to leave us
alone. If we need him he'll stay."

"That's not the question, mother." The father who had yesterday been
dictatorial and intolerant was now the just judge who refused to be
beguiled by personal preferences. Only his pupils betrayed the pathos of
his inward suffering. "It's a right hard question as I see it. This
place means home to me, but I'm about played out. If we stay it's Ham
that's got to wear the harness, an' I know just how heavy the harness
is. It would gall him an' blister him even if he wasn't already chafin'
with discontent. It seems like he can't do it willin'ly. Can we let him
do it any other way? We're lookin' back, mother, but I reckon life runs
forward."

"It ain't just my life I'm thinkin' about--" broke in Ham's voice, but
his father stopped him with an uplifted hand.

"You've had your say, son, for the present," he reminded; and the boy
fell silent.

Tom Burton turned to the maiden aunt who sat under the lamplight with
her sewing on her lap. He saw that her lips were intolerantly
compressed and that her needle came and went in protesting little jabs.
"Hannah," he quietly inquired, "what do you think?"

The elderly woman whose sternness of view had been tempered by neither
maternity nor breadth of experience shook her head.

"I don't know as I'm called on to express what I think, Tom," she
replied with cold disapproval. "I've always held that it's a sinful
thing to be dissatisfied with what God wills. He put us here an' I
reckon if He hadn't meant us to live here He'd have put us somewhere
else."

"I guess, Hannah--" Tom Burton's eyes for just a moment lighted into a
humorous smile--"we couldn't hardly expect God to move us bodily. But if
we do go away from here you can have the comfort of figuring that if He
hadn't wanted us to go there we wouldn't be there." He looked over at
little Mary, who alone had not spoken.

"Daughter," he suggested, "you're too young to have to decide such
things, but you might as well speak up, too. It looks like the day has
come for children to lay down the law to their elders. What do you think
about leavin' the old home, the only home we've ever known?"

The child, surprised at being called into the council, dropped her eyes,
then, suddenly glancing up and meeting Ham's gaze, she felt a courage
beyond her own, and stammered: "I'd like to see the world
and--and--well, just to see all the wonderful things--and to know
everything."

Tom Burton's li