ways out O the woods as I can see. One way is to sell out and move somewhere else and t'other way Is toto put a plaster on the farm" As he spoke he looked towards his over-worked wife for an answer. He knew how much she opposed mortgage-a plaster" in common farmer parlance-and he had named the only alternative in consequence of her too strong opposition to raising money through loan.
 Well" and Mans mother meditated. rot knowing just how to decide. i've always opposed mortgage, for so few people ever git rid of one after they've put it on. But hate to say sell, for as things are now we'd git scarcely anything for the land and nothing for the improve ments that's cost us five years of hard work and priyatlon. If We could only hang out till next year it'll be a big crop then and we'll put something by for the next drouth."
 But there's no way of hanging out, :" explained Mans father. We've got just about enough grub to last the week out. Then what? And how're we to feed the cows and horses without money to buy corn an hay? Hope" and the puzzled farmer again shook his head, "the ilg's up It's either sell or plaster"
 Little Nan looked first at her mother and then at her father, her blue eyes full of trouble, for she, like all children of the poor, felt the strain of hard times as keenly as did her parents. She was in her twelfth year and had lent her little help about the farm, making garden, tending the chickens and pigs; and the very thought of selling the place made an ache at her heart and lump in her throat. And what pleasure Nan had taken in help ing to fix the little frame two-room house attractivei She had covered the walls of the ''big" room with colored picture cards and newspaper cuts till the place looked quite cheerful. She had spent all her spare time sewing carpet rags, and as a result there were three great grain bags full of pound-weight balls ready to take to the weaver as soon as there could be got together enough money to pay him for making the rags into carpet. And in the windows of the "big" room were pretty vines growing in tin cans that were neatly papered. Mans own hands had planted these and Mans own hands trained them and kept them watered and washed, though the task of watering the vines was not an easy one since Nan was obliged to go to the bottom of steep hill to the we'll and to draw the water up in the heavy buckets that were attached to ropes which swung over a wheel. But Nan was an industrious little girl and did not mind work when there were good re- suits.
 And so Nan sat a sad listener to what her troubled parents said about selling