lifted her spirits in spite of
her.

"I've left a substitute." The boy glanced into the stove and started
for the wood-box.

"Oh, dear! I forgot that fire. Has it gone out?"

"Not quite. I'll have it going again in a jiff."

He came back with a broom in his hands.

"Let me do that," said the girl.

"Oh, all right." He relinquished the broom and brought out the
dish-pan. "Hi-yi, Stan, lend a hand here!"

The boy in the doorway gave one glance at Elliott's tear-stained face
and came quietly into the room. "Sure," he said, picking up a
dish-cloth and gingerly reaching for a tumbler. "Which end do you take
'em by, top or bottom?"

Stannard wiping dishes, and with Bruce Fearing! The sight was so
strange that Elliott's broom stopped moving. The two boys at the
dish-pan chaffed each other good-naturedly; their jokes might have
seemed a little forced, had you examined them carefully, but the
effect was normal and cheering. Now and then they threw a word to the
girl and the pile of clean dishes grew under their hands.

Elliott's broom began to move again. Something warm stirred at her
heart. She felt sober and humble and ashamed and--yes, happy--all at
once. How nice boys were when they were nice!

Then she remembered something.

"Oh, Stan, wasn't it to-day you were going home?"

"Nix," Stannard replied. "Guess I'll stay on a bit. School hasn't
begun. I want to go nutting before I hit the trail for home."

It was a different-looking kitchen the boys left half an hour later
and a different-looking girl.

Bruce lingered a minute behind Stannard. "We haven't had any
telegram," he said. "Remember that. And as for things in here, I
wouldn't let 'em bother me, if I were you! You can't do everything,
you know. Keep cool, feed us the stuff folks send in, and let some
things slide."

"Mother Jess doesn't let things slide."

"Mother Jess has been at it a good many years, but I'll bet she would
now and then if things got too thick and she couldn't keep both
ends up. There's more to Mother Jess's job than what they call
housekeeping."

"Oh, yes," sighed Elliott, "I know that. But just what do you mean,
Bruce, that I could do?"

He hesitated a minute. "Well, call it morale. That suggests the
thing."

Elliott thought hard for a minute after the door closed on Bruce.
Perhaps, after all, seeing that the family had three meals a day and
lived in a decently clean house and slept warm at night, necessary as
such oversig