r it was situated only around the first sand-hill. She lived in a
little bit of a house that looked as though it had been knocked together
for a crockery-crate, in the first place, with two windows and a rude
door thrown in as afterthoughts. In the rear of this house was another
tiny building, something like a grown-up hen-coop; and this was where
Mrs. Keens carried on the business bequeathed to her by her deceased
husband, along with five small children, and one not so small. But,
worse than that, one who was "not altogether there," as the English say.

She was about this business now, dressed in a primitive sort of bloomer,
with a wash-tub and clothes-ringer before her, and an army of
bathing-suits of every kind and color flapping wildly in the fresh sea
air at one side.

From a little farther on, mingling with the sound of the beating surf,
came the merry voices of bathers,--boarders at the great hotels on the
hill.

"Here you be! Hard at it!" said Captain Ben, puffing around the corner
like a portable west-wind. I've understood you've had a hurt. Is that
so?"

"Oh, no! Nothing to mention," returned Mrs. Keens, turning about a face
bright and cheerful as the full moon; and throwing, as by accident, a
red bathing-suit over the two broomsticks that leaned against her tub.

Unlike Mrs. Davids, Mrs. Keens neither pitied herself nor would allow
anybody else to do so.

"Sho!" remarked Captain Ben, feeling defrauded. He had counted on
sacrificing himself to his sympathies, but he didn't give up yet. "You
must see some pretty tough times 'pears to me with such a parcel of
little ones, and only yourself to look to," said he, proceeding
awkwardly enough to hang the pile of wrung-out clothes upon an empty
line.

"I don't complain," returned the widow, bravely. "My children are not
_teusome_; and Jack, why you would be surprised to see how many things
Jack can do, for all he isn't quite right."

As she spoke thus with affectionate pride, Jack came up wheeling a
roughly made cart filled with wet bathing clothes from the beach. He
looked up at sound of his mother's voice with something of the dumb
tenderness of an intelligent dog. "Jack helps, Jack good boy," said he,
nodding with a happy smile.

"Yes, Jack helps. We don't complain," repeated the mother.

"It would come handy, though, to have a man around to see to things and
kind o' provide, wouldn't it, though?" persisted Captain Ben.

"Some might think so," replie