Mrs. Blaisdell's eyes strayed again over the surrounding neighborhood. The "tall, red-headed girl" had gathered a group about her in front of the fire-house; Mrs. Blaisdell could see the firemen tilted back in their chairs, grinning as they craned to get her talk. The "one who wore a gray shirt" had gone into the garage. Mrs. Blaisdell could just make out the duskywhite spots in the gloom that were faces clustered about him. The sixth canvasser had emerged from the Edgemore place. He had undoubtedly again been unsuccessful, for he drooped with dejection. He passed the Sawyer place, the Seaman place, the Mittinger place, three handsome modern mansions, with scarcely a look. Next came the fine old Murray place, built at the same time as the Blaisdell house and almost its twin, except that the former was painted yellow and white, and the latter slate-gray and green. Also, Mrs. Blaisdell often reflected proudly, her house had kept its big airy lookout, relic of those seafaring days when the women of Wraymouth watched the returning whalers from the house-tops. As the sixth canvasser caught sight of the Murray place, he stopped-stopped short as though something electric had caught him. The dejection seemed to pour out of him; obviously new hope flowed in. That new hope raised his head and cocked his shoulders. He studied the house again with his strange, furtive, peering glance, as though he was trying to remember something. He approached it once or twice with his hesitant, sidling step. Then suddenly he slipped, eel-quick and shadow-soft, through the entrance. The gate swung to, concealed him temporarily.

"Mrs. Blaisdell! Mrs. Blaisdell!" It was a child's voice that called, and a child's slender body, wriggling through a crevice in the lilac-hedge, followed the call. "I b'inged you somesing."

"Good morning, Peggy," Mrs. Blaisdell answered. "Now, what are you 'b'inging' me?" "B'inging," as Mrs. Blaisdell very well knew, was Peggy patois for "bringing."

Peggy did not answer. She ran to Mrs.

Blaisdell's chair, threw herself against Mrs. Blaisdell's knees, and dropped her basket into Mrs. Blaisdell's lap. In the basket were three new-born kittens.

Peggy was exactly Mrs. Blaisdell's idea of what a little girl should be, much as Molly had looked, although not half so pretty floss-fine golden hair worn in long curls, sky-blue eyes starred by long lashes; pretty, tiny features; slender, dimpled. body.

"What beautiful kittens!" Mrs. Blaisdell said. She reached into the basket with her trembling hands and smoothed the little creatures, which were peeping like young birds. "Their eyes are n't open yet, are they? See what funny little tails they 've got. When did Fuzzy bring them to you?"

"Mother finded them in the closet. Fuzzy b'inged them in the night. Mother said I could b'ing them to you. They can't stay long." Peggy shook her head violently. "No, Fuzzy kies if I take them. Fuzzy dud n't like her kitties to go. I b'inged you some tortors." "Tortors" was Peggy's patois for flowers.

The "tortors" were some gone-to-seed dandelions, very short-stemmed, and much the worse for the close clutching of a moist little hand. Peggy handed them to Mrs. Blaisdell. "Kitties go 'way now," Peggy said decisively. She seized the basket and scampered back through the hedge.

Mrs. Blaisdell was sorry that Peggy had gone. Between her and the little girl had sprung up one of those sympathetic understandings possible only between old. age and infancy. Peggy came to see her every day. It was true that she thought little of that overheard conversation when Peggy was with her. The moment of death!

"Are you keeping the shawl tight about you, Mother?" Ada called. She left Tom's side and came strolling over to Mrs. Blaisdell's chair. Ada was not a pretty woman, but she would have been much prettier if she had not had to wear glasses. She had a wholesome matronly figure, with a round, firm bust and strong

looking arms and a wholesome matronly face with big, clear eyes and big, stronglooking teeth. She leaned over Mrs. Blaisdell and pulled the shawl closer. "These spring days are so treacherous sometimes. Is n't it nice that Tom is going to be with us so much this summer?"

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Blaisdell answered; "I'm taking a lot of comfort out of that."

"And the girls," Ada went on. "It will be lovely to have them both here. I hope they won't think I've made too many changes."

"I know they'll be delighted with everything. You have n't done anything that has n't improved the place, Ada, Mrs. Blaisdell approved warmly.

99

This was true. Just as the interior workings of the house had become at Ada's touch a perfect machine, so the outside growths had taken under her care a new impetus.

Ada still fingered Mrs. Blaisdell's shawl, drawing it closer here, pulling it into soft folds there.

"You look sweet, Mother," she said. "Are you feeling all right this morning?" "Splendid," Mrs. Blaisdell replied. "Anybody 'd ought to feel good this morning weather."

"Well, I guess I'll run back to Tom," Ada said. "We 're making plans for those two flower-beds."

Mrs. Blaisdell's preoccupied gaze followed Ada's figure as she sped to her husband's side. Together Tom and Ada moved over to the corner where the birches dropped their shimmering green fountain. In their shade grew lilies of the valley. They knelt to examine them. The moment of death! The moment of death!

The Baker house was very quiet. Once Mrs. Blaisdell saw the nurse pass the window. Outside among the apple-blossoms the birds still whirled the air with a miniature rose-tinted snow-storm. The robins still made swift, fire-hot journeys from tree to tree. The sun rose higher and higher. The clouds had thinned now until they were faint silver strays filming

the deep zenith blue.. The little hot breezes that came from the lilacs were even more densely packed with perfume; the little hot breezes that touched the flower-beds were more heavily weighted with damp earth smells. From Peggy's direction came a sudden series of squawks as the kittens protested against Peggy's treatment. From the Mallon barn came a prolonged blart from the still-unreconciled calf. Virginia Small, arrayed at last and as dewy as a rose in her pink smock and her pink, flower-covered hat, emerged from the Small house. Simultaneously Ed Howes shot from the Howes garage. They met at the front gate, and talking busily, their eyes glued to each other, they moved down the street. Mrs. Blaisdell smiled at this picture of young love. They were expecting to get the news of that engagement any day. Then suddenly her smile caught, crystallized, changed to violent contraction. The moment of death!

Nobody could help her now, not Tom or George or Molly or Ruth or Edgar -Edgar, for whom all the others had no memory and for whom her mother's heart would always yearn. The

suffrage-canvassers

were still

busy. The "dark, roly-poly girl" had stopped the postman. stopped the postman. The "tall, stronglooking blond lad" was talking to the iceman. The sixth canvasser had emerged from the Murray place. Again every line of him drooped. He had n't succeeded anywhere, Mrs. Blaisdell concluded. He should n't have tried to do this sort of thing. He was n't the type for it. Now, Tom, for instance, would have been a great success at getting signatures; he was a very successful salesman. Mrs. Blaisdell watched the slim figure, still peering into front yards, turn down Mason Street. Only the empty school was there. That would bring him to their corner. She hoped that he would come to them because then he would get three signatures.

The electric car jingled past the house. Mrs. Blaisdell sat quiet, her hand to her forehead. The moment of death!

The gate clicked, opened. Mrs. Blais

dell glanced up. It was the sixth canvasser. He entered and stood, quiet and still, looking at her.

For the length of an eye-wink Mrs. Blaisdell, too, sat quiet and still, looking at him. And in that time the torturing weight on her consciousness melted, drifted away. She grew well-yes, well. "O Edgar, my son!" she said at last. "You 've come back!"

"Yes, Mother," Edgar answered. He smiled. Mrs. Blaisdell smiled, too. "I've come back. I've been a long time finding you. I could n't remember. I must go away soon. I'll take you with me this time, though."

Mrs. Blaisdell clasped her hands. "Oh, take me, Edgar!" she breathed. "I think we'd better go now," Edgar suggested. He still smiled.

Mrs. Blaisdell arose, took a step. Not even in her youth had she known such

Then suddenly she understood.

"O Edgar," she said, "I did n't think it was ever like this!"

"It 's always like this, Mother," Edgar answered.

He moved toward her, she moved toward him; they took each other's hands, they gazed into each other's eyes, they passed through the gateway, they floated down the street.

Something attracted Mrs. Blaisdell's eyes over at the Baker house: the nurse was raising the curtain.

Something attracted her gaze back to her own place: under the elm Tom and Ada were bending over a very old lady whose white face had sagged sidewise upon her shoulder.

CHAPTER III

THE MAP AND THE SHUTTLECOCK

PROVINCE

HE crowning achievements of Jefferson's term had to do with terra firma rather than with the sea; but they were equally picturesque and undemocratic. It was providential that his many theories. neutralized one another. Although a lingering remnant of the old landed aristocrat's prejudice against trade made him

deplore commerce as "corrupting," his dislike of war bade him argue that in trade, not in guns, lay our greatest national weapon. Common sense also made him see how necessary trade was to the development of the country. He therefore planned to invade close-shut Asia with the American commerce that did not as yet exist, and he joyfully set out to find a road for it through an unexplored wilderness.

The blank spaces on the map teased him. They were still vast, despite explor

ing expeditions that had come to America in ever-increasing numbers since Sebastian Cabot's initial voyage of 1497. Such expeditions along the coast had been too numerous even to mention. Those that penetrated the interior fell into interesting groups as they multiplied with the centuries. The four principal ones of the sixteenth century were Spanish, and the territory they pierced was that of our Southern and Southwestern States. In the seventeenth century they were French, and their wanderings covered the region approached by the St. Lawrence and the great lakes. In the eighteenth century the names connected with such enterprises were unmistakably English. The area was smaller, but it was explored more in detail and opened opened up to permanent settlement. This was the fertile country drained by the Ohio and other eastern tributaries of the Mississippi. With the beginning of the nineteenth century interest was transferred west of the Mississippi to the wide spaces designated on maps of the day by three imagination-haunting names, Oregon, the Spanish Territory, and Loui

siana.

Progressive Americans were convinced even then that some time in the future these must be ours "by law of nature." But conservatives, on the

other two tracts. draining the eastern slopes of this vast range, was a well-established fact. Jefferson thought that indications pointed to a river of equal importance on the western side, flowing into the Pacific.

The Missouri River,

To a mind like his such speculations were irresistible. While he was minister to France he talked with young John Ledyard, the American traveler, then in Paris, and so worked upon his imagination that he gave up his project of Egyptian exploration to attack the mystery of his own continent. Together the two planned that Ledyard should cross Siberia far to the north, sail from Kamchatka to the coast of America, follow the coast southward until he came to the mouth of this unknown river, ascend it to its source, and then, crossing the continental divide to the headwaters of the Missouri, sail down to the Mississippi and civilization. In his capacity of minister to France, Jefferson gave Ledyard

other hand, were aghast at the idea of annexing land, especially beyond the Mississippi. The country's chief danger, they said, was its unwieldy size. New England felt that such a course would justify her in withdrawing from the Union. But to all alike the map was an unsolved enigma. The Stony Mountains loomed large upon it as a barrier between Louisiana and the

a passport to St. Petersburg, that he might ask leave of the Empress Catharine to cross her territory. It was granted, and Ledyard had reached Siberia when the permission was suddenly revoked, and he was ordered out of the country on suspicion of being a spy.

Four years later Captain Gray, in command of the ship that

first carried the Stars and Stripes around the world, discovered the mouth of the Columbia. This confirmed Jefferson's theory, but the upper reaches of the river. and its relation to the Missouri remained as mysterious as ever. At intervals, when his republicanism slumbered, Jefferson's mind played with the problem, and before he had been President many months the ex