sion. The folks at the meeting to-night promised to give me money enough that I won't have to go into the mines to pay the expenses of the Mission. We're to have everything we ever wanted or dreamed about. A miners' exchange, where the men can get their money changed away from the saloons, a gymnasium, school rooms-everything, Teed! There was enough money for everything I've wanted-and all for this dear old Mudtown Mission. But I've learned to-night the poorness and meanness and weakness and selfishness, and a great many other ugly things, of my own heart. If my dear child friends, Limpy and Teed, could know it all, I'm not sure they would be glad to have me stay. Would you?" The two faces, full of unfailing trust and love, looked up into his, while Teed stroked his hand and Limpy said, with an approving nod of his head: "Betcherlife!" "Used to think that luck was luck and nuthin' else but luck It made no difference how or when or where or why it struck; But several years ago I changed my mind an' now proclaim That luck's a kind of science-same as any other game." -EUGENE FIELD. XXII THE STRIKE OF THE 'MALGAMATED TERRORS P IPPINELLA JINDY was in the last agony. Not the agony of death, for the contortions she made in trying to walk through the snow without lifting her foot showed that she was possessed of abundant vitality. She was in the agony of losing the button. Now the loss of a single shoe-button is not ordinarily an affair of serious moment-if there are other buttons. But if the button about to be lost is the last fastening left, its loss rises from the agony of a crisis to the dignity of a calamity. But every crisis is brief, and before she had taken another step the calamity occurred. Then there were further complications: The loss of the shoe revealed the absence of a stocking and there was Pippinella's pudgy, olive-brown foot and round leg sunk into the snow, half way to the bare knee. But youth is very hopeful, especially before the age of twelve years. So Pippinella tucked beneath her arm the disabled shoe, which had evidently belonged to some grand dame when it had had all its buttons, and pushed hopefully forward toward the deeper snow of the gutter. Pippinella's hopes were all centered in an apple bar rel. Mrs. Phelan had just purchased thirty cents worth of apples and all the children of the Phelan brood and their cousins the Flynns, and in fact all the children of the neighbourhood of the same blood, had been furnished with a sample of the fruit. Pippinella knew that she had nothing to expect from the Phelan apples, but it might be that the farmer would give her one specked apple if she should ask him. Perhaps he might have done so, if young Mick Phelan had not thrown a snowball at Pippinella which frightened the farmer's horses. In the diversion, Pippinella's hopes perished. The snow seemed suddenly colder to the bare foot; sunny Italy far away. "Git out, yez thavin' dago," growled Mick Phelan, in lordly imitation of his father's tone. "Is it apples yer thryin' to steal? Yer father's a scab. What business have yez here annyhow? Yer father's nothin' but a dirty scab, takin' the bread out of dacent people's mouths. If it wasn't for him and thim that's like him, we could win the strike." Pippinella grasped the pointed toe of the shoe she had shed and backed her way into the street. She was far too wise in the ways of the world of Reagan's Patch to turn her face from a foe. Furthermore, she knew that the shoe, with its soggy heel, made a formidable weapon. She had need to know how to defend herself, for the men of the Mudluck mine were on strike and her father and the rest of the Italians would not join the strike. That gave frequent opportunity for war between the women and even the children in the Patch. |