she said that people were standing on the street laughing about it when it really was so simple that there was nothing to laugh over. “That’s exactly the point,” said Mahlon. “It is so everlastingly simple that it becomes clever. It puts the burden of the request on the cheese and then leaves the cheese to prove itself. I’ll wager it’s a good one. Did you get a slice?” Then Elizabeth lifted up her voice and remarked: “‘Clever’ is a word I never would have thought of applying to Peter Potter.” Mahlon responded: “And I wouldn’t have thought of attributing those lines to Peter Potter. You can rest assured that they emanated from the brain of that long-headed young Peters, who seems to be getting on better in the world since his mother deserted him than he ever did before.” “It’s a pity,” said Mrs. Spellman, “that he thought best to quit school.” Mahala was like a bird with an eye on each side of the head. With one she was watching her father, with the other her mother. When no comment came to her mother’s last statement, her sense of justice forced speech. “It’s more than a pity,” she said earnestly. “It’s burning shame. Jason always had the highest grades in the class. He was a good boy, but because he couldn’t be well dressed and have money to spend, because he was forced to carry our and other people’s washings, he was picked on and his life made miserable. For some reason that I don’t understand, Junior Moreland, backed by his father, always abused him shamefully.” She stopped suddenly, realizing that the next question would be: “Why?” She felt that she did not understand the secret workings of the “why” and did not dare repeat such parts of it as she had witnessed. When the “Why?” came, as Mahala had feared it would, she answered quietly: “I _suppose_ it’s because Martin Moreland and Junior have no sympathy with unsuccess. It offends their eyes, and stinks in their noses. They strike at it as instinctively as they’d strike at a snake—even if the snake happened to be performing the commendable service of cleaning field mice from the wheat.” Then Elizabeth Spellman laid down her fork. “Good gracious, Mahala!” she cried. “S-st!—I forbid you ever to use such a dreadful word again! Where did you absorb such disgusting ideas? Snakes and mice in the wheat! I sha’n’t be able to eat another bite of bread this meal! In fact, my supper is spoiled now.” Then Mahala laid down her fork, dropped her hands in her lap, and judged her mother with such judgment as she never before had rendered against her.