Her father had taken the cat on his lap, and in a chair tipped back against the wall, with a broom splint between his teeth, sat reading the county paper. Martha stood on the doorstep looking off to the mountains, and there was the old wistful look on her face again. The April sun had clouded in, and so had the bright spirit of the child. She tried to draw to her the warmth that had been holding her close, but instead there rested upon her a dreary sense of loneliness. Jerusha wouldn't wash white aprons every day, even if she fussed to put them on. In the morning her father would be off to the smelter. The same old life waited for her. She stood for a long time there in the door. Then her father reached around and took hold of her. "What's the matter?" He had heard a sob. And though the little girl drew back he pulled her to him. "You ain't cryin'? Hoity-toity! A white apron, and hair all fixed, and the girls taking her right in, and--crying!" "But, pa, I can't make it stay. Jerusha won't wash white aprons, and there ain't enough, anyway--and--it's so lonesome here with just Jerusha! All the rest of the girls have some one standing close--as close as that to them." And the little girl clutched at her father's coat-sleeve to demonstrate the closeness of relationship, while the sobs came thick and fast. "Nobody but Jerusha!" The father brought his chair down from the wall, and all the blood in his body seemed to rush to his face. "Nobody standing close! Where be I standing? What am I going to the smelter for, putting two days into one, if it ain't standing close?" The man spoke impetuously, the words tumbling recklessly one over the other, and the little girl's sobs were tumbling in the same way; neither seemed inclined to stop the other. "What'd I stand in front of Simonses show-window last night for, looking at them posies they've got for Easter, if 'twasn't because I'd liked to have brought the hull lot home? And why didn't I bring 'em home? Just so as I could slip more money this month in under the little bank winder. And what am I slippin' money into the bank for? Why'd I buy them Jersey cows, and that bit o' mountain park, if 'twasn't because I knowed Jerusha was the best butter-maker in town, and butter meant money, and money meant an easy time for you by and by? Standin' close!" The man's voice broke. The little girl had ceased crying and was standing with wide, strained eyes fastened on her father. What did it all mean? But the father did not say what it meant. As one suddenly overtaken, he pushed the cat from off his lap, rose, drew a long breath, and reached for his hat.