inking. Gee! it feels great! And sometimes I read all day until I have
to go to the mine. There's one thing I'm going to tell you square," he
went on, a firm ring in his voice, boyish for all its deep, bass note,
"I'm never going back to the farm, never! Mother," he cried, suddenly,
coming over to take her hand in both his. "Will you leave father? We
could rent a little house and you'd have hardly anything to do. I'm
making more than lots of men with families. And I'd give you my envelope
without opening it every pay-day." "Oh, Billy, you don't know what
you're saying! I couldn't leave your father. I couldn't think of it."

"What I don't see is how you can stand it to stay with him. He's always
been a brute to you. He's never cared a red cent for either of us."

Rose was abashed before the harsh logic of youth. "Oh, son," she
murmured brokenly, "there are things one can't explain. I suppose it may
seem strange to you--but his life has been so empty. He has missed so
much! Everything, Billy."

"Then it's his own fault," judged the boy. "If ever anybody's always had
his own way and done just as he darn pleased it's father. I wish he'd
die, that's what I wish."

"Bill!" His mother's tone was stern.

"There you are!" he marvelled. "You must have wished it lots of times
yourself. I know you have. Yet you always talk as if you loved him."

In Rose's eyes, the habitual look of patience and understanding
deepened. How could Bill, as yet scarcely tried by life, comprehend the
purging flames through which she had passed or realize time's power to
reveal unsuspected truths.

"When you've been married to a man nearly twenty-two years and have
built up a place together, there's bound to be a bond between you," she
eluded. "He just lives for this farm. It's almost as dear to him as
you are to me, son, and it's a wonderful heritage, Bill, a magnificent
heritage. Just think! Two generations have labored to build it out of
the dust. Your father's whole life is in it. Your father's and mine. And
your grandmother's. If only you could ever come to care for it!"

Bill fidgeted uneasily. "You mean you want me to go on with it?"
he demanded. "You want me to come back to it, settle down to be a
farmer--like father?"

The tone in which he asked this question made Rose choose her words
carefully.

"What are your plans, son? What do you want to be--not just now, but
finally?"

"I can't see what difference it makes what a fellow is--e