naire baby or wrapped up in a horse blanket."

Persis sewed on unmoved. "I don't say the baby'd know the difference.
It's just my way of showing respect for the human race."

Her industry was not premature. One Saturday night she carried to the
Trotters' squalid home a daintily fashioned, freshly laundered outfit
which took Mrs. Trotter's restrained and self-respecting gratitude
quite by storm. Forgetting for once the public obligation to provide
for the needs of her family present and to come, she accepted the gift
in a silence vastly more eloquent than her usual volubility. Then the
muscles of her scrawny throat twitched, and a tear splashed down on the
soft cambric. Nor did she, during the interview, recover her usual
poise sufficiently to refer to the obligation under which Bartholomew
and herself were placing the community; and Persis returned home in a
mood of even more than her customary tolerance.

That was Saturday night. Early Monday morning little Benny brought
word that his mother was sick and wanted Miss Persis to come right
away. Joel had not risen, and Persis scrawled a hasty note explaining
her abrupt departure and set out for the Trotter establishment,
stopping on the way to ask a favor of Susan Fitzgerald.

Susan was finishing her early breakfast, her hair still wound about her
crimping pins, the painfully strained and denuded effect which resulted
being a necessary preliminary to the rippling luxuriance of the
afternoon. Persis stated her errand tersely.

"Susan, they've sent for me from Trotters', and there's no telling when
I'll be home. I wish you'd go up to the house, if you've nothing
particular on hand and look after Joel. He's the helplessest man ever
born when it comes to doing for himself."

In her complex excitement, Susan fluttered like an impaled butterfly.
"Oh, dear me! I mean of course I will, Persis. But what do you want
me to do?"

"Oh, just get his meals and amuse him till I get back. You can keep
Joel pretty cheerful if you'll let him unload all his notions on you.
Joel generally finds a good listener good comp'ny."

"And so poor Lizzie Trotter's going through that again," exclaimed
Susan, momentarily forgetting her own prospective ordeal, in sympathy
for the other woman's severer trial. "I don't want to accuse Divine
Providence, but I must say it hardly seems fair to put all the
responsibility for getting the children into the world off on women.
If 'twas turn