them what wasn't true. They stand out in our memories
bigger than all the good things we did. Don't you worry about any lies
you ever told your father. You've got nothing to accuse yourself of
where he's concerned--or anybody else, either."

Her heart, that had throbbed wildly as she thought to begin her
confession, sunk back to a forlorn beat. He noticed her dejected air,
and said comfortingly:

"Don't be downhearted, Missy. It's been terribly hard for you, but
you'll feel better when we get to California, and can live like
Christians again."

"California!" Her intonation told of the changed mind with which she
now looked forward to the Promised Land.

His consolatory intentions died before his own sense of grievance at
the toil yet before them.

"Good Lord, it does seem far--farther than it did in the beginning. I
used to be thinking of it all the time then, and how I'd get to work
the first moment we arrived. And now I don't care what it's like or
think of what I'm going to do. All I want to get there for is to stop
this eternal traveling and rest."

She, too, craved rest, but of the spirit. Her outlook was blacker than
his, for it offered none and drew together to a point where her
tribulations focused in a final act of self-immolation. There was a
pause, and he said, drowsiness now plain in his voice:

"But we'll be there some day unless we die on the road, and then we can
take it easy. The first thing I'm going to do is to get a mattress to
sleep on. No more blankets on the ground for me. Do you ever think
what it'll be like to sleep in a room again under a roof, a good,
waterproof roof, that the sun and the rain can't come through? The way
I feel now that's my idea of Paradise."

She murmured a low response, her thoughts far from the flesh pots of
his wearied longing.

"I think just at this moment," he went on dreamily, "I'd rather have a
good sleep and a good meal than anything else in the world. I often
dream of 'em, and then Daddy John's kicking me and it's morning and I
got to crawl out of the blanket and light the fire. I don't know
whether I feel worse at that time or in the evening when we're making
the last lap for the camping ground." His voice dropped as if
exhausted before the memory of these unendurable moments, then came
again with a note of cheer: "Thank God, Courant's with us or I don't
believe we'd ever get there."

She had no reply to make to this. Neither spoke fo