woman, down in the city, who's bringin' up her
two children in the corner of a basement where the green mold stands out
on the wall, and I'm goin' down to fetch her an' the children up here to
live with me ... them an' a little orphan boy as don't like the 'sylum
where they've put him----"

Somebody broke in on her to cry, "Why, Trypheny, you simple old critter,
that's four people! Where you goin' to put 'em in this little tucked-up
place?"

Cousin Tryphena answered doggedly and pointedly, "Your own grandmother,
Rebecca Mason, brought up a family of seven in a house no bigger than
this, and no cellar."

"But how, ..." another voice exclaimed, "air you goin' to get enough for
'em to eat? You ain't got but barely enough for yourself!"

Cousin Tryphena paled a little, "I'm a good sewer, I could make money
sewing ... and I could do washings for city-folks, summer-times...." Her
set mouth told what a price she paid for this voluntary abandonment of the
social standing that had been hers by virtue of her idleness. She went on
with sudden spirit, "You all act as though I was doin' it to spite you and
to amuse myself! I don't _want_ to! When I think of my things I've kept so
nice always, I'm _wild_ ... but how can I help it, now I know about 'em! I
didn't sleep a wink last night. I'll go clean crazy if I don't do
something! I saw those three children strugglin' in the water and their
mother a-holdin' on 'em down, and then jumpin' in herself----Why, I give
enough milk to the _cat_ to keep a baby ... what else can I do?"

I was touched, as I think we all were, by her helpless simplicity and
ignorance, and by her defenselessness against this first vision of life,
the vision which had been spared her so long, only to burst upon her like
a forest-fire. I hid an odd fancy that she had just awakened after a sleep
of half a century.

"Dear Cousin Tryphena," I said as gently as I could, "you haven't had a
very wide experience of modern industrial or city conditions and there are
some phases of this matter which you don't take into consideration." Then
I brought out the old, wordy, eminently reasonable arguments we all use to
stifle the thrust of self-questioning: I told her that it was very likely
that the editor of that newspaper had invented, or at least greatly
exaggerated those stories, and that she would find on investigation that
no such family existed.

"I don't see how that lets me out of _lookin'_ for them," said Cousin