the end had come. His little Queen Esther with the rosebuds on her
gown!

In his last moments he said to a friend: "What does it matter
whether a man lives a little longer or not? It is only the loved ones
he leaves that matter."

At his death the city closed the places of business by
proclamation of the Mayor, and the long line of followers at his bier
to the little cemetery he had given testified to the love his fellow
men bore him.

Renestine was crushed. Her five children were to be lived for,
of course, but how could she face the long years before her? She was
young, inexperienced, unused to the world and its ways. She was
overwhelmed by her fate. The assets of a generous man at his death
are debts and some friends. Had it not been for the advice and
devotion of a few friends, Renestine would have gone down in the black
waters that were now surging around her. The Post Office was looked
after until she could find strength in body and mind to assume the
duties of Post Mistress to which she was appointed. When she entered
the door that first morning it was as a broken spirit without any idea
of what she was about to undertake. The task was serious and exacting,
she realized, but how to grasp its thousand details? Her master would
be the U. S. Government, an uncompromising, stern and bloodless one.

Not many years before, this little woman was an immigrant
child, landing with timid step on strange soil. To-day she was ushered
into the important office of Government Mail and Money matters, one of
the most responsible positions in the country.