I became interested. Would the showman prove true to his promise? He surely would. No man who could deliberately deceive a poor little cripple like Joe could possibly possess enough sentiment in his soul to please an audience. Once when Joe wasn’t looking, Charley winked at me and smiled. What did he mean? Was he amused at Joe’s doubts, or was he tasting the joke he was going to play on the poor boy later on? So certain was I of this that I began to look at the man more closely. His face was a puzzle. Not a bad face, but no doubt a lover of a practical joke. Maybe he thought it a great joke that any one should expect to have his entrance money refunded after the show was over. I began to hate the man for what he intended to do, and pitied the boy more and more, as so many people passed by unheeding his petition, “Won’t you help a poor cripple?” They couldn’t help but hear, but so many people have grown calloused to the appeals of the unfortunate that they can pass through a shower of appeals without even putting up an umbrella. One man even declared to me, on the side, that Joe’s begging should be prohibited. He said it encouraged begging in other boys who were not cripples. He said the town of Pottsville should support the boy in comfort, and not drive him to begging for a living. In his own city he paid an annual poor tax for the support of the indigent people, and stopped at this. He was opposed to begging. I suggested that maybe the sound of a beggar’s voice kept our hearts mellow and our charity warm toward the world and God’s miserable poor. He gave me a look of contempt and passed on. I do not know his profession. He might have been a lawyer or a minister or a doctor. Anyhow, he was no worse than the showman who was going to fool poor Joe. Then the ticket window went up and there was a rush of people. I heard Joe’s voice above the noise of tramping feet: “Don’t forget, Charley!” I felt like crying. Poor crippled Joe! The crowd was rushing for the train. I saw Charley stop and drop several coins into Joe’s outstretched hand, and heard his “Oh, thank you, Charley! I’ll go to your show every time you come back to Pottsville.” RACE SUICIDE During the last ten years race suicide has been one of the leading problems of life, and on several occasions I have written my views on this subject. I have not changed my views at all after hearing the many arguments of the old conservative “stand patters” who try to imitate Solomon and the other prolific polygamists of long ago. There is no such a thing as race suicide. When big families are necessary, the big family will be fashionable. There is an ebb and flow to everything. Just now the pendulum of progress is swinging out toward the small, healthy, educated family of two to six children.