"I've been wondering, Reuben," said his wife--"I've been wondering if 'twouldn't have been just as well if we'd taken some of the good things while they was goin'--before we got too old to enjoy 'em." "Yes--peanuts, for instance," acquiesced her husband ruefully. In the Footsteps of Katy Only Alma had lived--Alma, the last born. The other five, one after another, had slipped from loving, clinging arms into the great Silence, leaving worse than a silence behind them; and neither Nathan Kelsey nor his wife Mary could have told you which hurt the more,--the saying of a last good-bye to a stalwart, grown lad of twenty, or the folding of tiny, waxen hands over a heart that had not counted a year of beating. Yet both had fallen to their lot. As for Alma--Alma carried in her dainty self all the love, hopes, tenderness, ambitions, and prayers that otherwise would have been bestowed upon six. And Alma was coming home. "Mary," said Nathan one June evening, as he and his wife sat on the back porch, "I saw Jim Hopkins ter-day. Katy's got home." "Hm-m,"--the low rocker swayed gently to and fro,--"Katy's been ter college, same as Alma, ye know." "Yes; an'--an' that's what Jim was talkin' 'bout He was feelin' bad-powerful bad." "Bad!"--the rocker stopped abruptly. "Why, Nathan!" "Yes; he--" There was a pause, then the words came with the rush of desperation. "He said home wan't like home no more. That Katy was as good as gold, an' they was proud of her; but she was turrible upsettin'. Jim has ter rig up nights now ter eat supper--put on his coat an' a b'iled collar; an' he says he's got so he don't dast ter open his head. They're all so, too--Mis' Hopkins, an' Sue, an' Aunt Jane--don't none of 'em dast ter speak." "Why, Nathan!--why not?" "'Cause of--Katy. Jim says there don't nothin' they say suit Katy--'bout its wordin', I mean. She changes it an' tells 'em what they'd orter said." "Why, the saucy little baggage!"--the rocker resumed its swaying, and Mary Kelsey's foot came down on the porch floor with decided, rhythmic pats. The man stirred restlessly. "But she ain't sassy, Mary," he demurred. "Jim says Katy's that sweet an' pleasant about it that ye can't do nothin'. She tells 'em she's kerrectin' 'em fur their own good, an' that they need culturin'. An' Jim says she spends all o' meal-time tellin' 'bout the things on the table,--salt, an' where folks git it, an' pepper, an' tumblers, an' how folks make 'em. He says at first 'twas kind o' nice an' he liked ter hear it; but now, seems as if he hain't got no appetite left ev'ry time he sets down ter the table. He don't relish eatin' such big words an' queer names.