seem to be miserably hard
pushed for money." Mary Adams stopped and then went on as one carefully
choosing her words: "And since Margaret has gone to board over at the
other side of the school district, and we don't have her board
money--why of course--"

"Why of course," echoed Mrs. Kollander, "of course. I tell John he's
been in a county office now twenty years, drawing all the way from a
thousand to three thousand a year--and what have we got to show for it?
I scrimp and pinch and save, and John does too--but law me--it seems
like the way times are--" Amos Adams, standing at the door, heard her
and cut in:

"I was talking the other night with George Washington about the times,
and they're coming around all right." The man fumbled his sandy beard,
closed his eyes as if to remember something and went on: "Let's see, he
wrote: 'Peas and potatoes preserve the people,' and the next day,
everything in the market dropped but peas and potatoes." He nodded a
wise head. "They think that planchette is nonsense, but how do they
account for coincidences like that! And now tell me some news for the
_Tribune_." The two sat talking well into the twilight and when
Rhoda pulled up her chair to the supper table, the editor's notebook was
full.

Grant appeared, an ox-shouldered, red-haired, bass-voiced boy with
ham-like hands; Jasper came in from school full of the town's adventure
into coal and the industries, and his chatter trickled into the powerful
but slowly spoken insistence of Mrs. Kollander's talk and was lost and
swept finally into silence. After supper Grant retired to a book from
the Sea-side Library, borrowed of Mr. Brotherton from stock--"Sesame and
Lilies" was its title. Jasper plunged into his bookkeeping studies and
by the wood stove in the sitting-room Rhoda Kollander held her levee
until bedtime sent her home.

During the noon hour the next day in Mr. Brotherton's cigar store and
news stand, the walnut bench was filled that he had just installed for
the comfort of his customers. At one end, was Grant Adams who had
hurried up from the mines to buy a paperbound copy of Carlyle's "French
Revolution"; next to him sat deaf John Kollander smoking his noon cigar,
and beside Kollander sat stuttering Kyle Perry, thriftily sponging his
morning Kansas City _Times_ over Dr. Nesbit's shoulder. The absent
brother always was on the griddle at Mr. Brotherton's amen corner, and
the burnt offering of the moment was Henry Fenn. He