Other Main-Travelled Roads

s sitting in a square of sunshine, intent on one of his shoes. He was too young to know how poor and squalid

there is as little chance to escape close and tainting contact as in the coops and dens of the North End of proud Boston. In the midst of oceans

?" asked Bob, the seven-year-old, when he saw

arm-and there was a storm comin'. You never

lin' the pigs. It's S

eemed to s

' Sile, you run down an' bring s'm' water," she commanded, in nervous haste, beginning

akfast he found it on the ta

ed, with a little less o

pstairs

in dead silence, till at

akes ma

est girl, who was ten years old. To her the father turned now for certain things to be done, trea

t all. Sadie had on but two garments, a sort of undershirt of cotton and a faded calico dress, o

im by the mother's never-resting hands-hands that in sleep still sewed, and skimmed, and baked, and churned. T

orning, and the woman might have sung like a bird if men had been as kind to her as Nature. But she looked dully out upon the seas of ripe grasses, tangl

e dolls, the boys in knickerbocker suits, the girls in dainty white dresses,-and a vengeful bitterne

w-bay-wies!" cried the littl

some berries for him, she sat down on the grass under the row of cottonwoods, and sank into a kind of lethargy. A kingbird chattered and shrie

on my clean dress

he brooding woman, dar

floated far above in the vast, dazzling deeps of blue sky; the birds rustled and chirped around her; leaping insects buzzed and clattered in the gr

adie, who came leaping like a

Uncle William are coming

re immovably, till Mrs. Councill came down to see her, piloted by two or three of the children. Mrs. Councill, a jolly, large-framed woman, sm

ng a tantrum, Creeshy. Don

one. I've slaved here day in and day out f'r twelve years without pay,-not even a decent word. I've worked like no nigger ever worked 'r could work and live. I

eshy! You mustn'

t to talk that way." She was ripe for an explosion like this. She seized upon it with eagerness.

eshy B

I mea

e, I b'lieve you

you jest go off an' leave me 'lone. I ain't no mind to visit,-they ain't no

. Bees were humming around the clover in the grass, and the kingbird chattered ceaselessly from the Lombardy poplar tip. Both women felt all this peace and beauty of the morning dimly, and it disturbed Mrs.

are you

answer. Mrs. Councill knew that was the en

by," she sa

lf buried in the grass. She did not look up nor reply to her sister-in-law, whose life was one of toil and troubl

s she waddled up to where the two men were sitting under a cott

answered Burns, not quite h

t, Sim Burns," replied his sister. "That w

t it than I do, whadgy ask

y'r ear, children! Keep cool, and don't spile y'r shirts.

e is. Why, they ain't a harder-workin' wom

Marm C

Look at her, jes

at's so, mother; measured in that way,

e accustomed to tell her. Burns refused to talk any more about the matter, and the visitors ga

ildren 'll bring her round ag'in. If she does come round, you see '

around his wife's waist. She boxed his ears

where the cattle came running and bawling to meet him, he threw down the salt in handfuls, and then lay down to

wore until they all but dropped from him; and he worked in rain and mud, as well as dust and sun. It was this suffering and t

to solve an insoluble problem. His neighbors, who had got along a little better than h

, who owned a dozen farms (which he had taken on mortgages), and who had got rich by buying land at gov

eling themselves in the s

chinery eatin' up profits-got to have machinery to harvest the cheap grain, an' then the machinery

he middle-men; the Greenbackers said there wasn't circulating medium enough, and, in the midst of it all, ha

ning, Sim sat and thought and thought, t