wo later, when they were alone, she told Martie the whole
truth.

"It's Uncle Ben, of course, Mart; you remember his old offer, if ever I
had any children? He pays me twelve hundred a year for my four. Nobody
knows it, not even Lyd. People would only talk, you know, and it's none
of their affair. It's his fad, you know. We married young, and Joe had
no profession. Uncle Ben thinks the State ought to pay women for
bearing children. He says it's their business in life. Women are taking
jobs, foregoing marriage, and the nation is being robbed of citizens.
He believes that the hardest kind of work is the raising of children,
and the women who do it for the State ought to be paid by the State. He
does it for me, and I feel as if he was a relation. It's meant
everything to Joe and me, and the children, too. Sometimes, when I stop
to think of it, it is a little queer, but--when you think of the way
people DO spend money, for orchids or old books or rugs--it's natural
after all! He simply invests in citizens, that's what he says. I would
have had them anyway, but I suppose, indeed I know, Mart, that there
are lots of women who wouldn't!"

"And is he financing Joe, too?"

"Oh, no, indeed! Uncle Ben never speaks of money to me; I don't ever
get one cent except my regular allowance. Why, when Joe was ill, and
one of the babies--Billy, it was--was coming, he came in to see me now
and then, but he never said boo about helping! Joe is working his way;
he's chauffeur for Dr. Houston; that's something else nobody knows."

"I think that's magnificent of Joe!" Martie said, her face glowing.

"He graduates this year," Sally said proudly, "and then I think he will
start here. For a long time we thought we'd have to move away then,
because every one remembers little Joe Hawkes delivering papers, and
working in the express office. But now that the hospital, up toward the
Archer place, is really going to be built, Uncle Ben says that Joe can
get a position there. It's Dr. Knowles's hospital, and Uncle Ben is his
best friend. Of course that's big luck for Joe."

"Not so much luck," Martie said generously, "as that Joe has worked
awfully hard, and done well."

"Oh, you don't know how hard, Mart! And loving us all as he does, too,
and being away from us!" Sally agreed fervently. "But if he really gets
that position, with my hundred, we'll be rich! We'll have to keep a
Ford, Mart; won't that be fun?"

"Dr. Ben might die, Sally," Martie s