with the other awkwardly. "I can't seem to get used to
being sick. I thought sure I'd be ready for the hay-baling."

"The doctor says you're doing real well, Benny," asserted the woman
bravely. "I guess if it ain't very much you want, we can manage it."

"It's only five dollars."

Mrs. Wickersham went back to the kitchen and resumed her dish-washing.
Her daughter came out of the pantry where she had been putting away the
cups. She was taller than her mother, and looked down at her with
patronizing deference.

"Do you think that new medicine's helping Ben any?" she asked in an
undertone.

"Oh, I don't know, Emmy," the poor woman broke out desperately;
"sometimes I think his cough's a little looser, but he's getting to have
that same look about the eyes that your pa had that last winter"--Mrs.
Wickersham left her work abruptly, and went and stood in the doorway
with her back toward her daughter.

The girl took up her mother's deserted task, and went on with it
soberly.

"Shall I put on some potatoes for yeast?" she asked, after a little
heart-breaking silence.

"Yes, I guess you'd better," answered the older woman; "there's only the
best part of a loaf left, and Benny hadn't ought to eat fresh bread."

She came back to her work, catching eagerly at the homely suggestion of
duty.

"I'll finish them," she said, taking a dish out of her daughter's hand;
"you brighten up the fire and get the potatoes."

The girl walked away without looking up. When she came into the room a
little later with an armful of wood, Mrs. Wickersham was standing by the
stove.

"Emmy," she said in a whisper, taking hold of her daughter's dress and
drawing her toward her, "don't tell your brother I had to pay cash to
the balers. It took all the ready money I had in the house: I'd rather
he didn't know it."

"What's the matter, mother?" asked the girl, looking steadily into the
older woman's worried face.

"He wants five dollars next week," whispered Mrs. Wickersham, nodding
toward the door; "I hain't got it."

The girl threw the wood into the woodbox and stood gazing intently at
it. She had a quaint, oval face, and the smooth folds of her dark hair
made a triangle of her high forehead. Two upright lines formed
themselves in the triangle as she gazed. She turned away without
speaking, and took a pan from the shelf and went into the shed-room for
potatoes. When she came back, she walked to her mother's side, and said
in a low voice,