For one thing, I was taken ill.  That brought the doctor into the house; and since then we have always had him to reckon with and to settle with.  Then there was an insurance policy to keep up.  In our dream days, the possibility of my dying sometime had never entered our heads; but now it was an awful reality.  And that quarterly premium developed a distressing habit of falling due at the most inopportune times.  Just when we thought we should have at least twenty dollars for ourselves, in would come the little yellow slip informing us that the thirty days’ grace expired on the fifth.

But the home-of-our-own was still in our dreams.  We were happy, but we were going to be still happier.  If ever we could get rid of those furniture installments we could start saving for the kind of home we wanted.

Then, one evening, Mother whispered the happiest message a wife ever tells a husband.  We were no longer to live merely for ourselves; there was to be another soon, who should bind us closer together and fill our lives with gladness.

But—­and many a night we sat for hours and planned and talked and wondered—­how were we to meet the expense?  There was nothing in the savings bank, and much was needed there.  Mother had cherished for years her ideas for her baby’s outfit.  They would cost money; and I would be no miserly father, either!  My child should have the best of everything, somehow.  It was up to me to get it, somehow, to....  If only that furniture were paid for!

Then a curious event occurred.  I owed little bills amounting to about twenty-one dollars.  This sum included the gas, electric light, and telephone bills, on which an added sum was charged if unpaid before the tenth of the month.  I had no money to meet them.  I was worried and discouraged.  To borrow that sum would have been easy, but to pay it back would have been difficult.

That very morning, into the office came the press agent of a local theatre, accompanied by Mr. Henry Dixey, the well-known actor.  Mr. Dixey wanted two lyrics for songs.  He had the ideas which he wished expressed in rhyme, and wondered whether or not I would attempt them.  I promised him that I would, and on the spot he handed me twenty-five dollars in cash to bind the bargain.  If those songs proved successful I should have more.

The way out had been provided!  From Mr. Dixey’s point of view, those songs were not a success; but from mine they were, for they bridged me over a chasm I had thought I could not leap.  I never heard from that pair of songs afterward; but neither Mother nor I will ever forget the day they were written.

It meant more than the mere paying of bills, too.  It taught us to have faith—­faith in ourselves and faith in the future.  There is always a way out of the difficulties.  Even though we cannot see or guess what that way is to be, it will be provided.  Since then we have gone together through many dark days and cruel hurts and bitter disappointments, but always to come out stronger for the test.