The Connecticut labor press., 1920-12-04
CHAPTER Iv-continued.


 "Jim." she said, after while, when the noise of the milking was drowned in the creamy froth. "Tm getting near the end of this kind of thing. Fathers getting more and more set on money all the time. He thinks should slave along too to pile up more beside what he's got already, but Pm not going to do it much longer. I'm not afraid of work. or hardship either. I'd live in shack if I had to, I'd"
 Would you live in a shack?" said Jim.
 She shot a quick look at him. But he was quietly smiling into his milk pail, and she decided to treat his question impersonally.
 .Yes, I'd live in a shack, too, if I had to. I put in my first years in a sodhouse, and there was more real happiness romping up and down the land then than there is now. Tn those days everybody was so poor that money didn't count. It's differ ent now"
 Jim did not pursue the subject, and the milking was completed in silence. Jim finished first, and presently the rising hum of the cream separator was heard from the kitchen.
 There he goes, winding his arm off flor me-" said the girl, as she rose from the last cow Poor Jim-I wish I knew whether it's just human kind ness makes him do 1t, or whether-' She stopped, coloring little over the thought that had almost escaped into words
 When the heavy grind of the sepa- rating was finished Jim went quietly to his own room, but the girl put on clean dress and walked out through the garden. At the lower gate she stopped to pick flower, which she held for a moment to her face; then. toying lightly with it in her fingers, she slipped the latch and continued along the path leading down into the ravine. To the right lay the bench where the sodhouse had stood, not so much as mound now marking the spot; but the thoughts of the girl turned yearningly to it, and to the days of the lonely but not unhappy childhood which it had sheltered.
 Presently she reached the water, and her quick ear caught the sound of muskrat slipping gently into the stream from the reeds on the opposite bank; she could see the widening wake where he pIowed his swift way across the pond. Then her own figure stood up before her. graceful and 1.-the as the willows on the bank. She sur veyed it minute, then licked the flower at her face in the water, and turned slowly homeward. She was not unhappy, but dull sense of loss oppressed her-a sense that the world was very rich and very beautiful, and that she was feasting neither on it's richness nor it's beauty. There was stirring of music and poetry in her soul, but neither music nor poetry found expression. And presently she discovered she was thinking about Jim Travers.
 Her mother sat in the dining room. knitting by the light of the hanging lamp. Her face seemed very pale and lovely in the soft glow.
 Don't you think you have done enough?' said the girl. slipping into a sitting posture on the floor by her mothers knee. You work, work, work, all the time. I suppose they'll have to let you work in heaven"
 We value our work more as we grow older" said the mother .It helps to keep us from thinking"
 "There you go!" exclaimed the girl but there was a tenderness in her voice. Worrying again. wish they'd stay home for change"
 The mother piled her needles in silence. "Slip away to bed, Beulah," she said at length. 'I will wait up for while."
 Late in the night the girl heard heavy footsteps in the kitchen and bursts of loud but indistinct talking.