his brother Sandy now; he had buried that golden expectation with many
others. Then began for Davie Morrison the darkest period of his life. I
am not going to write its history.

It is not pleasant to tell of a family sinking lower and lower in spite
of its brave and almost desperate efforts to keep its place--not
pleasant to tell of the steps that gradually brought it to that pass,
when the struggle was despairingly abandoned, and the conflict narrowed
down to a fight with actual cold and hunger.

It is not pleasant, mainly, because in such a struggle many a lonely
claim is pitilessly set aside. In the daily shifts of bare life, the
tender words that bring tender acts are forgotten. Gaunt looks,
threadbare clothes, hard day-labor, sharp endurance of their children's
wants, made Sandy and Sallie Morrison often very hard to those to whom
they once were very tender.

David had noticed it for many months. He could see that Sallie counted
grudgingly the few pennies he occasionally required. His little
newspaper business had been declining for some years; people took fewer
papers, and some did not pay for those they did take. He made little
losses that were great ones to him, and Sallie had long been saying it
would "be far better for father to give up the business to Jamie; he is
now sixteen and bright enough to look after his own."

This alternative David could not bear to think of; and yet all through
the summer the fear had constantly been before him. He knew how Sallie's
plans always ended; Sandy was sure to give into them sooner or later,
and he wondered if into their minds had ever come the terrible thought
which haunted his own--_would they commit him, then, to the care of