opportunity to fit himself for some congenial occupation. Martin
might even die, and if she were to have the farm to sell and the
interest from the investments to live on, how happy she could be
with this son of hers, so like her in temperament. She caught
herself up sharply. Well, it was Martin himself who was driving
her to such thoughts.

"You are like old Dorcas," she once told her husband, driven
desperate by the exhausted, harrowed look that was becoming
habitual in Bill's face. "You're trampling down your own flesh
and blood, that's what you're doing--eating the heart out of your
own boy."

"Go right on," retorted Martin, all his loneliness finding vent
in his bitter sneer, "tell that to Bill. You've turned him
against me from the day he was born. A fine chance I've ever had
with my son!"



VI

DUST IN HIS EYES

SUCH was the relationship of the Wades when one morning the mail
brought them a letter from Sharon, Illinois. Rose wrote that she
was miserably unhappy with her step-mother. Could she live with
them until she found a job? She had been to business college and
was a dandy stenographer. Maybe Uncle Martin could help her get
located in Fallon.