fence on which there were only enough boards to show what the original plan had been. A heap of ashes, a dilapidated chicken-coop, and a forest of tall dingy weeds were the p

e mouth of the barrel was a child with a thin, sallow, dirty, precocious face and with a cat in h

the child, sudden

his knees and kissing the dirty face ag

her father absent two years was so common an experience that his r

et's see,-you're twelve years old now, ain't you? Y

ild; "Joe's run away, 'cause the constab

thief! O

ave nothin' to eat

goin' to school now; Jane's servant-gal at the hotel; Tom plays hookey al

nally he put his arm around his child,

e the mother'll feel pleasanter, an' the baby'll be happier

to be better?"

ey to buy candy an' g

ather. "I must go s

in the life of the Kimper family, except when there was a quarrel, and M

heerd her say so many a ti

nows," said the man. "An'," he continued, after a moment,

g woman sat at a bare pine table, handling some dirty cards. When she

I didn't exp

Wife," he murmured, bursting into tears and pressing the unsightly head to his breast,-"wif

ses that had been showered upon her; neit

to think someth

ad lots of time to think since then, though, an' I've had somethin' else, too, that I wa

to the occasion to the extent of kissing her husband, though

w how I come

t hate me. But you ain't goin' to have no new reason for do

aking up the cards again. "I was just tellin' my fortune by the keerds, havin'

ds to this family, confound 'em, when I've fooled with 'em at

one end of which protruded a head of which the face, eyes, and hair were of the same tint as the clothing. The little objec

e does when they go nigh her," said the mother. "If I'd k

ow," said the father

thing in your life, Sam!" said

t's never too late to mend. Wh

o often, that I don't ever expect either of 'em much 'fore supper-t

p him, then. I'll

stren'th. Well, if here they don't both come! I don't know when I've seen them two

with wide open eyes, and Tom with a hang-dog leer from under the brim of

hing away, "that sort o' thing's

your da

by of me, if you b

if I had a dad to make a baby of me

e an old foo

, "an' so I found Tom an' told him, an' he said I lied,

into his pocket and took out the fig box. "Here," as he gave a fig

'em unless I have a whole box. I lift one out of a

ant 'em any time so bad you can't do without 'em, le

in for more'n two ye

took the circus pictures from his breast, where they had been much flattened during the several dem

ve of the monkey, but

d, when I seen the whole animal at th

nued, with a peculiar look at her husband, "there ain't anythin' else for breakfast, though Deacon Quickset's got lots of hens layin' eggs ev'ry day. I've told the boys

way," said Sam, gently. "No m

Kimper. "I didn't s'pose bein' sent up wa

puttin' of a new kind of spirit i

asped Mrs

You goin' to be a shoutin' Methodist? Won't tha

I know of, except an honest man: you can

'm a blamed li

and when finally she spoke it was in the voic

potatoes an' chickens an' pigs an' even turkeys that could be got an' n

m, who had often sat under the chur

," said Sam, "but I guess we w

brother to attract attention. "I must go down to the hotel an' tell Jane; she'll stea