After the will was read Jap lay silent, the tears slipping down his cheeks, for Flossy's will gave all that she possessed to her son, Jap Herron. It was made the day after she knew that her own child was doomed to an early death. They filed slowly from the room, even the Judge awed by the face of the boy. The New Year had turned the corner when Jap was moved to the office. Little by little he grew back into harness. They did not talk of Flossy in those early days. It was not possible. One chill spring day, when the grass was greening, and the first blossoms were opening among the hyacinths on Ellis's grave, Jap walked with Bill to the cemetery. He bent above the dried wreaths with their faded ribbons, sodden and dinged by the winter's snows. "Throw them away, Bill," he choked. "They are the tawdry tokens of mourning. I am trying to forget that mourning." Bill gathered the dry bundles and carried them away. Coming back, he stood looking mournfully upon the muddy sod. Jap raised his eyes suddenly, and they gazed for a long minute into each other's hearts. Bill threw his hands over his eyes and cried aloud. "Don't, Bill!" Jap's hand clutched him tightly. "For God's sake, help me to be a man!" And forgetting the sodden grass, they knelt beside the grave and sobbed together in an abandon of grief. Boys they were, despite their years, and Flossy had been more to them than the mother whom youth is prone to take for granted. When the tempest of sorrow and desolation had spent itself they arose. "It is done," said Jap, looking up into the sky where the stars were beginning to twinkle palely. "It had to be done. Now I can realize that they laid Flossy beneath the earth. But, please God, I can forget it. Now I know that she has left the beautiful shell behind. But, Bill," he touched the mound with his fingers, "Flossy has never been here, never for an instant." "She is in heaven," said Bill reverently. Jap laid his arm around Bill's shoulders. "You don't believe that, Bill. You know better. Flossy is right with us, as Ellis has always been. Just as he has inspired us to develop his paper and his town, so she will stay with us, to create good and optimism and faith in ourselves. Bill, when those two wonderful people came into our lives, they came to stay. Do you think Ellis and Flossy would get any joy out of strumming on a harp and taking their own selfish ease? No, Bill, that's all a mistake. They're working right with us, and it's up to you and me to so wholly reflect them that we will be to this town what they have been to us. In any crisis in our lives, let us not forget that Ellis and Flossy Hinton are not dead. We may have need to remember it, Bill." The next morning he climbed on his stool and took the stick in his hand. Bill stopped at the door of the composing room, something in Jap's attitude arresting him. "What are you going to do, Jap?"