The Uphill Climb

res

be, placed it, with many little pats and pulls, under the afflicted member. Josephine screwed her lips into a soundless expressio

colate to-day? I can make chocolate just as easy as no

hine's tone carried the full

imply fine! Chester thinks there's no one like him; and Buddy just tags him around everywhere. You can always," asserted Kate, with the positiveness of the pe

inquired pointedly, with the irrelevance which se

know. He's positively handsome-or will be when the-when his nose heals perfectly. A

innocent, and her fingers were busy with the wide, b

r in every other respect, I'd shake you! It isn't fair. Because

dead after the battle, a

and," she went on with her voice lowered to the pitch at which women are wont to relate horrid, immoral things, "-I wouldn't be surprised if they put something in it! Such things are done; I've heard of men being drugged and robbed and all sorts of things. And I'm just as much of

ugged whisky down his throat?" Phenie inquired mildly

with her head well up and a manner which silently made plain to the onlooker that she might say ma

into the dining-room. As it happened, it was Mason himself. Miss Josephine immediately lost interest in the arrival and took to tracing with her finger the outline of a Japanese lad

e to the immaculate house he was about to enter, by wiping his feet upon a mat placed with mathematical precision upon the porch, at the head of the steps. Josephine watched the ceremonial, and studied Ford's profile, and did not l

projected himself into the room, st

elf," he announced without preface. "They'll just pick up your chair, and pack ch

d then, in a supremely indifferent tone which was of course qu

eir rather brief acquaintance; which, according to his mother's well-known theory, was convincing proof of her intrinsic worth-Mrs. Kat

e time Chester opened the door. Behind him came Ford; Miss Josephine moved her lips and tilted her head in a perfunctory greeting, and afterward gave him no more attention than if he had

s was politely possible, which caused Mason to watch them with amusement, and

t dish towel from the rack behind the pantry door. "They'd be sticking out their tongues at each

a man wants to reform, I believe in helping him instead of pushing him father down." (Mrs. Kate had certain little peculiarities of speech; one was an italicized delivery, and another was the omission of an r now and then. She always said "father" when she really meant "farther.") "There's a lot that one can do to help. I belie

," observed Mason, just to the core. "Seems to

. You can't expect him to like her when she won't look at him, hardly; it makes me feel terribly, because he's sure to think it's because he-I've tried to make her see

m, and Mrs. Kate turned sharply upon her offspring. "They was waving hands to each other just now,

st not listen to older people and try to t

stuck on each other," Buddy maint

s, like your mother sai

ay like a good boy." She gave him a little cake to accelerate his departure and to turn his mind from further argument, and after he was gone she swung the discussion to Bud

been struck with the humorous side of Ford and Josephine's perfectly ridiculous antipathy, and had lingered in the kitchen because of a half-conscious impulse to enjoy the joke with some one. And Mrs. Kate had not

doubts lest he should disappoint this man who trusted him so rashly and so implicitly. Ford was busy at work which appealed to the best of him. He was thrown into companionship with men who perforce lived cleanly and naturally, and with Ches Mason, who was his friend. At meals he sometimes gave thought to Mrs. Kate, and frequently to Josephine. The first he admired impersonally for her housewifely skill, and smiled at secretly for her purely feminine outlook upon life and her positive views upon subjects of which she knew not

nd that he was not married (at least, not uncomfortably so), and that he was not compelled to do more than eat his meals in the house. Mrs. Kate was a nice woman; Ford would tell any man so in perfect sincerity. He even considered her nice looking, with her smooth, brown hair which was never disordered, her fine, clear skin, her white teeth, her clear blue eyes, and her immaculate shirt-waists. But she was not a comfortable woman to be with; an ordinary human wearied of adjusting his speech, his manners, and hi

gh the window-had been that day when he had helped Mason carry her and her big chair into the dining-room. The brief contact had left with him a vision of the delicate parting in her soft, brown hair, and of long, thick lashes which curled daintily up from the shadow they made on her cheeks. He did not remember ever having seen a woman with such eyelashes. They impelled him to glance at her oftener th

Mason's diagnosis of that particular symptom of interest. Ford would, if put to the question, have maintained quite sincerely th

ain to gather the calves for weaning, and he was absorbed in the endless details which fall upon the shou

uddy was to have the privilege of filling the manger with hay every morning after breakfast, and every evening just before supper. Upon Buddy also devolved the duty of keeping his drinking tub fi

it, Bud! And when he gets well, I'll let you ride him, maybe. Anyway, I leave him in your care, old-timer. And it's a privilege I wouldn't give every man. I think a heap of this horse." He turned a

nned over the manifest struggle between his haste to tell hi

ching up to the narrow shelf where he kept his tobacco. "I wish I had two or t

eyelids, was more than ever thankful