halls."

You remember that illuminated text over the dining-room
door--"The Lord Will Provide." We've painted it out, and covered
the spot with rabbits. It's all very well to teach so easy a
belief to normal children, who have a proper family and roof
behind them; but a person whose only refuge in distress will be a
park bench must learn a more militant creed than that.

"The Lord has given you two hands and a brain and a big world
to use them in. Use them well, and you will be provided for; use
them ill, and you will want," is our motto, and that with
reservations.

In the sorting process that has been going on I have got rid
of eleven children. That blessed State Charities Aid Association
helped me dispose of three little girls, all placed in very nice
homes, and one to be adopted legally if the family likes her.
And the family will like her; I saw to that. She was the prize
child of the institution, obedient and polite, with curly hair
and affectionate ways, exactly the little girl that every family
needs. When a couple of adopting parents are choosing a
daughter, I stand by with my heart in my mouth, feeling as though
I were assisting in the inscrutable designs of Fate. Such a
little thing turns the balance! The child smiles, and a loving
home is hers for life; she sneezes, and it passes her by forever.

Three of our biggest boys have gone to work on farms, one of
them out West to a RANCH! Report has it that he is to become a
cowboy and Indian fighter and grizzly-bear hunter, though I