"I remember when I came here five years ago," went on Maggie after Travis had left, "I was so proud an' happy. I was healthy an' well an' so happy to think I cu'd make a livin' for the home-folks--for daddy an' the little ones. Oh, they would put them in the mill, but I said no, I'll work my fingers off first. Let 'em play an' grow. Yes, they've lived on what I have made for five years--daddy down on his back, too, an' the children jus' growin', an' now they are big enough and strong enough to he'p me run the little farm--instead"--she said after a pause--"instead of bein' dead an' buried, killed in the mill. That was five years ago--five years"--she coughed and looked out of the window reflectively. "Daddy--poor daddy--he couldn't help the tree fallin' on his back an' cripplin' him; an' little Buddy, well, he was born weakly, so I done it all. Oh, I am not braggin' an' I ain't complainin', I'm so proud to do it." Helen was silent, her own bitterness softened by the story Maggie was telling, and for a while she forgot herself and her sorrow. It is so always. When we would weep we have only to look around and see others who would wail. "When I come I was as rosy as you," Maggie went on; "not so pretty now, mind you--nobody could be as pretty as you." She said it simply, but it touched Helen. "But I'll get my color back on the little farm--I'll be well again." She was silent a while. "I kno' you are wonderin' how I saved and got it." Helen saw her face sparkle and the spots deepen. "Mr. Travis has been so kind to me in--in other ways--but that's a big secret," she laughed, "I'm to tell you some day, or rather you'll see yo'self, an' then, oh--every thing will be all right an' I'll be ever so much happier than I am now." She jumped up impulsively and stood before Helen. "Mightn't I kiss you once,--you're so pretty an' fresh?" And she kissed the pretty girl half timidly on the cheek. "It makes me so happy to think of it," she went on excitedly, "to think of owning a little farm all by ourselves, to go out into the air every day whenever you feel like it and not have to work in the mill, nor ask anybody if you may, but jus' go out an' see things grow--an' hear the birds sing and set under the pretty green trees an' gather wild flowers if you want to. To keep house an' to clean up an' cook instead of forever drawin'-in, an' to have a real flower garden of yo' own--yo' very own." They worked for hours, Maggie talking as a child who had found at last a sympathetic listener. Twilight came and then a clang of bells and the shaft above them began to turn slower and slower. Helen looked up wondering why it had all stopped so suddenly. She met the eyes of Travis looking at her. "I am to take you home," he said to her, "the trotters are at the door. Oh," as he looked at her work--"why, you have done first rate for the day." "It's Maggie's," she whispered.