but it'll take all that two of us can do to catch up with 'em. I want
you to be always 'side o' me, Nan."

"We can't let 'em starve," said the wife; "an' if what you're
believin' is goin' to keep you from pickin' up a livin' for 'em when
you get a chance, what are we goin' to do?"

"I'm goin' to work," said Sam.

"Sho! You never done three days' work hand-runnin' in your life." Then
Mrs. Kimper gave a hard laugh.

"I've done it over two years now, an' I guess I can keep on, if I get
the chance. I can stick to it if you'll back me up, Nan."

"There ain't much to me nowaday," said Mrs. Kimper, after a moment or
two of blank staring as she held her chin in her hands and rested her
elbows on her knees. "Once I had an idee I was about as lively as they
make 'em, but things has knocked it out of me,--a good many kind of
things."

"I know it, poor gal," said Sam; "I know it: I feel a good deal the
same way myself sometimes; but it helps me along an' stren'thens me up,
like, to know that Him that the visitor in jail told me about didn't
have no home a good deal of the time, an' not overmuch to eat, an' yet
was cheerful like, an' always on His nerve. It braces a fellow up to
think somebody's who's been as bad off as himself has pulled through,
an' not stole nothin', nor fit with nobody, nor got drunk, but always
was lookin' out for other folks. Say, Nan, 'pears to me it's gettin'
dark all of a sudden--oh!"