shafts of sunlight filtered on the sea with the paleness of skimmed milk.

The young mate fought his way on to the poop and shouted into the old man's ear, "Three men washed overboard, Captain."

"What's that? What's that? Washed overboard?"

"Couldn't be helped, Captain; couldn't be helped. We're driving ahead. You can see that. And And we've still men enough to work ship. Look! Look over there! I believe the weather is clearing. See, there's a bit of sunlight."

"Three men washed overboard! That won't do, Mr. Wing. That'll never do. Get those sails off her again." Old Tarney shuddered. "That's terrible! Three men gone! Hurry, Mr. Wing."

The young mate laid a hand that was blue from cold on the old man's shoulder. "We'll never get around the Horn, Captain, if you don't crack on to her. She's standing it quite well. Hang on to the upper tops'ls. Don't take them in. You're not afraid, Captain, are you?"

Old Tarney looked at him. What he saw in his mate's eyes made him wince. His watery eyes blinked. "Afraid? Tut, tut. What put that into your head?" Yet at the same time he rubbed the tell-tale windows of him clear. Afraid? Of course not. "Well, Mr. Wing, we'll hang on a little longer. But we mustn't wrench the ship. We'll have to look out for that."

A sailor's head came up out of the wave-swept deck and he crawled on all fours to the poop. "Captain," he screamed, "there's an iceberg away off on the lee bows!"

"What's that? An iceberg?" "Aye, sir, as big as a mountain." Old Tarney let go of the rail and made a lunge to the lee side of the poop. The mate was there already with encouraging words.

"We can weather that berg, Captain. Certainly we can. We'll pass a mile to windward of it."

The man at the wheel opened his mouth and shouted, "I smells it, sir."

The mate snapped back, "You pay attention to your steering. That's what you're here for."

Old Tarney squinted away toward the cathedral of ice. New wrinkles crept into his face that wriggled and quivered as if they were live things. He raised a hand to his mouth and blew the hot vapor from his lungs against the hand to warm it. He turned to the mate with a cry in his voice. "We're in a field of ice, Mr. Wing. It's dangerous to go this way."

"There's no danger, Captain. And besides, I see only one iceberg. That's nothing off here, this time of year. We must crack on to her, Captain. You know that. We can't be put off by the sight of ice. Look at the wake astern of her she's going ahead."

"What about those men, Mr. Wing?"

"They're gone. We can't stop to think about them now, Captain. We have a cargo to deliver. We ought to be in the Pacific right now, with a westerly slant reaching away for the trade winds."

Old Tarney shook violently. Fear had him in its grip. He was trembling for his ship and the lives of them all. Afraid? Yes, afraid. Cour

age was behind him, with the years that were spent. But his young mate must not know it. Afraid to acknowledge fear. Yes, afraid.

He straightened his wind-warped body and looked the mate in the

eye.

"That's it, Mr. Wing, crack on to her. Loose and set the main to'gallants'l!"

"What!" The mate, astounded, stared at the old man.

Old Tarney's hand covered his quivering mouth as he repeated: "Set the main to'gallants'l!"

"Oh Lord no, Captain, she couldn't stand it. Enough is enough."

A triumphant look came into old Tarney's face. He tried to smile. He pointed to the huge mountain of ice. "We're drifting close to it, Mr. Wing."

"We can wear ship and go on the other tack," blurted the mate. "Oh no, not that. We'd lose more than we've gained. Set the main to'gallants'l."

"But-but-" the mate protested. Tarney stamped his rubber boot on the deck. "I'm the master here." "Aye, very good, sir."

The mate hurried off the poop and down to the main deck. Not a sailor was in sight. He crawled along the life-line forward. Under the forecastle-head he found the crew huddled together. Silent they were, with strained eyes and spread legs.

"Come on, men," the mate shouted, get out of there! A couple of you lay aloft and loose the main to'gallants'l."

An angry growl came in answer. "Ain't us drowning fast enough already? We ain't setting no sail not in this weather."

"It's the captain's orders. Come

on!"

Skibbereen, the old bo'sun that had sailed with Captain Tarney off and on for the past thirty years, spoke up. "Come on, men. No use holding back. Indade and I knows Tarney. When he says a thing, he says it. I looks at his face a while ago, when we wus setting the upper tops'ls. Says I to meself, 'He's going to crack on to her, just like he used to.""

"We ain't setting any more sails, Bo'sun. Tell that to old Tarney. We've lost three of our shipmates already, and we misses 'em. Hey men?" "Aye, aye."

The mate, not inclined to urge the men, spoke curtly. men, spoke curtly. "So you refuse?" "Aye. We do."

With a shrug of his shoulders the mate crawled aft to the poop again.

Old Tarney stood by the compass taking a bearing on the iceberg. It was on the beam now. There was no longer any danger of colliding with it.

"The crew refuse to set the main to'gallants'l, sir."

"What's that, Mr. Wing?"
"They're afraid, sir."

'Afraid, hey?" Old Tarney's jaws came together with a snap. "They refused when you gave them the order? Did I hear you say that?"

"Aye, Captain. They refused point blank."

The old man's eyes blazed anger. "And what did you do, Mr. Wing?" Tarney was trembling again, but no longer with fear.

"I didn't do anything, Captain. Couldn't, with a sea running like this. A man couldn't keep his legs under him, to fight now."

The captain squared his shoulders and made for the main deck. Through the icy deck waves he waded forward to the forecastlehead. The crew saw him coming, and squeezed together. Old Tarney staggered in under the forecastle-head and braced his legs. He looked at them with fierce, piercing eyes. They backed away.

The bark shouldered a green wave that filled the decks to the bulwark rail. When she cleared herself old Tarney spoke. His voice was as sharp as the cold wind. "Loose and set the main to'gallants'l!"

One of the foremost sailors cleared his throat. "Captain, we ain't refusing to work, but you see it's this way

The roar that came from the sail aloft sounded like close thunder.

"Be-l-ay! Be-l-ay! Halyards now, and up she goes! Masthead her, men, masthead her!"

When the sail was set and the yard braced sharp, the Dolphin reeled on her beam ends. The topmast buckled; the hemp lanyards squeaked in the deadeyes under the strain. The crew ran for shelter with a cry, "He'll drown us all yet!"

As old Tarney felt the speed of the Dolphin, cutting through the waves like a yacht with her lee rails under, a look of grim satisfaction came into his face. Aye, a quick passage, like years ago.

The bark gave a heavy pitch to windward and lifted part of the ocean on her decks. Aloft something snapped; a splintering of pine and the tearing of sails. Old Tarney, his hold on the pin-rail broken, was at the mercy of the swirling sea that engulfed the deck. He was being swashed to leeward; banged about like a loose cask. A chunk of splintered spar fell from above. It struck him. His head went under. The wave that filled the deck swept him over the lee rail. The backwash showed a patch of blood-nothing more.

The Dolphin, relieved from her straining sail, righted herself quickly. The crew from their safe hold on the weather bulwark rail, turned to look for the master.

"He's gone!" wailed Skibbereen. "God help us now!"

The mate, the young Captain, now, sprang down among them. "Have no fear, men," he called. "Cut away what's left of the main to'gallantmast! We'll get a slant that'll carry us around, anyway."

A

GIRL, pretty in a truculent sort of way, was born some thirty years ago to a romantic young pair of Bohemian immigrants who found themselves in New Ulm, Minnesota. Wanda. Wanda Gág. So far, good.

A new baby followed each succeeding year until there were seven.

The babies, all but one, were girls. The parents, rich at least in imagination, named them with great zest, Wanda, Asta, Floria, Thusnelda.

Papa Gág's business was the frescoing of churches and decorating of houses. New Ulm couldn't afford a great amount of art. Still, before there were quite so many babies, and before a cold, taken while painting in an unheated church, settled on his chest, Papa Gág was a happy man. On Sundays, particularly, the whole family was gay. There was cake in the kitchen and Papa had his weekly cigar and his precious hours for his own painting up in the attic studio.

With the arrival of the seventh baby, again a girl, Papa took to his bed, even as Mamma had done. And on the baby's first birthday he was buried. As for Mamma, she never quite "got her strength back." After a few years of "managing somehow," she too died.

Now it was for Wanda, the eldest, barely in her teens, to make terms with the town, particularly with the church; with the county, which allowed the family eight dollars a month for groceries; with America.

The church wanted for their orphan asylum three of the youngest and most pliable Gágs. This by way of saving them from their free-thinking inheritance. The county, in consideration for its groceries, which had to be copiously supplemented with stale rolls from the bakery, felt that Wanda should continue to teach in the country school. The town, you see, wanted their souls; the county their brains, in return for the bare necessities of life.

The six small Gágs looked at Wanda. "I must think," said she. "I will make a Plan." And with the ethics of the mother lioness she took in a certain five dollars' worth of church groceries before saying no to the proposition of its senders.

Wanda's problem was just a little more complicated than that of the ordinary indigent orphan who feels herself responsible for other orphans. There were her fits to reckon with. Not the sort of fits you go to the doctor about and get sent away to some State-supported institution for. They were "drawing fits." All the chil

dren had had pencils in their hands very soon after rattles; they all had a knack for drawing. But Wanda drew sometimes for hours at a time, driven by a fierce inner compulsion. Father had understood about this. "Wanda," he had said, when he knew he was dying, "what Papa has left undone you'll have to do." His eyes as he spoke looked up toward the attic and Wanda knew he thought of the pictures he had not finished-had not even begun.

It was plain to the self-appointed guardian that the family had to be kept together, in spite of the delights of the church sugar and potatoes; that all the smaller Gágs must be fed, clothed and educated. But what of this something inside her own breast? Before mother had given up, the child had had, thanks to a scholarship, a year of study at the Minneapolis Art School, where her gift was admitted, and her unruliness deplored. Upstairs under the clock was the letter saying she had won a second scholarship that would take her to New York to study. To Wanda's clear mind, for she is no sentimentalist, there were the rights of seven surviving Gágs to be considered. There was the baby; there were the four sisters; there was brother and there was Wanda and her drawing. Justice is the Gág family passion. Wanda decided to include the acceptance of this second scholarship in the Family Plan. Problem: to continue her art studies and to provide for the family. The eldest Gág is an artist who understands budgeting. She has had to. The thousand dollars that was Papa's insurance money had already been made to stretch over

five years. Wanda's earnings from Christmas- and place-cards, later on her year of teaching, and when she was away at art-school her sister's year of teaching, had enabled them to keep clear the title to the house. As for clothes, they had worn up to date other people's cast-offs; and they were such dabs at making them over that the donors, it is said, many times regretted their generosity. As to food, there was the county's twelve dollars a month and the daily dime's worth of stale rolls from the baker. There hadn't been, as a matter of fact, enough food.

Wanda, now of age, produced a plan that delighted her wards. They were to remain free-thinking Gágs and they were to leave New Ulm. There was to be no more treating with the townsfolk, concerned for, but critical of these eccentric artist's children; nor with the county. It was to be Wanda versus America; with the children as hostages, as audience, and as soon as might be, as allies.

Wanda therefore sold the funny tall paternal house and moved them all to Minneapolis. It was glorious to be away from every one who knew their circumstances. The house money was to be used only for rent, fuel and light. The second and third Gágs, with typing, and painting lamp-shades, provided food and clothing; the fourth, just finishing school, cooked and cleaned the house.

Now from Wanda in New York, came letters concealing her disillusion with the city of her dreams, her homesickness, her anger at the ways of art teachers, her first serious love affair, a riddle which she could not solve-how, for instance, could