She sighed and with a look of remembering old dreams she declared: "I wish my old man and I could do that. Gawd! I wouldn't care how cold we got. Just get away for a month! Then I'd be willing to come back here and go on cooking up messes. He goes into town almost every day in winter--he's there now--but I stay here and just work." Father understood that it would have desecrated her vision of the heroic had he played the mouth-organ for pay; perceived that she didn't even want him to chop wood. Mother and he were, to this woman, a proof that freedom and love and distant skies did actually exist, and that people, just folks, not rich, could go and find them. When she had warmed Mother's feet and given them her wistful good wishes, the woman let them go, and the Smiths recently Applebys, went comfortably and plumply two more miles on their way to Japan. Father's conscience was troubling him, not because he had taken food from the woman--she had bestowed it with the friendly and unpatronizing graciousness of poor women--but because he had been too cowardly to play the mouth-organ. When Mother had begun to walk wearily and Father had convinced himself that he wouldn't be afraid to play, next chance he had, they approached a crude road-house, merely a roadside saloon, with carriage-sheds, a beer sign, and one lone rusty iron outdoor table to give an air of _al fresco_. "I'm going over there and play," said Father. "I won't have you hanging around saloons," snapped Mother. "Now, Mother, I reckon I wouldn't more than drink a couple of horses' necks or something wild like that." "Yes, and that's just the way temptation gets you," said Mother, "drinking horses' necks and all them brandy drinks. I wish I'd never tasted that nasty cocktail you made me take last year. I wish I'd joined the White-Ribboners like Mrs. Tubbs wanted me to." "Well, we'll organize a Hoboes' Chapter of the W. C. T. U. and have meetings under the water-tank at the depot--" They were interrupted by a hail from the road-house. A large man with a detective's mustache and a brewer's cheeks, a man in shirt-sleeves and a white apron, stood on the porch, calling, "Hey! Mr. and Mrs. Smith! Come right in and get warm." Father and Mother stared at each other. "He means us," gasped Father. Mechanically the Innocents straggled across the road. The saloon-keeper shook hands with both of them, and bellowed: "Lady telephoned along the line--great things for gossip, these rural telephones--said you was coming this way, and we're all watching out for you. You come right into the parlor. No booze served in there, Mrs. Smith. Make yourselves comfortable, and I'll have the Frau cut you up a coupla sandwiches. How'd you leave San Francisco? Pretty warm out there, ain't it?"