"Mother," he called in an undertone, and the woman who had borne his children and stood shoulder to shoulder with him through the years of fight, came over and knelt at his knee. He took her hand and held it for a while in silence, and then he said a little brokenly: "Mother, when we first came here from the little church down there, this house looked pretty good to us, didn't it?" "To me, Tom," she said softly, "it has always looked good." "Do you remember," he went on irrelevantly, "when we brought that slip of vine from the mountain and planted it by the porch? It's over the roof now." The woman only pressed his hand; and after a moment he went on. "There are a couple of graves out there in the churchyard that I'd hate mightily to leave." "The two we lost," she whispered. "An' yet maybe if we stay here we'll lose 'em all." Tom Burton was making a decided effort to hold his voice steady. "Don't--don't, Tom," protested the woman. "When you married me, Elizabeth," he went on with the air of one resolved to take full account, "I reckon you could have done a good deal better, it's been a long fight here an' a hard one." "I've been happy," she told him. "Your hand was right slim then, an' now it's hard from work. To me, there ain't no other hand as beautiful, mother, but there's no use denying that we can't hold out much longer, unless the children stand by an' help us." "They will, Tom. They will. Ham may talk, but he won't desert." "I know that, but the question is, have we got the right to hold them here? Is Ham raving, or is he right? That's the question you an' me have got to decide, mother." "Do you think, Tom," she demanded, rising and anxiously looking at him, "do you think that even if we had all the things money could give us--we'd be any happier in the long run? Life's been hard with us, but it's always been wholesome." "I'm contented, mother, but what does well enough for old blood may not satisfy the young. It ain't the first time I've thought about this thing. They're quittin' all round us, an' they're quittin' because they're beat. I've always thought this country could be redeemed. If boys like Ham thought so, too, it might be done, but it takes young blood, and if a feller's heart ain't in it, he can't do it." Her only answer was a sigh, and he continued: "We've still got enough laid by in the bank to live somewhere for a few years an' give the children decent educations. If we stay here too long maybe we can't even do that. What shall we do?" For a while they sat without talk, and then the mother brokenly suggested: "Let's hear what Ham says an' let's make up our minds slow." Together they rose, and, blowing out the lamp, went up the stairs. As they passed Ham's door they paused, and the father whispered, "I don't want the boy to think I'm hard on him." Inside, there was no light, but they could hear the eldest son thrashing restlessly about in his bed, and they knew that he was not sleeping.