was a wise woman."

"In marrying you, father? I never heard her say so in her curtain lectures. Why didn't you say she was a brave woman?"

"Don't be frivolous, child."

"Cling to facts, father. Remember, you will soon be on the brink of the grave."

"The second is for your innocence," said he, kissing her again. "The third—the third——"

"Is for what, father? Say it's to encourage Caleb in his wooing. Say it, father."

"'Tis my dying kiss—my curse. Go! When he drags you to want and death, you will see how foolish you have been."

"When I lift him to honor and life the world will see how wise and heroic I have been. That extra kiss, father?"

Noah looked puzzled.

"I see it now, father. That's to commend my heroism. You would say so in words, but you are a bit too human at present. Poor Patsy is to be buried in a pauper's grave; poor Caleb in my affections. Your task is noble. No parting word for me? None? I go not alone."

"You go not alone, for the fires of tribulation go with you," said Noah, and shouldered his spade.

As Noah crossed the bridge leading to the potter's field he met Caleb.

"Hello, old graybeard!" This was Caleb's salutation. "I jilted the cobbler's Mary for your Melviny. A mess of perdition she is. You have the honor of burying my mother; I would have the pleasure of marrying your daughter. 'Tis a fair exchange. Speak the word; the magistrate is waiting for his fee. You won't? Your beard is a foot long."

"I go to dig your mother's grave."

"I detain you to pleasure my mother's son."

"She must be buried."

"I must be married."

"Oh! Oh! Oh!"

"Speak the word."

"My beard is being wasted."

"Speak the word, or I'll pull out another handful."

"Y-e-e-s," stammered Noah.

Caleb stroked what beard was left, evened it up with his penknife, and said: "Go! You are adorned for your task."

What Noah felt and thought while digging Patsy's grave would make a serious, instructive volume. A like record of Caleb and Melviny, as they stood before the magistrate, would show the brute in man, the folly in woman. So long as woman is sure she has mastered man, so long is man sure to degrade woman. 'Tis the equation of the fall. The rib that gave woman life ever waits to give her temptation and death.

Caleb had been away from Melviny six months when their child was born.

Fancy a man, dirty, ragged, and lousy, sitting beside a post. Notice the convenience of the post. Look well at the grin that is indicative of a bite; forget not the smile that means one intruder less. Why those dice? He shakes them in his hand, throws them out, and says seven. Any money at stake? No! Any fellow-players? No! See the point? Look closely! When he grins he shakes the dice. Know you what that means? There is a bite. When he smiles he throws out the dice and says seven. Understand that? The post and a movement of his back have done the work, and there is one intruder less. He is actually gambling with the lice on his back.

A fellow-gambler comes up and says: "Caleb, you have an heir in your family. Happy dog you should be."

"Let's celebrate it with a game," says Caleb.

He throws down a ten-dollar bill; the other lays down five silver dollars.

Caleb shakes the dice, grins fiercely, throws them out, smiles a double smile, and says seven twice. This means a double victory. More lice have been killed, and five dollars are won.

"Five more! Will you have it?" asks Caleb.

"I'm a gambling man and never flinch," says the other. He lays down five more silver dollars. Caleb rises and uses the post vigorously. His face is a solid grin. The dice are shaken and leap from his hand. The broad grin relaxes into a little smile that spreads so as to almost hide his nose. His left hand assists the post, while with the right he picks up the silver dollars.

"A gambling man are you?" twits Caleb.

"Yes," nods the other.

"Then a generous man am I," continues Caleb. "Take the ten-dollar bill and remember you have met Caleb."

"Caleb," replies the other, "I am a more generous man than you. Take back the counterfeit bill and keep the silver dollars you have stolen. I will assist you further by inventing a new way of killing lice."

"Lice, sir?" roared Caleb. "Where are they? Do you mean——?"

"I mean a post is a good louse-killer, but a little oil and a match are better."

Caleb, as you know by this time, was a coward. He outran fire-and-oil justice, and was caught in the mesh of circumstances. He leaped over a beehive and alighted between two lines of barbed-wire fence. After spending the night with barbed-wire and bees he was very properly removed to the hospital.

"His legs must be amputated," said the physicians.

"That means what?" asked Caleb, arousing himself as from a dream.

"Death, perchance," said they.

"That means the morgue?" asked he, with a grunt.

"For such as you, yes," replied one.

"My legs, gentlemen, my legs! The morgue! The morgue! I see it. How cold it is! Gentlemen, are you gentlemen? My legs! My legs!"

The next day he learned that his legs had been taken off. The following day he roared about the morgue and fought with both hands. He cried out at intervals:

"Off! Off, you doctors! My legs are here to carry me from the morgue, but you are waiting to cut them off again. Off, you butchers! Come, my right leg! Come, my left! On, my right leg! On my left! Yes! Yes! Welcome, tried friends! Down the steps now! Halfway down are we! Back! Back, you butchers! You shall not! My right foot—you shall not turn around. 'Tis done. The toes are where the heel should be. I go a step forward and fall back a step. Your knives are sharp, you butchers. My right leg is off and hops upstairs. My left leg is off and hops downstairs. My body falls and is carried to the morgue. The morgue, gentlemen, is so cold—so cold!"

After this there were several hours of indistinct raving. The next day his legless body was upon a marble slab in the morgue.

His fellow-gamblers, hearing of his fate, begged his body that they might give it a "decent" burial. They removed it to an old out-house and sat up with it the first night. Why do they gaze upon it so often? Why do their hands touch his face and hands? Would they learn a lesson from the cold, deathly touch? The next night, the next, the next, and the next it is alone.

You searchers of the city's offal, you living buzzards who remove the dead and rotten of your kind, fling open the doors! Is that Caleb you find? 'Tis a part of him. His legs are buried somewhere. His ears and fingers are in the pockets of his fellow-gamblers. Now carry out Caleb minus Caleb. Stop up your nose—stop up your nose!

RODNEY

Rodney was an illegitimate child. He knew not what this meant, but the sting of it embittered his young life.

The Negro has as much prejudice as the white man. Under like conditions the negro would make the same laws against the white. This crept out in the treatment of Rodney. His worst enemies were always negroes. The Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins made scoffers of some and demons of others.

To be pitied is the boy who has never framed the word "father" upon his lips. Rodney attempted it once, but failed, and never tried it again. He stood before his father bareheaded and with the coveted word upon his lips.

"You have a fine head of hair," said his father.

"That's what people say,"