st.

"Mrs. R. Beaver, Modiste," repeated Joe from the sign that floated in
letters of gold in his memory.

"I knowed a Mrs. Beaver wunst, up on Eleventh Street--a big, fat woman
that got in a fuss with the preacher and smacked his jaws."

"Did she have any children?" asked Joe.

"Seems like there was one, a pretty little tow-headed girl."

"That's her," announced Joe conclusively. "What was her name?"

"Lawsee, I don't know. I never would 'a' ricollected Mrs. Beaver 'cepten
she was such a tarnashious woman, always a-tearin' up stumps, and never
happy unless she was rippitin' 'bout somethin'. _What_ you want? A
needle and thread to mend your coat? Why, what struck you? You been
wearin' it that a-way for a month. You better leave it be 'til I git
time to fix it."

But Joe had determined to work out the salvation of his own wardrobe.
Late in the evening after the family had retired, he sat before the
stove with back humped and knees drawn up trying to coax a coarse thread
through a small needle. Surely no rich man need have any fear about
entering the kingdom of heaven since Joe Ridder managed to get that
particular thread through the eye of that particular needle!

But when a boy is put at a work-bench at twelve years of age and does
the same thing day in and day out for seven long years, he may have lost
all of the things that youth holds dear, but one thing he is apt to have
learned, a dogged, plodding, unquestioning patience that shoves silently
along at the appointed task until the work is done.

By midnight all the rents were mended and a large new patch adorned
each elbow. The patches, to be sure, were blue, and the coat was black,
but the stitches were set with mechanical regularity. Joe straightened
his aching shoulders and held the garment at arm's length with a smile.
It was his first votive offering at the shrine of love.

The effect of Joe's efforts were prompt and satisfactory. The next day
being Sunday, he spent the major part of it in passing and repassing the
house on the corner, only going home between times to remove the mud
from his shoes and give an extra brush to his hair. The girl, meanwhile,
was devoting her day to sweeping off the front pavement, a scant three
feet of pathway from her steps to the wooden gate. Every time Joe passed
she looked up and smiled, and every time she smiled Joe suffered all the
symptoms of locomotor ataxia!

By afternoon his emotional nature had reached the sat