od to the poor undertook to pay the
rent. She could earn enough to keep them; that she knew. But they soon
heard that the two were starving. Poor neighbors were sharing their meals
with them, who themselves had scarce enough to go around; and from Kate's
school came the report that she was underfed. Her grandmother's haggard
face told the same story plainly. There was still the "county" where no
one starves, however else she fares, and they tried to make her see that
it was her duty to give up and let the child be cared for in an
institution. But against that Grandma Linton set her face like flint. She
was her Maggie's own, and stay with her she would, as she had promised, as
long as she could get around at all. And with that she reached for her
staff--her old enemy, the rheumatics, was just then getting in its worst
twinges, as if to mock her--and set out to take up her work.

But it was all a vain pretense, and her friends knew it. They were at
their wits' end until it occurred to them to lump two families in one.
There was another widow, a younger woman with four small children, the
youngest a baby, who was an unsolved problem to them. The mother had work,
and was able to do it; but she could not be spared from home as things
were. They brought the two women together. They liked one another, and
took eagerly to the "club" plan. In the compact that was made Mrs. Linton
became the housekeeper of the common home, with five children to care for
instead of one, while the mother of the young brood was set free to earn
the living for the household.

Mother Linton took up her new and congenial task with the whole-hearted
devotion with which she had carried out her promise to Maggie. She
mothered the family of untaught children and brought them up as her own.
They had been running wild, but grew well-mannered and attractive, to her
great pride. They soon accepted her as their veritable "grannie," and they
call her that to this day.

The years went by, and Kate, out of short skirts, got her "papers" at the
school and went forth to learn typewriting. She wanted her own home then,
and the partnership which had proved so mutually helpful was dissolved.
Kate was getting along well, with steady work in an office, when the great
crisis came. Grandma became so feeble that their friends once more urged
her removal to an institution, where she could be made comfortable,
instead of having to make a home for her granddaughter. When, as