"Oh, Cossy," she says, "look what I got," and pointed to some papers. "Katytown papers," I said. "I don't suppose there's a soul there outside the family that I care whether I ever see again or not." "Why, Cossy," she said, "there's Lena--" "Lena Curtsy!" I said. "Good heavens! Mrs. Bingy, I wish you wouldn't call me 'Cossy.'" "I always do forget the Cosma," she said humbly; "I'll try to remember better. But Lena Curtsy--Cossy, she's married to Luke." "Good for them," I said; "and I suppose they had a charivari that woke the cemetery. That's Katytown." "They've gone to housekeeping to Luke's father's," said Mrs. Bingy. "Don't you want to read about it, Cossy--Cosma?" I took the paper. "Mrs. Bingy," I said, "I came down to show you my new dress." "It's a beauty," she said. "I noticed it first thing when I see you. It must be all-silk." She examined it with careful fingers. "I made this of mine myself," she added, proud. "Do you know anything about Keddie?" I asked her. She begun to cry. "That's all that's the matter," she says. "The first money I earned I sent him enough to go and take the cure. The letter come back to me, marked that they couldn't find him. So I took the baby and run down to Katytown, and, sure enough, the house was rented to strangers and not a stick of furniture left in it. He'd sold it all off and went West. And me with the money to give him the cure, when it's too late. I ought," she says, "never to have left him." "Mrs. Bingy," I says, "do you honestly believe that?" "No," says she, "I don't. But it's a terrible thing to own up to. I saw your Ma in Katytown." "Oh!" I says. "How is she? She don't write. She just wrote once and put in a dollar chicken money." "They think you'll be back yet," Mrs. Bingy says. "Your Pa says, 'Her place is here to home with her Ma. Her Ma's getting along in years now, and she needs her to home, and she'd ought to come back.'" "Why don't the boys come back?" I says. "Oh, they're working," Mrs. Bingy says, surprised. "So am I," I says. "Mrs. Bingy! Do you think I ought to go back?" She leaned forward and spoke it behind her hand. "No," she says, "I don't. But it's a terrible thing to own up to." I went back to the school that Monday morning, wondering why it seems hard to own up to so many things that's true. If they're true, the least you can do is to own up to them, ain't it?