“And what am I to do with my children? We have been getting along, after a manner, but the children are now showing the effects of neglect. It may require another sacrifice before the children are all pulled through. Bessie, my eldest girl, has never had any childhood. She has been forced into womanhood before she fairly tasted the joys of happy girlhood, and she is growing into that peculiar condition where the overburdened body takes on the appearance of age, and the dream-light no longer shines in the hopeless eyes.” “You take things too seriously,” I said, by way of cheering him up. “That may be,” he replied, “but God knows how seriously things are taking me! I love my children and would educate them all, if possible, but it looks now as though I will never be able to educate any of them. This poor hillside farm is all I have in the world, and debts accumulate much faster than crops grow. When a man gets so far in debt that release seems hopeless, the future looks uninviting to that man. “And it’s all owing to my blind ignorance! So long as my wife lived I was proud to be called the father of ten children. It put me in a class with those patriarchs of old, who gloried in their many offspring. I forgot that these same old patriarchs gloried in their many wives, as well.” Then pointing down the valley he asked: “Do you see that white house over yonder? That man has two children. They are now attending high school over in the city. He is able to give them both a good education, and no doubt the two will accomplish more good in the world than my ten, who must grow up in ignorance and be fit to only perform menial and poorly paid labor. “And that’s not all, nor the worst: Growing up without a mother’s care and loving hand to guide them, I often tremble for their safety. The pitfalls and traps set to catch the unsophisticated girls are numerous and temptations lurk in every dark corner. Race suicide may be a sin, but mother sacrifice is a barbarous outrage. Outraged nature is taking revenge out of me. I painted this picture myself, with living pictures, but the face of a martyred mother is in the background.” THE TOY MAKER Just across the river lives the old toy maker, an old bachelor who has been living the life of a hermit for many years. He is now almost seventy years old, but works at his bench as vigorously as he did when I first knew him. He will not discuss his past life, but avoids it as though old memories give him pain. But his relatives say he was once disappointed in love—jilted on what was to be his wedding day. Some pretend to know of a wedding suit still preserved and packed away in a trunk, but never to be worn by a bridegroom while the old toy maker lives and has the clothes in his possession.