Miss Claire, bless her, payin’ me seven dollars a week board, which she doesn’t eat no more than a bird, an’ Sammy singin’ in the surplus choir, an’ gettin’ fifty cents a week for it, an’ extra for funer’ls (it’d take your time to hear’m lamentin’ because business ain’t brisker in the funer’l line!).  Why, we ain’t no call to be discouraged.  You can take it from me, Sammy Slawson, when things seem to be kinder shuttin’ down on ye, an’ gettin’ black-like, same’s they lately been doin’ on us, that ain’t no time to be chicken-hearted.  Anybody could fall down when they’re knocked.  That’s too dead-easy!  No, what we want, is buck up an’ have some style about us.  When things shuts down an’ gets dark at the movin’-picture show, then it’s time to sit up an’ take notice.  That means somethin’s doin’—­you’re goin’ to be showed somethin’ interestin’.  Well, it’s the same with us.  But if you lose your sand at the first go-off, an’ sag down an’ hide your face in your hands, well, you’ll miss the show.  You won’t see a bloomin’ thing.”

And Martha, sleeves rolled up, enveloped in an enormous blue-checked apron, returned to her assault on the dough she was kneading, with redoubled zeal.

“Bread, mother?” asked Sam dully, letting himself down wearily into a chair by the drop-table, staring indifferently before him out of blank eyes.

“Shoor!  An’ I put some currants in, to please the little fella.  I give in, my bread is what you might call a holy terror.  Ain’t it the caution how I can’t ever make bread fit to be eat, the best I can do?  An’ yet, I can’t quit tryin’.  You see, home-made bread, if it’s good, is cheaper than store.  Perhaps some day I’ll be hittin’ it right, so’s when you ask me for bread I won’t be givin’ you a stone.”

She broke off abruptly, gazed a moment at her husband, then stepped to his side, and put a floury hand on his shoulder.  “Say, Sam, what you lookin’ so for?  You ain’t lost your sand just because they fired you?  What’s come to you, lad?  Tell Martha.”

For a second there was no sound in the room, then the man looked up, gulped, choked down a mighty sob, and laid his head against her breast.

“Martha—­there’s somethin’ wrong with my lung.  That’s why they thrown me down.  They had their doctor from the main office examine me—­they’d noticed me coughin’—­and he said I’d a spot on my lung or—­something.  I shouldn’t stay here in the city, he said.  I must go up in the mountains, away from this, where there’s the good air and a chance for my lung to heal, otherwise—­”

Martha stroked the damp hair away from his temples with her powdery hand.

“Well, well!” she said reflectively.  “Now, what do you think o’ that!”

“O, Martha—­I can’t stand it!  You an’ the children!  It’s more than I can bear!”

Mrs. Slawson gave the head against her breast a final pat that, to another than her husband, might have felt like a blow.