THE stars were beginning to fade; Orion stood upright in the western sky, Venus was well above the horizon; by the Shepherd’s Kalendar it was November, and the sun would soon rise. Three figures came out of a little house on a hill, and hurried down the road. They did not look up at the unknown stars, nor down at the well-known road; they looked straight ahead, and planned their day. As the light strengthened, they defined themselves as a woman of middle age, a tall, slight girl of eighteen, and an awkward boy, who might have been fifteen. He hung back, and grumbled.

‘Plenty time,’ said he. ‘Gee! I wish I was goin’! ’

The sun rose upon their haste, and illumined a great valley beneath, half full of cloud; nearer by, peaks and high plateaus appeared; it was a mountain country, far flung, wooded, beautiful; they were not far from its highest point.

‘There’s the sun,’ said the girl in an agony. ‘Mother! We’re going to miss the train.’

The two women strained their ears for the whistle of the engine, and hurried more than ever; the boy continued to lag behind and grumble.

‘Now, Thomas,’ said his mother, ‘Dorothy and I can’t behave the way men do. We just have to hurry when we go to a train. You got to make allowance, son.’

Thomas quickened his steps and smiled in his mother’s face. ‘You got lots of time,’ he said good-humoredly.

‘Better be an hour too early than five minutes too late,’ said his mother.

So her father had told her; so Thomas would some day tell his son; it was one of the sayings that Age foists upon Youth, who rejects it, and remembers it, and uses it at last.

They waited a long time at the station before the train came along and swallowed them up.

‘We’ll be back on Number Twelve,’ Mrs. Smart called out to Thomas.

It is the custom in the Pocono to call trains by their numbers, which are, in a sense, their Christian names. The hamlets in those mountains are not unlike a scattered village; the railroad is the village street. Thomas answered, inarticulately, and the human driftwood that gathers at such stations disintegrated, to gather afresh for the next train.

After October, when most of the hotels close, nobody in the Pocono mountains has much to do but watch the trains and wait for April — when the trout fishermen come.

Mrs. Smart had a little house at Tip Top, where she lived with her two children. She was a bookkeeper by trade, but she was a capable woman, and could help out almost anywhere. She was a worker. Dorothy and Thomas, heredity to t he contrary, were not as yet inclined that way, but their mother meant they should be when, as she said, they grew up.

She and Dorothy sat side by side in the crowded car. When the conductor came through, he greeted them as old friends.

‘Goin’ to Philadelphia?’ he said, punching their tickets.

Mrs. Smart nodded, smiling. ‘Mrs. Schauss wants a new parlor carpet,’ she said, ‘and she said if I’d go down and get it, she’d give me my ticket. And I need a winter coat, and Dorothy ’s going to get a new dress.’

‘Be at Tip Top Inn next summer?’

‘If Mr. Haydock wants me, Mr. Johns.’

‘He’ll want you,’ said Johns. ‘Chester County Quaker, ain’t he?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Smart, with a little laugh. ‘Most of ’em are in summer. But he’s nice.’

‘They know a good thing when they see it,’ said Johns. He smoothed his grizzled moustache. He would have liked a little talk with Mrs. Smart, who was a pretty and friendly woman, much liked along the road, but he was afraid of Dorothy’s disdainful young profile, outlined against the window.

‘Change at Stroudsberg,’ he said mechanically, and went heavily on down the car.

‘Why, yes,’ said Mrs. Smart. ‘To think of his telling us that. But he’s nice.’

‘He’s old,’ said Dorothy. ‘I’m glad he went away. I think a voyle, mother.’

‘I think a voyle,’ said her mother, with eager interest. ‘Let’s talk about it.’

They changed at Stroudsberg, and went on through the great Gap that the Delaware River has cut for itself in the Blue Mountains, and so on down to Philadelphia. They went first to the department store that the Pocono folk affect, and bought the carpet.

‘Now the dress,’ said Mrs. Smart.

Dorothy hesitated; she loved to dally with the thought of the dress; until she should decide, all the dresses in Philadelphia were hers; afterwards, but that one.

‘You better get your coat first, mother. You might get it here.’

‘I bought my last winter coat here, four years ago. They’d take an interest. And I might get the same lady.’

‘Yes,’ said Dorothy. In her heart she was appalled by the greatness and unconcern of the city. She, too, hoped they would get the same lady.

They did. At least she said they did; Mrs. Smart doubted it.

‘ She had n’t all that hair four years ago,’ she said to herself.

‘Never mind, she’s nice.’

‘Ninety dollars,’ said the lady haughtily. ‘A French model.’

Mrs. Smart gasped. ‘Fourteen is as high as I can go,’ said she.

‘Why mother,’ said Dorothy, disgraced. ‘It is n’t either.’

The lady looked into Mrs. Smart’s honest eyes; she had honest and kindly eyes, herself, under her fuzz of hair. ‘Dearie,’ she said. ‘I’ve been there myself. Here’s a line of last year’s coats, marked down. They’re lovely. They’re long, and they’re wearing them short in Paris, but land, what difference does that make to you and me?’

‘ We like to be in style in the Pocono,’ said Dorothy.

‘ It must be fierce up there in winter,’ said the lady. ‘Twenty-two fifty.’

Mrs. Smart shook her head. She and Dorothy whispered together.

‘What made you say fourteen? She thought it was funny. You’ve got fifteen fifty.’

‘I plan to spend a dollar on ties for Thomas, and we’ve got to keep some for our lunch. Fourteen’s a plenty to spend on a coat.’

‘It’s hell to be poor,’ said Dorothy, suddenly. Her face worked.

‘Oh, my daughter,’ said Mrs. Smart in terror; ‘don’t talk so. Remember our little home, and Thomas, and all. Think of all we’ve got!’ ‘Here’s a nice lot of last spring coats,’said the lady, patiently. ‘Thin, but you could wear something under ’em.’ She glanced at Dorothy’s back; it heaved convulsively. ‘It’s fierce when they want things, ain’t it?’ she said, with comprehension. ‘My little girl’s only ten, but she’s beginning. My, it’s fierce to be a mother, ain’t, it — when they want things, and you have n’t got ’em to give?’

Mrs. Smart nodded, speechlessly. ‘This is pretty,’said she, after a pause; ‘real pretty.’

‘Here’s two for fourteen,’said the lady, returning to business. ‘A blue and a black. The blue’s prettiest, but the black’s nearer your size.

‘You would n’t hold them while we go and look at a dress?’ said Mrs. Smart, anxiously. ‘I could n’t expect it — but ’t would be a help.'

‘And you could take a look at coats elsewhere,’ said the lady, as one who knows the secrets of the human heart. ‘Land, I don’t blame you, but you won’t do any better. Yes, I’ll hold ’em, till two-thirty. I’ve been there myself.’

‘ If you should ever come to Tip Top,’said Mrs. Smart, ‘there’s a house you’d be welcome in. Late falls and winters and early in spring, before the trout season opens, I take in a boarder. I’d be pleased to take you, ma’am, and the little girl. I would n’t charge for her. She’d like it, and we’d like her. If I don’t see you again, I’m Mrs. Lydia Smart, Tip Top, Monroe County, Pennsylvania. Every one knows me in the Pocono. And thank you! Goodbye ! Good-bye ! ’

‘ Good-bye! ’

The two women parted with a handclasp. Dorothy looked mi with a kind of disapproving admiration, such as her mother’s doings often inspired in her.

‘You do make friends!’ she said, when they were out of earshot. ‘You might have asked her about a voyle. She’ll come to Tip Top. You see!’

‘Never mind. Society wears ’em at the Inn all summer,’ said Mrs. Smart. ‘I hope she does come. I wish I did n’t have to charge guests, but I do and that’s all there is to it. A voyle’s what you want, Dorothy Smart. We’ll go right now and get it.’

They bought the voile, with varying emotions, but their final mood was one of satisfaction. Then they parted until train time. Mrs. Smart bought Thomas’s ties, and did a few errands for Tip Top people; then she wandered down Chestnut Street, looking in the windows; her feet burned with fatigue; her healthy Pocono appetite awoke and cried for food.

‘Why!’ said a hearty voice, ‘I declare, if it is n’t Mrs. Smart!’

‘ Why, Mr. Lincoln,’ said Mrs. Smart.

Lincoln’s fresh-colored, smooth-shaven face beamed with pleasure. ‘How’s all the folks in the Pocono? How’s Mr. Schauss? Does he have his order ready now, or does he make the traveling men wait all day for it, like he used to me?’

‘He’s Pennsylvania Dutch; he likes to make folks wait.’

Mrs. Smart laughed, but her laughter had a weary sound and the man peered down at her.

‘Had your dinner?’

‘I had a cup of chocolate, and a cracker. I thought it would be five cents, but they asked me ten.’

‘Suppose we get our dinner together.’

‘I guess I won’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, the truth is I’ve got just five cents left,’ said Mrs. Smart. She laughed and her pretty face took a fresher color. ‘ Thomas’s ties cost more than I thought, and I don’t want to touch my coat money. I’m all right, Mr. Lincoln. I read in the paper where it said everybody had too much to eat. If I’ve had too much to eat, it’s time I stopped.’

‘Did you think I wanted you to pay for yourself? What’s the matter with your taking dinner with me?’

‘ I did n’t want to go to a party when I was n’t asked, Mr. Lincoln.’

‘You’re asked all right. We’ll go to the station. You can get a good meal there.’

‘I’ve never taken a meal at the station, but I’ve often wished to,’ said Mrs. Smart. ‘You’re kind, Mr. Lincoln.’

‘Kind yourself,’ said Lincoln. ‘Come along! ’

‘I wish Dorothy could have had this instead of me,’ said Mrs. Smart, half an hour later. ‘She went to see a girl friend. She was going to stay to dinner, if they asked her, and take her lunch money to buy a jabot. We generally carry our lunch, when we come to the city, but Thomas knocked the eggs off the table in the dark, this morning, and Dorothy did n’t think it was worth while to take just bread and butter. She’s pretty, Mr. Lincoln. Just as pretty, and nice — and Thomas! — He’s almost sixteen, and a good boy. He’s in Mr. Schauss’s now. He don’t like it much, but he stays to please me. Let me see — why you have n’t seen Thomas for four years. You would n’t know him.’

‘ I’ve buried my wife since I saw you last, Mrs. Smart.’

“You have! Why, Mr. Lincoln, I’m so sorry. How I must have worried you, talking so much, and eating so much. Why did n’t you tell me?’

‘Well, I don’t know. I thought it might cast a chill. I often think of you now I’m alone in the world.’

Mrs. Smart stiffened perceptibly. ‘She was an invalid, was n’t she, Mr. Lincoln?’

‘She was mindless,’ said Lincoln. It is a Quaker expression; he came of Quaker stock. ‘She was in a sanitarium the last ten years.’

‘She was?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘ She was! ’

‘Yes, ma’am, she was. I kept her as comfortable as anybody there, but there was n’t much comfort in it for me.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr. Lincoln.’

‘You’re not going?’

‘I must, and thank you for the dinner. I never tasted a better one at the Inn even. Everything a body could wish.’

‘Sit down again. I want to speak to you.’

Mrs. Smart sat down on the edge of her chair, ready to take flight at a word, like Mercury.

‘I’m in the firm now, Mrs. Smart, and we’re doing well. I’d like to call up to Tip Top to see you some day.’

‘I’m a busy woman, Mr. Lincoln.’

‘So am I a busy man, but I’d find time for that. I’ve liked you ever since I first saw you, Mrs. Smart — Lydia — but knowing the kind of woman you are, I knew it was no use me saying a word. You’d have shown me the door.’

‘I would, Mr. Lincoln.’

‘You would, and right, too. But I sometimes thought you—liked me,’ said Lincoln, almost shyly. ’I — I used to wonder. Now my wife’s dead and gone, and — what do you say ? I’ve had a hard life — no home, no children, and you might say no wife — I’d like a little happiness. I’d take good care of you, Lydia. You work too hard. You would n’t have to work if you married me.’

‘I like work,’ said Mrs. Smart; but she colored deeply, and did not meet Lincoln’s look.

‘You’re thinking of your children. The girl’ll marry. They tell me — I keep track of Tip Top news — they tell me Joe Bogardus is going with her. The boy — he’ll leave you. Boys don’t stay at home. Well, what do you say?’

‘I say no, Mr. Lincoln. I’m sorry about the dinner! If I’d known what was coming, I would n’t have accepted your invitation.’

‘Damn the dinner! I guess you can take that from me. What have you got against me, Lydia? You think I’m doing it because I want a comfortable home, but it ain’t that. I — love you, Lydia!’ said Lincoln explosively, and growing very red.

Mrs. Smart looked down.

‘I guess the folks at the next table wonder what we’re talking about,’ she said.

‘Damn the folks at the next table,’ said Lincoln, but his handsome, ruddy face lost some of its color, as he watched her. ‘Is it me? Don’t you like me? I’ve always thought you did. I don’t drink. I’ve made good in my business. I’ve got a car.’

‘I’ve a great respect for you, Mr. Lincoln, but I’d — rather not, thank you.’

‘I won’t give you up, Lydia,’ said Lincoln, doggedly.

‘Well, Mr. Lincoln, you might as well,’ said Mrs. Smart, with spirit. ‘And I’d thank you not to call me Lydia. I don’t care for it.’

Lincoln stared at her in dismay. ‘You’re not going to — say — no,’ he said, blankly. ‘It’s that boy. I don’t believe it’s me. I believe you like me. Say, I’ll give the boy a job with us — a job that’ll give him a chance to rise. I guess that’s the trouble, ain’t it?’

Mrs. Smart was silent, but it seemed to Lincoln that her downcast face showed signs of relenting; it was the greater credit to him that he spoke as he did. He was an honest and upright business man; the firm and its reputation came first; after that other matters, — happiness, love, and the like. ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more,’ said Lovelace.

‘I don’t say he can rise if he don’t act right,’ said Lincoln. ‘He’s got to hold the job down. I could n’t keep him if he did n’t. Not if he was my own son. The firm would n’t stand for it — and I’m one of ’em now. Hardware’s got a big future — and I ’ll give Thomas a chance — but he’s got to work.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Well — what do you say?’

‘I say no, Mr. Lincoln,’ said Mrs. Smart, rising. ‘You’ll find a nice girl that’ll make you a good wife, easy enough. We’re most of us good, if you treat us right, and there is n’t so much difference between one good woman and another — not that a man could see. My goodness, it’s half-past two already! ’

Mrs. Smart waited at the station for Dorothy for some time; on her knees she nursed a big pasteboard box; her face had a sad look, but it brightened when Dorothy appeared.

‘Have a nice time with Marian?’

‘Nice enough,’ said Dorothy. Her voice had a ring of bitterness. She was young, young, young, poor Dorothy, and the inequalities of fortune ’were too much for her. Her day in the city had shaken her, heart and soul. Mrs. Smart knew it without being told, and her heart ached for her daughter.

‘I got the blue coat,’ she said.

‘You did? It’s too big for you, is n’t it?’

‘It is n’t too big for you,’ said Mrs. Smart. Her pretty face was radiant with eager love and joy.

‘Why, mother!’

‘Did you think I was going to let you go without, and you pretty and young and all?’ ‘I had a coat last fall,’ said Dorothy; but her face flushed with pleasure.

‘Never mind! It came to me when the lady said coats were going to be short. My coat’s short. They were wearing them long the fall I got it. I’ll be more in style than you, Dorothy Smart. It came to me, but I did n’t realize until after — dinner. Then I put for the store just as tight as I could go — I was afraid the blue one might be gone. Don’t say a word! Don’t you think we’d better go out and stand by the gate? The train might go earlier, or something.’

The two dozed a bit on the Pennsylvania train, but they were as wide awake as possible when they changed to their own Lackawanna.

‘Once I’m through the Gap, I feel I’m at home,’ said Mrs. Smart.

The train was a slow one; it crawled up into the mountains; it stopped at many little stations. When the car door opened, woodland scents and sounds came in; the sighing of the wind in the tree-tops, the noise of mountain brooks, the odor of burning wood.

‘It’s nice to get home,’ said Mrs. Smart. ‘I wonder how Thomas is.’

‘I’m awful hungry,’ said Dorothy.

‘ What did you have for lunch, mother ? ’

‘All I wanted — and more. I’ve got five cents left; I’ll buy you some gum. Dear me! I can’t find it — it must have slipped out. Dear me!’

‘Lost something, Mrs. Smart?’ said the brakeman, Rally Willems. He was a Pocono boy; Mrs. Smart had always known him; he was young, slim, alert; he had sandy hair, and a freckled skin, and a little red moustache, — the regular brakeman type.

‘Only five cents,’ said Mrs. Smart. ‘Never mind, Rally. I was going to buy Dorothy some gum. She’s hungry.’

Willems went into his blue pocket and produced something in a twist of paper.

‘I got some flag-root,’ said he. ‘Mother brought it down to the train this morning. Wait once, till I cut it.’

He divided it with his pocket knife; he gave the larger piece to Mrs. Smart; when he went out on the platform, she changed with Dorothy. She ate her own piece with a relish.

‘It’s good,’ she said. ‘Bitter-sweet things stand by you better than allsweet things — specially after a hard day. It was nice in Rally to give it to us. He’ll be a conductor some day. Feel better, Dorothy?’

‘Some. Thomas won’t like my getting the coat, mother. He’ll be as mad as a hornet.’

Mrs. Smart nodded, with a very serious face; she had been considering for some time what she should say to Thomas.

‘You take the lantern and go on ahead, and I’ll talk to Thomas.’

Thomas met them at the station, sleepy and cross. A young man was waiting, too, — Joe Bogardus. He and Dorothy walked on up the hill together quickly, with the lantern swinging between them. Mrs. Smart and Thomas followed, slowly, arm in arm.

‘Get your coat, mother?’

‘Not this time, son. My coat that I’ve got’s in style. They’re going to wear short coats in Paris this winter. My coat’s short.’

' I wanted you to get a new one,’ said Thomas, crossly.

‘Now, son,’ said Mrs. Smart, tenderly, ‘don’t you get to thinking you know more about clothes than your mother does. That ain’t men’s work. Wait once, till you see your new ties: black, with red spots, one; blue, with white lines, one.’

‘See any folks you knew?’

‘ Mr. Lincoln. He’s a traveling man, used to come up here drumming for hardware.’

‘I remember him all right. Used to talk to you — thought he was goodlookin’— fresh!’ said Thomas, ferociously. ‘What did he have to say?’

‘Oh, he just talked. Did n’t you used to like him, son?’

‘Naw,’said Thomas, ‘I did n’t. Why you know I did n’t, mother. You used to say he was nice, and I always told you I did n’t like him.’

‘I remember,’ said Mrs. Smart, briefly.

She plodded along the rough road in the darkness; the November wind blew keenly from the mountains; she was tired, and hungry, and cold; her weary body caught her brave soul in its clutches, and shook it, and wrung it, and left it faint and gasping.

‘It’s a hard world for a woman,’she muttered. ‘Maybe I’d better have said yes.'

‘Gee, but Schauss’s is fierce,’ said Thomas. ‘Guess I’ll quit, and go West.’

‘You would n’t leave me, son,’ said Mrs. Smart, in quick alarm. ‘Would you ? ’

‘I’m sick of the store.’

‘I’m going to try to get Mr. Haydock to take you at the Inn next summer,’ said Mrs. Smart, forgetting herself at once in Thomas’s need. ‘You could be in the office with me, and see the world and society — and maybe folks would take you out in a car sometimes.’

‘Gee, mother, you’re a peach. That would be great,’ said Thomas, mollified.

It did not take much to please him; he was his mother’s own son, after all. He clung to her arm, and lurched to and fro in the road. He was an awkward boy; he seemed to go out of his way to fall over things; he was like an overgrown puppy, with his clumsy ways and his inarticulate, loving heart. Suddenly, at a turn in the road, a light shone out above them.

‘There’s home,' said Mrs. Smart. ‘You put the lamp in the window, did n’t you, son? ’

‘Yes, I did. And the kettle’s on the stove, boiling by this time. I thought you’d like some tea,’ said Thomas, with pride. ‘So I kept the fire up, and had everything nice.’

Mrs. Smart laughed in the darkness, a little, well-pleased laugh,and stepped out briskly.

‘After all, I’m glad,’ she said.

‘To be back home?’ said Thomas.

‘To be back home,’ said Mrs. Smart. ‘There’s no place like home.’