--that's an awful sight of money."

Mental arithmetic failing her, she set to work with a pencil and paper
and after a strenuous struggle triumphantly announced that it came to
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

"My soul and body!" she cried. "Two hundred and fifty thousand DOLLARS!
My SOUL, Zelotes! Suppose--only suppose Albert's book brought him in as
much as that!"

Her husband shook his head. "I can't, Olive," he said, without looking
up from his newspaper. "My supposer wouldn't stand the strain."

"But it might, Zelotes, it MIGHT. Suppose it did, what would you say
then?"

The captain regarded her over the top of the Transcript. "I shouldn't
say a word, Olive," he answered, solemnly. "I should be down sick by the
time it got up as far as a thousand, and anything past two thousand
you could use to buy my tombstone with. . . . There, there, Mother,"
he added, noticing the hurt look on her face, "don't feel bad. I'm only
jokin'. One of these days Al's goin' to make a nice, comf'table livin'
sellin' lumber and hardware right here in South Harniss. I can SEE that
money in the offin'. All this million or two that's comin' from poetry
and such is out of sight in the fog. It may be there but--humph! well, I
KNOW where Z. Snow and Co. is located."

Olive was not entirely placated. "I must say I think you're awful
discouragin' to the poor boy, Zelotes," she said. Her husband put down
his paper.

"No, no, I ain't, Mother," he replied, earnestly. "At least I don't mean
to be. Way I look at it, this poetry-makin' and writin' yarns and that
sort of stuff is just part of the youngster's--er--growin' up, as you
might say. Give him time he'll grow out of it, same as I cal'late he
will out of this girl business, this--er--Madel--humph--er--ahem. . . .
Looks like a good day to-morrow, don't it."

He pulled up suddenly, and with considerable confusion. He had kept the
news of his grandson's infatuation and engagement even from his wife.
No one in South Harniss knew of it, no one except the captain. Helen
Kendall knew, but she was in Boston.

Rachel Ellis picked up the half knitted Red Cross mitten in her lap.
"Well, I don't know whether he's right or you are, Cap'n Lote," she
said, with a sigh, "but this I do know--I wish this awful war was over
and he was back home again."

That remark ended the conversation. Olive resumed her own knitting,
seeing it but indistinctly. Her husband did not continue his newspaper
read