thin planking, the door was gingerly opened a few inches and a
touzled head appeared in the slit.

"Good-morning, 'm," spoke the head with an inquiring accent, which
plainly meant, "And what do you want?"

Joyce partly ignored the woman and her brusquerie, for the pretty curly
pate of a baby clinging to her skirts, and her ready smile was for him,
as she said,

"What a bright-eyed baby! May I come in for a minute and talk to you?"

The mother thawed to that, and the door fell wide apart. "Why, yes, come
in, come in! I'm washing to-day, but there's no great hurry's I knows
on. Sit there, won't ye? It's more comfor'ble."

Quite willing to be "more comfor'ble," if at no one's expense, Joyce
sank into the old cane rocker, still beaming upon the baby, who shyly
courted her from amid the damp folds of his mother's skirts.

"He's pretty smart for 'leven months," affirmed the latter, lifting him
to her knee, and dropping into the wooden chair opposite with a sense of
utter relaxation that struck the caller as being the next thing to
unconscious grace, even in that lank, slatternly figure. "He can go
clear 'round the room by takin' hold o' things. I guess you like babies,
'm?"

"I like some babies--and yours is a beauty; large, too. I had thought
him much older."

"Yes, he's as big as I care to lug--that's certain! Dorey, go and stir
down the clo'es in the boilin' suds, and be quick about it, too! Don't
ye know better'n to stand starin' at folks like a sick cat?" This, to a
little girl, presumably the herald of Joyce's approach, who had been
peeping in through the crack of a rear door.

Joyce, dreading a storm, asked politely,

"You have two children, have you?"

The woman laughed with something of a bitter cadence. "Oh yes, and seven
more atop o' them. There's two between baby and Dorey, and five older.
My three oldest is in the Works, and Rache is about the best hand
they've got, if I do say it. Rache earns good wages, I tell ye--better'n
the boys. But then, what with tobacco and beer, and beauin' the girls
around to dances and shows, and all, you can't expect a fellow to have
much left for his own folks. And my other two gals is workin' out in
town. Dorey, stop jouncin' them hot clo'es up an' down in the suds!
You'll git scalt with 'em yit."

"Do any of your children go to school?" asked the caller, quickly.

The woman laughed shortly.

"Where'd they go? There ain't no schools around here, and we ain't
wanti