had begun the struggle too soon. Life had been a tragedy to Jim: the
tragedy that comes when a child's sensitive soul is forced to meet
the responsibilities of manhood, yet lacks the wisdom that only
experience can bring.

Billy Wiggs was differently constituted; responsibilities rested
upon him as lightly as the freckles on his nose. When occasion or
his mother demanded he worked to good purposes with a tenacity that
argued well for his future success, but for the most part he played
and fought and got into trouble with the aptitude characteristic of
the average small boy.

It was Mrs. Wiggs's boast that her three little girls had geography
names; first came Asia, then Australia. When the last baby arrived,
Billy had stood looking down at the small bundle and asked
anxiously: "Are you goin' to have it fer a boy or a girl, ma?" Mrs.
Wiggs had answered: "A girl, Billy, an' her name's Europena!"

On this particular Sunday morning Mrs. Wiggs bustled about the
kitchen in unusual haste.

"I am goin' to make you all some nice Irish pertater soup fer
dinner," she said, as she came in from the parlor, where she kept
her potatoes and onions. "The boys'll be in soon, an' we'll have
to hurry and git through 'fore the childern begin to come to
Sunday-school."

For many years Sunday afternoon had been a trying time in the
neighborhood, so Mrs. Wiggs had organized a Sunday-school class at
which she presided.