For still seconds this father and mother of boys looked at each other in misery. Both were thinking the same thing, both shrank from what was before them, but even as Joe squared his shoulders Mrs. Dustin straightened hers. "I'm going with you, Joe." So down the autumn street went these two. Joe, because he had promised Hattie when she was sick unto death that he would always watch over the boys, would love and cherish and guard them. Mrs. Dustin was going because Peter was her baby, her strange, weird duckling, full of whimsical fancies and fantastic longings. He was a sort of dream child for whom she alone felt wholly responsible. All the others were good, understandable children. But Peter was odd and nobody but his blue-eyed mother knew how to handle him. "Rosalie, I've never whipped those boys of mine. Some way I couldn't with Hattie gone and them having no one but me. But maybe it was a mistake." "No, it wasn't, Joe. The Greatest Teacher that ever lived used only truth and gentleness and look at the size of His school now. No--this trouble isn't in the children exactly. It must be in us. We're stupid and don't know how to do for the children. People say that young folks must be young folks. And we let our boys and even our girls flounder through a lot of cheap foolishness before we expect them to settle down. "But it's my opinion, Joe, that letting them flounder all alone through these raw years of their life is plain wickedness. Peter has a good home and he's loved and he knows it. Yet he's got to the place now where he wants something that I and the home can't seem to give him. I don't know just what it is. But this place, Joe, bad as it is, must have the thing that our half-grown children want and that's what brings them here even against our will. And I'm going to-night to find out what it is." "It can't be good for them, Rosalie, when it drives them into lying and stealing. Why only to-day Josie Landis sent Eddie to me with fifty cents for the shoes I mended for her. And he gambled that fifty cents away in the slot machine and came and told me a lie!" "Little Eddie Landis! Why--Joe, he's just a baby." "Well--that's what the place is doing to the babies. I don't like it. It's dirty and sneaky and it's working hand in hand with the saloon. It has no business in this town." "But, Joe, it must have something that this town wants or it wouldn't be doing business. It can't be all pure wickedness." But Joe's anger was rising in leaps and bounds so that his very hands shook. Mrs. Dustin stopped and laid a soothing hand on the little shoemaker's arm. "Joe, whatever you do don't get angry in there. Hold on to your temper and don't let yourself even look mad if you can help it. We mustn't humiliate the children for they'd never forgive. You better let me do all the talking at first."