teful. And I am proud to
this day of the unflinching manner in which I did what I conceived to
be my duty. If Deborah chooses to go with ungarnished ears, it is her
affair; my conscience is free of all reproach.

[Illustration: WINTER SCENE ON THE DVINA]

I had a direct way in everything. I rushed right in--I spoke right
out. My mother sent me sometimes to deliver a package of tea, and I
was proud to help in business. One day I went across the Dvina and far
up "the other side." It was a good-sized expedition for me to make
alone, and I was not a little pleased with myself when I delivered my
package, safe and intact, into the hands of my customer. But the
storekeeper was not pleased at all. She sniffed and sniffed, she
pinched the tea, she shook it all out on the counter.

"_Na_, take it back," she said in disgust; "this is not the tea I
always buy. It's a poorer quality."

I knew the woman was mistaken. I was acquainted with my mother's
several grades of tea. So I spoke up manfully.

"Oh, no," I said; "this is the tea my mother always sends you. There
is no worse tea."

Nothing in my life ever hurt me more than that woman's answer to my
argument. She laughed--she simply laughed. But I understood, even
before she controlled herself sufficiently to make verbal remarks,
that I had spoken like a fool, had lost my mother a customer. I had
only spoken the truth, but I had not expressed it diplomatically.
That was no way to make business.

I felt very sore to be returning home with the tea still in my hand,
but I forgot my trouble in watching a summer storm gather up the
river. The few passengers who took the boat with me looked scared as
the sky darkened, and the boatman grasped his oars very soberly. It
took my breath away to see the signs, but I liked it; and I was much
disappointed to get home dry.

When my mother heard of my misadventure she laughed, too; but that was
different, and I was able to laugh with her.

This is the way I helped in the housekeeping and in business. I hope
it does not appear as if I did not take our situation to heart, for I
did--in my own fashion. It was plain, even to an idle dreamer like me,
that we were living on the charity of our friends, and barely living
at that. It was plain, from my father's letters, that he was scarcely
able to support himself in America, and that there was no immediate
prospect of our joining him. I realized it all, but I considered it
temporary, and I