advice.

"Father," we said, "it is a time of business depression and
wide-spread unemployment. If you went to Pittsburgh you might
find a few weeks' work, but it would not pay you to go there for
it. You would have to lay out cash for your board and lodging
there before you could send anything home to mother. Keeping up
two establishments is harder than keeping up one. You have a home
here partly paid for, and a big garden that helps support that
home. It is better for you to stick with this establishment and
work at half time in the mill than to roam around at big expense
seeking full time in some other mill. There may be no mill in the
land that is running full time."

This had not occurred to him. What lay beyond the hills was all
mystery. But we young fellows had been brought up in the American
atmosphere, we had read the Youth's Companion and the newspapers,
and our outlook was widened; we could guess that conditions were
the same in other states as they were in our part of
Pennsylvania, for we were studying economic causes.

"It is better for you to stay here and wait for good times to
come again. Hang on to your home, and if in a few months or a few
years the mills begin booming again you will be secure for life.
But if the iron industry doesn't revive, give up that trade and
find other work here. If necessary go out and work on a farm, for
the farming industry will always have to be carried on."

Father saw the force of our argument. So he stayed and kept his
home. He has it to-day. But if he had wandered around as millions