id, "to see the old place for
sale. Almost like slaves must ha' felt to see their own in the market."

She read slowly,

"'Nice farm for sale cheap; story and a half frame house, good barn,
ten acres of land, and a twenty-acre pasture lot. $1800. Apply to A.
F. Staples, Berringdon, Vermont.'

"I 'm glad the old pasture is going with the house. Somehow the two
seem to belong together. It was right in front across the road, an'
all us children used to play there. There 's a clump of oak trees at
th' end of it. Hope they have n't cut them down."

"Eighteen hundred dollars, was it?" asked Donaldson.

"Eighteen hundred dollars," she repeated slowly. "My, thet 's a lot of
money!"

"That depends," he said, "on many things. Should you like to go back
there?"

The answer came before her lips could utter the words, in the awakening
of every dormant hope in her nature--in every suppressed dream. Some
younger creature was freed in the hardening eyes. The strain of the
lips was loosened. Even the passive worn hands became alert.

"I 'd sell my soul a'most to get back there--to get the children back
there," she answered.

"It 's the place for them."

"Thet's the way _I 've_ felt," she ran on. "Mine don't belong here.
It's not 'cause they 're any better, but because they've got the
country in their blood. They was meant to grow up in thet very pasture
just like I did. I 've ben oneasy ever since the boys was born, and so
was Jim. Both of us hankered after the old sights and sounds--the
garden with its mixed up colors an' the smell of lilac an' the tinkle
of the cow bells. Funny how you miss sech little things as those."

"Little things?" Donaldson returned. "Little things? They are the
really big things; they are the things you remember, the things that
hang by you and sweeten your life to the end!"

"Then it ain't just my own notions? But I have wanted the children to
grow up in the garden instead of the gutters. If Jim had lived it
would have be'n. We 'd planned to save a little every year until we
had enough ahead to take a mortgage. But you can't do it with nothin'.
There ain't no way, is there?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps," he said.

She leaned toward him, in her face the strength of a man.

"I 'd work," she said, "I 'd work my fingers to the bone if I had a
chance to get back there. I 'm strong 'nuff to take care of a place.
If I only had just a tiny strip of land--just 'nuff fer a garden. I