. Sitting thus, crouched together, he looked like a child.

"Why, Natty, what's the trouble?" asked his uncle alarmed.

"I came off here because I couldn't hold in at home any longer," answered
the other between sobs. "You see I can't go away. Her husband treats her
so bad she can't stay with him. I don't blame her, she says she just
_can't!_ So she's come back and she ain't well, and she's goin' to have a
baby, and I've got to stay and support her. Mr. Bradley's offered me a
place in his store and I've got to give up goin' to the navy." He suddenly
realized the unmanliness of his attitude, rose to his feet, closing his
lips tightly, and faced the older man with a resolute expression of
despair in his young eyes.

"Uncle Jehiel, it does seem to me I _can't_ have it so! All my life I've
looked forward to bein' a sailor and goin' around the world, and all. I
just hate the valley and the mountains! But I guess I got to stay. She's
only my stepmother, I know, but she was always awful good to me, and she
hasn't got anybody else to look after her."

His voice broke, and he put his arm up in a crook over his face. "But it's
awful hard! I feel like a bird that's got caught in a snare."

His uncle had grown very pale during this speech, and at the last words he
recoiled with an exclamation of horror. There was a silence in which he
looked at his nephew with the wide eyes of a man who sees a specter. Then
he turned away into the furnace-room, and picking up his lunch-box brought
it back. "Here, you," he said roughly, "part of what's troublin' you is
that you ain't had any breakfast. You eat this and you'll feel better.
I'll be back in a minute."

He went away blindly into the darkest part of the cellar. It was very
black there, but his eyes stared wide before him. It was very cold, but
drops of sweat stood on his forehead as if he were in the hay-field. He
was alone, but his lips moved from time to time, and once he called out in
some loud, stifled exclamation which resounded hollowly in the vault-like
place. He was there a long time.

When he went back into the furnace cellar, he found Nathaniel sitting
before the fire. The food and warmth had brought a little color into his
pale face, but it was still set in a mask of tragic desolation.

As his uncle came in, he exclaimed, "Why, Uncle Jehiel, you look awful
bad. Are you sick?"

"Yes, I be," said the other harshly, "but 'tain't nothin'. It'll pass
after a while. Nathani