k and act for herself in trying circumstances. She had
not the skill to plan nor the strength to execute, and it was too late
to begin now. But she could endure, and she did so, with long patience;
and though her face grew thin and white, she gave no sign of anger, or
discontent, or of breaking down under her troubles, as all her little
world had believed she would surely do.

Amid the din and dulness of the great town in which they first took
refuge for a while, she made a home for her son, and waited patiently to
see what his young strength might do for them both, and never, by word
or look, made his struggle for standing room in the crowd harder for
him, or his daily disappointment worse to bear.

He fought his way to standing room at last--standing room at a high desk
in a dark office, at work which he had still to learn, and which, though
he loathed it, he might have learned to do in time if it had not
"floored him" first.

"Mother," he cried one night in despair, "let us get away from this
place--anywhere, where there is room to breathe. I will work with my
hands as my father did before me. There are still surely stones to
break somewhere up there in the north. We'll get fresh air at least."

So, without a word of doubt or of expostulation, she made haste to get
ready, while they had yet the means of going, and they went north
together, where they found, indeed, fresh air, and for a time they found
nothing else. But fresh air was something to rejoice in, since it
brought back the colour to the lad's cheeks and lightened the heart of
the mother, and they kept up one another's courage as well as might be.

A chance to earn their bread, that was all John wanted, and it came at
last; but it was dry bread only for a while.

"What can you do? And what are you willing to do?" said a man who was
the overseer of other men, and whom John had seen several times at the
place where his work was done. John answered:

"I am willing to do anything. And I think I could break stones."

"I think I see you!" said the man with a shrug.

"I only wish I had a chance to show you. I think I might even chip awa'
at cutting them, to as good purpose as some of those lads yonder."

"Here, Sandy," said the overseer. "Gie this lad your hammer, and let
him try his hand, for the fun o' the thing."

The man laughed, but John Beaton was in earnest. In a minute his coat
was off, and he set to work with a will. He needed a hin