were exhausted, but their efforts were without avail. Some little thing was
wrong which neither of them knew how to remedy. As they stepped to the door
of the shed to rest a little, to their surprize they heard the sound of
voices. They were off from the main road a long way, and in a part of the
country where they hardly expected to see any one on this rainy day.
Looking in the direction from which the voices came, they saw two men
approaching, driving a single horse. At closer range one of the men proved
to be their father, and he was in a maudlin condition, reeling back and
forth as the buggy bumped along. They could hear the men's voices in ribald
laughter and singing. When they were near the building, Mr. Hill climbed
clumsily out of the rig, and Austin tried to tell him what the difficulty
was.

"Oh, that's nothing," he mumbled, "shoon have it fixed." Reeling as he
walked, he went into the shed that sheltered the engine. The boys followed
him, and while his mind was clear enough to adjust the engine, his legs
were not steady enough to hold him up, and his boys had to hold him to keep
him from falling into the machinery while he repaired the engine. It seemed
to Austin at this time that he utterly despised his father. He wondered if
he could ever feel toward this reeling, staggering, evil-minded man as a
son should feel toward a father. Again came the thought of the children and
what it would mean to leave them to him. He would not leave them so long as
his father would permit him to remain under the home roof.

Before the hard, cold winter came, they moved into the house near his
father's work. It was a lonely place with only a small yard cleared in the
brush, and was as desolate a location as one could imagine. Yet the house
rang with the laughter of the children, whose changing fortune had not
chilled their merry hearts.