THE USES OF ADVERSITY



"I guess I don't need I should go on the school," announced Algernon
Yonowsky.

"I guess you do," said his sister.

"I guess I don't need I should go on the school, neither," remarked
Percival.

"You got to go," Leah informed her mutinous brothers. "I got a permit
for you from off the Principal; he's friends mit me the while I goes
on that school when I was little. You got to go on the school, und you
got to stay on the school. It's awful nice how you learn things there."

But the prospect did not appeal to the Yonowsky twins. It seemed to
forbode restraint and, during their six tempestuous years, they had
followed their own stubborn ways and had accepted neither advice nor
rebuke from any man. The evening of the day which had seen their
birth had left Leah motherless, and her father broken of heart and of
ambition. Since then Mr. Yonowsky had grown daily more silent and
morose, and Leah had been less and less able to cope with "them devil
boys."