the caboose.

The next fall Sam found that he needed the caboose himself, and came with his trucks to take it back. He claimed that he had given it with the understanding that John was going to die. John had not fulfilled his share of the contract, and Sam felt that his generosity had been misplaced.

John was cutting wood beside his dwelling when Sam arrived with his trucks, and accused him of obtaining goods under false pretences. John was a man of few words and listened attentively to Sam's reasoning. From the little window of the caboose came the discordant wail of a very young infant, and old Sam felt his claims growing more and more shadowy.

John took the pipe from his mouth and spat once at the woodpile. Then, jerking his thumb toward the little window, he said briefly:

"Twins. Last night."

Sam Motherwell mounted his trucks and drove away. He knew when he was beaten.

The house had received additions on every side, until it seemed to threaten to run over the edge of the lot, and looked like a section of a wrecked freight train, with its yellow refrigerator car.

The snow had drifted up to the windows, and entirely over the little lean-to that had been erected at the time that little Danny had added his feeble wail to the general family chorus.

But the smoke curled bravely up from the chimney into the frosty air, and a snug pile of wood by the "cheek of the dure" gave evidence of John's industry, notwithstanding his dislike of the world's best literature.

Inside the floor was swept and the stove was clean, and an air of comfort was over all, in spite of the evidence of poverty. A great variety of calendars hung on the wall. Every store in town it seems had sent one this year, last year and the year before. A large poster of the Winnipeg Industrial Exhibition hung in the parlour, and a Massey-Harris self-binder, in full swing, propelled by three maroon horses, swept through a waving field of golden grain, driven by an adipose individual in blue shirt and grass-green overalls. An enlarged picture of John himself glared grimly from a very heavy frame, on the opposite wall, the grimness of it somewhat relieved by the row of Sunday-school "big cards" that were stuck in around the frame.

On the afternoon that Mrs. Watson had received the uplifting talk on motherhood, and Mrs. Francis had entered it in the little red book, Pearlie Watson, aged twelve, was keeping the house, as she did six days in the week. The day was too cold for even Jimmy to be out, and so all except the three eldest boys were in the kitchen variously engaged. Danny under promise of a story was in the high chair submitting to a thorough going over with soap and water. Patsey, looking up from his self-appointed task of brushing the legs of the stove with the hair-brush, loudly demanded that the story should begin at once.

"Story, is it?" cried Pearlie in her wrath, as she took the hair-brush from Patsey. "What time have I to be thinkin' of stories and you that full of badness. My heart is bruck wid ye."

"I'll be good now," Patsey said, penitently, sitting on the wood-box, and tenderly feeling his skinned nose. "I got hurt to-day, mind that, Pearlie."

"So ye did, poor bye," said Pearlie, her wrath all gone, "and what will I tell yez about, my beauties?"

"The pink lady where Jimmy brings the milk," said Patsey promptly.

"But it's me that's gettin' combed," wailed Danny. "I should say what ye'r to tell, Pearlie."

"True for ye," said Pearlie, "Howld ye'r tongue, Patsey. What will I tell about, honey?"

"What Patsey said'll do" said Danny with an injured air, "and don't forget the chockalut drops she had the day ma was there and say she sent three o' them to me, and you can have one o' them, Pearlie."

"And don't forget the big plate o' potatoes and gravy and mate she gave the dog, and the cake she threw in the fire to get red of it," said Mary, who was knitting a sock for Teddy.

"No, don't tell that," said Jimmy, "it always makes wee Bugsey cry."

"Well," began Pearlie, as she had done many times before. "Once upon a time not very long ago, there lived a lovely pink lady in a big house painted red, with windies in ivery side of it, and a bell on the front dure, and a velvet carpet on the stair and—"

"What's a stair?' asked Bugsey.

"It's a lot of boxes piled up higher and higher, and nailed down tight so that ye can walk on them, and when ye get away up high, there is another house right farninst ye—well anyway, there was a lovely pianny in the parlow, and flowers in the windies, and two yalla burds that sing as if their hearts wud break, and the windies had a border of coloured glass all around them, and long white curtings full of holes, but they like them all the better o' that, for it shows they are owld and must ha' been good to ha' stood it so long. Well, annyway, there was a little boy called Jimmie Watson"—here all eyes were turned on Jimmy, who was sitting on the floor mending his moccasin with a piece of sinew. "There was a little boy called Jimmy Watson who used to carry milk to the lady's back dure, and a girl with black eyes and white teeth all smiley used to take it from him, and put it in a lovely pitcher with birds flying all over it. But one day the lady, herself, was there all dressed in lovely pink velvet and lace, and a train as long as from me to you, and she sez to Jimmy, sez she, 'Have you any sisters or brothers at home,' and Jim speaks up real proud-like, 'Just nine,' he sez, and sez she, swate as you please, 'Oh, that's lovely! Are they all as purty as you?' she sez, and Jimmy sez, 'Purtier if anything,' and she sez, 'I'll be steppin' over to-day to see yer ma,' and Jim ran home and told them all, and they all got brushed and combed and actin' good, and in she comes, laving her carriage at the dure, and her in a long pink velvet cape draggin' behind her on the flure, and wide white fer all around it, her silk skirts creakin' like a bag of cabbage and the eyes of her just dancin' out of her head, and she says, 'These are fine purty childer ye have here, Mrs. Watson. This is a rale purty girl, this oldest one. What's her name?' and ma ups and tells her it is Rebecca Jane Pearl, named for her two grandmothers, and Pearl just for short. She says, 'I'll be for taking you home wid me, Pearlie, to play the pianny for me,' and then she asks all around what the children's names is, and then she brings out a big box, from under her cape, all tied wid store string, and she planks it on the table and tearin' off the string, she sez, 'Now, Pearlie, it's ladies first, tibby sure. What would you like to see in here?' And I says up quick—'A long coat wid fer on it, and a handkerchief smellin' strong of satchel powder,' and she whipped them out of the box and threw them on my knee, and a new pair of red mitts too. And then she says, 'Mary, acushla, it's your turn now.' And Mary says, 'A doll with a real head on it,' and there it was as big as Danny, all dressed in green satin, opening its eyes, if you plaze."

"Now, me!" roared Danny, squirming in his chair.

"'Daniel Mulcahey Watson, what wud you like?' she says, and Danny ups and says, 'Chockaluts and candy men and taffy and curren' buns and ginger bread,' and she had every wan of them."

"'Robert Roblin Watson, him as they call Bugsey, what would you like?' and 'Patrick Healy Watson, as is called Patsey, what is your choice?' says she, and—"

In the confusion that ensued while these two young gentlemen thus referred to stated their modest wishes, their mother came in, tired and pale, from her hard day's work.

"How is the pink lady to-day, ma?" asked Pearlie, setting Danny down and beginning operations on Bugsey.

"Oh, she's as swate as ever, an' can talk that soft and kind about children as to melt the heart in ye."

Danny crept up on his mother's knee "Ma, did she give ye pie?" he asked, wistfully.

"Yes, me beauty, and she sent this to you wid her love," and Mrs. Watson took a small piece out of a newspaper