and it has gone by this
time. They don't wait on the accommodation."

"Can't I? Isn't there?" Mrs. Koons' countenance fell. "But I've got to get
there! There hain't no one I know in Gleasonton. If it wasn't for carrying
the children, I'd walk. It hain't more than five miles, and mebbe I'd meet
someone going up. The trucks come down pretty often. I've got to get there
even if I have to walk." Back of her years of repression, her native
independence showed. She had set out to reach Italee, and she meant to.
Difficulties like a walk of five miles with two children in her arms might
hamper but not deter her.

"Do not worry about that. I get off at Gleasonton, and I'll get someone to
drive you over. The roads are fine now and it will not take long."

"Yes'm. Oh, thank you! It will be kind of you, I'm sure, for walkin' with
two babies in your arms ain't very pleasant. Do you live in Gleasonton,
ma'am?"

"I'm not living there now. All summer I have been out on the Creighton
farm beyond Keating."

"Hain't it lonely out there? I've driv by. It's fixed up grand with big
porches, and swings, and loads of flowers and all that, but there hain't a
house for miles about. I'd think you'd find it lonely?"

"Not at all. I take my children along, and I'm too busy while I'm there to
be lonely."

"Oh, you're a married woman then, and have a family of your own. I was
a-thinkin' just that thing when you picked up little Alec here. You had a
knack with him that don't come to a woman unless she's used to handling
young ones. How many children have you? They're pretty well grown, I
suppose."

Again Elizabeth caught the merry twinkle of amusement in the woman's eyes.
"Really, you may think it strange," she replied, "when I declare that I
really am not certain how many I have. There are so many that, at times, I
almost forget their names. None of them are grown up; for when they are, I
lose them. They go off into the world--some do well and some do not. One
or two remember me; but the others forget that such a person as I ever
lived." It was not in a complaining tone she spoke, rather in a spirit of
light-hearted raillery.

Elizabeth smiled. She understood the speaker, but Mrs. Koons did not.
Elizabeth had been accustomed to hear Miss Hale speak thus of her mission
boys and girls. Miss Hale looked upon them as a little family of which she
was the head.

Mrs. Koons was amazed. She had heard, in a misty way, of a woman who had
so many c