all hope for the best; but that ain't the question," said Simon
Basset. "The question is, how did he die?"

Jerome looked up in Simon Basset's face. "He died the same way you
will, some time," said he. And with that Simon Basset let go his arm
suddenly, and he was gone.

"Lord!" said Jake Noyes, under his breath. Simon Basset said not
another word; his grandfather, his uncle, and a brother had all taken
their own lives, and he knew that the others were thinking of it.
They all wondered if the boy had been keen-witted enough to give this
hard hit at Simon intentionally, but he had not. Poor little Jerome
had never speculated on the laws of heredity; he had only meant to
deny that his father had come to any more disgraceful end than the
common one of all mankind. He did not dream, as he raced along home
with his sister's shoes, of the different construction which they had
put upon his words, but he felt angry and injured.

"That Sim' Basset pickin' on me that way," he thought. A wild sense
of the helplessness of his youth came over him. "Wish I was a man,"
he muttered--"wish I was a man; I'd show 'em! All them men
talkin'--sayin' anything--'cause I'm a boy."

Just before he reached home Jerome met two more men, and he heard his
father's name distinctly. One of them stretched out a detaining hand
as he passed, and called out, "Hullo! you're the Edwards boy?"

"Let me go, I tell you," shouted Jerome, in a fury, and was past them
with a wild flourish of heels, like a rebellious colt.

"What in creation ails the boy?" said the man, with a start aside;
and he and the other stood staring after Jerome.

When Jerome got home and opened the kitchen door he stood still with
surprise. It was almost ten o'clock, and his mother and Elmira had
begun to make pies. His mother had pushed herself up to the table and
was mixing the pastry, while Elmira was beating eggs.

Mrs. Edwards looked around at Jerome. "What you standin' there
lookin' for?" said she, with her sharp, nervous voice. "Put them
shoes down, an' bring that quart pail of milk out of the pantry. Be
careful you don't spill it."

Jerome obeyed. When he set the milk-pail on the table, Elmira gave
him a quick, piteously confidential glance from under her tearful
lids. Elmira, with her blue checked pinafore tied under her chin, sat
in a high wooden chair, with her little bare feet curling over a
round, and beat eggs with a wooden spoon in a great bowl.

"What you doin