no time to be chicken-hearted. Anybody could fall down when they're
knocked. That's too dead-easy! No, what we want, is buck up an' have
some style about us. When things shuts down an' gets dark at the
movin'-picture show, then it's time to sit up an' take notice. That
means somethin's doin'--you're goin' to be showed somethin' interestin'.
Well, it's the same with us. But if you lose your sand at the first
go-off, an' sag down an' hide your face in your hands, well, you'll miss
the show. You won't see a bloomin' thing."

And Martha, sleeves rolled up, enveloped in an enormous blue-checked
apron, returned to her assault on the dough she was kneading, with
redoubled zeal.

"Bread, mother?" asked Sam dully, letting himself down wearily into a
chair by the drop-table, staring indifferently before him out of blank
eyes.

"Shoor! An' I put some currants in, to please the little fella. I give
in, my bread is what you might call a holy terror. Ain't it the caution
how I can't ever make bread fit to be eat, the best I can do? An' yet, I
can't quit tryin'. You see, home-made bread, _if it's good_, is cheaper
than store. Perhaps some day I'll be hittin' it right, so's when you ask
me for bread I won't be givin' you a stone."

She broke off abruptly, gazed a moment at her husband, then stepped to
his side, and put a floury hand on his shoulder. "Say, Sam, what you
lookin' so for? You ain't lost your sand just because they fired you?
What's come to you, lad? Tell Martha."

For a second there was no sound in the room, then the man looked up,
gulped, choked down a mighty sob, and laid his head against her breast.

"Martha--there's somethin' wrong with my lung. That's why they thrown me
down. They had their doctor from the main office examine me--they'd
noticed me coughin'--and he said I'd a spot on my lung or--something. I
shouldn't stay here in the city, he said. I must go up in the mountains,
away from this, where there's the good air and a chance for my lung to
heal, otherwise--"

Martha stroked the damp hair away from his temples with her powdery
hand.

"Well, well!" she said reflectively. "Now, what do you think o' that!"

"O, Martha--I can't stand it! You an' the children! It's more than I can
bear!"

Mrs. Slawson gave the head against her breast a final pat that, to
another than her husband, might have felt like a blow.

"More'n you can bear? Don't flatter yourself, Sammy my lad! Not by no
means it ain't. I wou