dig up any private heart throbs like that. But there
it was; so I starts in to cheer her up the best I knew how.

"Course," says I, "it's a line I couldn't shake a nickel out of in a
year; but if it suited me, and I thought I was onto my job, I'd make it
yield the coin, or go good and hungry tryin'."

"Perhaps I have gone hungry," says she, quiet like.

"Honest?" says I.

"That steak lasted me for a week," says she.

There was more particulars followed that throws Cornelia Ann on the
screen in a new way for me. Grit! Why, she had enough to sand a
tarred roof. She'd lived on ham knuckles and limed eggs and Swiss
cheese for months. She'd turned her dresses inside out and upside
down, lined her shoes with paper when it was wet, and wore a long
sleeved shirt waist when there wa'n't another bein' used this side of
the prairies. And you can judge what that means by watchin' the women
size each other up in a street car.

"If they'd only given me half a chance to show what I could do!" says
she. "But I didn't get the chance, and perhaps it was my fault. So
what's the use? I'll just pack up and go back to Minnekeegan."

"Minnekeegan!" says I. "That sounds tough. What then?"

"Oh," says she, "my brother is foreman in a broom factory. He will get
me a job at pasting labels."

"Say," says I, gettin' a quick rush of blood to the head, "s'posen I
should contract for a full length of Swifty Joe to hang here in----"

"No you don't!" says she, edgin' off. "It's good of you, but charity
work isn't what I want."

Say, it wa'n't any of my funeral, but that broom fact'ry proposition
stayed with me quite some time. The thoughts of anyone havin' to go
back to a place with a name like Minnekeegan was bilious enough; but
for a girl that had laid out to give Macmonnies a run for the gold
medal, the label pastin' prospect must have loomed up like a bad dream.

There's one good thing about other folks's troubles though--they're
easy put on the shelf. Soon's I gets to work I forgets all about
Cornelia Ann. I has to run out to Rockywold that afternoon, to put Mr.
Purdy Pell through his reg'lar course of stunts that he's been takin'
since some one told him he was gettin' to be a forty-fat. There was a
whole bunch of swells on hand; for it's gettin' so, now they can go and
come in their own tourin' cars, that winter house parties are just as
common as in summer.

"Thank heaven you've come!" says Mr. Pell. "It gives me