What are we to do? Jim may be able to do some hauling for people; there’s wood to be carted, and some work to do for the miller, but it’s very irregular. And this is where I come in. This is where I am shown up as a person with much vanity and little common sense. For, of course, it should be my part to make ready money for the family. And I can’t. I don’t know how. I have been thinking I was so capable, and now I see I’m just as useless as—as most girls! Of course I could go away somewhere else and perhaps find some other place where the mountain industries are being developed. But ought I to leave home now? I seem to be very much needed. As you know, sometimes our sweet, unselfish Mother McBirney gets melancholy. She has lived so long away up here on the mountain that her thoughts get to turning inward, and she remembers about Molly’s death, and then for days she is silent and brooding, and we all tremble for her. She looks far, far away and pays almost no attention to what we say to her. This is a very real danger, and if I were not here to shake her out of these moods, who knows what might happen? So there I am, I who wanted to do such wonderful independent things, I who thought I had learned so much, about as useless as anyone could be. At least, as a money-earner. Of course I am not sitting about, beating my breast and throwing dust on my head. I hope you don’t think that. No, I have Mother McBirney’s loom in good working order, and have set it up not too far away from the fireplace, and I am throwing that shuttle like mad, weaving some perfectly fascinating counterpanes. You ought to see the one in red and black in the Tudor rose pattern. Truly, it’s a beauty. I know I can sell it easily enough, and I’m going to charge a good price for it, too. I’m a greedy pig. But you see, I _must_ have money. By rights, Father McBirney ought to have a change. He should go down to Bethal Springs. The waters there are said to cure some terrible cases of rheumatism. But he couldn’t go without Mother; and Mother wouldn’t go without Jim. So there you are. Such a puzzle!