der. The boss was crazy. I told him as I told
him forty times before that he'd have to get a new derrick, but he
won't. Not so long as he's got me to piece and contrive and make things
do.

"I tried to talk 'Masso and the rest into striking for it today, but
they don't care anything about the equipment. It's something bigger than
I can get at. It isn't only this quarry. It's everywhere I work. Always
these foreigners are willing to work in such conditions as we Americans
can't stand. Everywhere twenty of 'em waiting to undercut our pay. And
the big men bank on this very thing to make themselves rich. You'd
better go after your mother, Jimmy. This village ain't safe for a woman
after dark the way it was before the Italians came. I'm going to bed."

The next night at supper Big Jim was very silent. When he had eaten his
slice of cake he said in his slow way, "No more cake for a while, I
guess, Mama."

Mrs. Manning looked up in her nervous, startled manner.

"What's the matter, Jim?"

"Well, I went with my usual kick to the boss about the derrick and he
told me to take it or leave it. That work was slacking up so he'd
decided on a ten per cent. cut in wages. I don't know but what I'd
better quit and look for something else."

"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Mrs. Manning. She had been through many, many
periods of job hunting since her marriage. "Keep your job, Jim. Next
week is September and winter will be here before we know it. We'll
manage somehow."

"I'll not go to school," cried Little Jim. "I'll get a job. Please, Dad,
let me!"

"You'll stay in school," replied Big Jim in his best stone chisel drawl,
"as long as I have strength to work. And if I can send you through
college, you'll go. Don't you ever think of anything, Jimmy, but that
you are to have a thorough education? If anything happens to me you are
to get an education if you have to sweep the streets to do it. That's
the New England idea. Educate the children at whatever cost. I had a
high school education and you'll have a college course if I live. And if
I don't live, get it for yourself. I'll have another cup of tea, please,
Mama."

"Well, it makes me sick!" exclaimed Little Jim with one of his rare
outbursts of feeling, "to have you and mama working so hard and me do
nothing but feed the chickens and chop wood. I'll give up the _Youth's
Companion_, anyhow."

Mrs. Manning looked horrified. The _Companion_ was as much a family
institution as the dictio