with the ghosts of long-gone meals. Martha Griggs, whose pale-red hair was drawn straight back from a pale and puckered face, looked with frank suspicion at the bottle. She was paring potatoes. She motioned toward a chair with her knife.

"Mornin'," greeted Deb as she sat down. "How be you all?"

"Lem's to work, and I 'm to work, and Petey 's gettin' worse about the same as usual."

"Huh!" Deb pondered. It would be wiser to see Petey and express sympathy before mentioning the oil. "Worse, hey? Can I see him?"

"If you want to," answered Martha, without interest. "He's in there."

Deb moved into what had been the parlor before they put Petey in there to die. The half-grown son of Lem and

Martha Griggs lay on a sofa, propped up by pillows. Deb, who had seen the gray coming of death many times, knew that it was drawing close to that place.

Petey's parents had done what they thought best for him. Since September the windows had been nailed down, in order that no breath of deadly fresh air might reach his affected lungs. With the door leading to the kitchen closed, his room was virtually sealed. A wood-stove kept it at a varying, but always high, temperature. Here he slept and lived in as much neatness as Martha Griggs could spare time to provide. Nevertheless, the end marched upon him.

"Feelin' any better?" asked Deb.

"No; I feel bad, Mis' Woodruff." His skeleton fingers worked among the knots of the home-made comfortable that was spread over him.

"Huh!" Deb appraised him with an experienced eye. He might last a week or he might go at any hour. The funeral

would be a big expense for people like the Griggses, not poor enough to let the town bury him and too poor to afford it themselves.

"I want something good to eat," he whispered. "Seems as though if I could have a piece of mince-pie I 'd get some strength into me."

Mince-pie! Deb brightened. Now she knew that the taste of mince-pie was the elusive savor that had been haunting her palate for days-mince-pie with lots of sugar in it. She licked her lips and swallowed.

"I'd walk five mile' for a piece of mince-pie, myself," she said.

"I don't s'pose ma would let me have it," whispered the boy.

"Probly not," answered Deb, cautiously. It was none of her business. She rose to go.

"You ask ma about the pie; she won't listen to me." "Aw right."

"Well," Martha Griggs sighed, "I ain't got the mince-meat, anyway." "Huh!" So Deb had thought. She rattled her bottle against the floor.

"You got any oil to spare till I can send to the village for some?"

"No, I ain't." It was a peevish outburst. "There 's only enough for tonight; have to keep a lamp burning all night in Petey's room now, because he 's afraid. It takes all Lem can earn to keep things going here, I can tell you. Funeral expenses coming on, too, most likely. I don't know how we 'll manage."

"Got enough to eat, ain't you?" de

tle. The desires of the old resemble those of children. Deb was little interested in the oil now; what she wanted was mincepie. She could smell it as she stepped into her own kitchen-smell the delicious richness of it floating to her from that oven of her stove in which many a mincepie had been baked before Sam died. It was not likely that the oven would ever bake another.

She must find something to do and forget her craving. It came to her memory that this was churning-day at the Sanders farm, across the valley. Buttermilk was invariably given away, and therefore it was no disgrace to ask for it.

It would take the place of tea with her corn-meal mush. She could have borrowed oil there without difficulty save that the code of Sam forbade it. The Sanders were well-off and higher caste than the Woodruffs and the Griggses.

It was a two-mile walk each way over roads not well broken out, but Deb thought of this as no hardship. It was because circumstances forced her to take such walks that she lived on and on in steady health. She thought it was because her pipe kept disease away.

All during the trip to the Sanders place the memories of past mince-pies tormented her. She visualized them and smelled and tasted them, and she was mumbling to herself about their goodness as she kicked the snow from her feet and stamped into the Sanders kitchen. Mrs. Sanders, fat, kindly, and permanently flurried, greeted her with a cheerful voice.

thing and then it 's another. Say, don't you want some sour milk for cookin'?"

"I don't care," answered Deb, meaning, in the vernacular, friendly acceptance. She had nothing to cook with sour milk, but the years had taught her never to refuse anything. Moreover, she did not want to get the Sanderses out of the habit of giving her things. When they butchered they always gave her a piece of meat. A voluntary gift could be accepted, as from one neighbor to another.

"There!" Mrs. Sanders came forth, breathing as though she had achieved a gigantic task. "There's your buttermilk, and there's the sour milk. Don't forget to bring back my pail the next time you come over after buttermilk."

"I won't, Mis' Sanders. Much obliged to you."

Deb took the two pails and started homeward, still tantalized by the mince

"You bet I did." Deb held out her pail. "How be you?"

"Goodness!" Mrs. Sanders puffed into the pantry and talked from there. "I'm all upset with churning. First it's one

ized that she must get such thoughts out of her mind, for her small earnings would never be more than enough to keep her in flour and tobacco, tea and fire-wood. potatoes and salt. She might, indeed, meet with mince-pie at her next place of

employment, but that was uncertain, and it was also uncertain whether the mincepie would be good. The vague prospect served in no smallest particular to mitigate her desire for the sweet toothsomeness of one of those pies she had baked for Sam.

She reached home. She turned the buttermilk out into a pitcher and pried the cover from the other pail.

Deb, who seldom moved quickly, started back. Was it one of her ancient memories, or was it a real mince-turnover that she smelled and saw, resting on a plate in the bottom of the pail? She lifted it out, and pressed the flaky crust with an inquiring finger. It was real. She sat down to contemplate that epitome of deliciousness, from which brown juices. had broken forth here and there. Her jaws and tongue moved in anticipatory tastings. This was one of Mrs. Sanders's jokes, like the time she said she was giving Deb a pail of soft soap, which turned out to be pork sparerib. Deb drew in a breath of admiration for the turnover and gratitude toward her who had given it.

Then, as a cloud moves before the sun, came the gray-white face of Petey Griggs between Deb and her pie. She was stunned. The meaning of that swift picture, flung up by her memory, was unmistakable. She thought the idea over for a long time with increasing bitterness. "He's as good as dead, anyway," she argued. "I ain't. Not yet."

It was a good argument; good until she remembered that Sam had wanted icecream all the last week of his life. He had wanted it the day he died. Icecream! Who ever heard of such a fool idea for a dying man! Yet she remembered, also, that she had walked to the village and borrowed a freezer, only to learn, upon her return home, that the Sanderses' supply of ice had been used, to the last cake. Sam had died without his ice-cream.

Sam had been her own folks; the Griggs brat was nothing to her. Well she remembered how, five years ago come summer, he had stoned her hen and chick

His mother

Martha

ens out of the Griggs garden. had put him up to it, of course. Griggs was as mean then as she was now. Only enough oil for Petey's lamp! Some folks might believe that, maybe.

"He 'll be in heaven or the other place in a day or two, and he won't care a sour apple about pie. Me-I got to live."

Deb got up and busied herself about unnecessary work. The waste of giving him that pie would be wicked. If mincepie could cure him, it would be another matter. But neither mince-pies nor doctors nor any other earthly thing could change the number of his hours now. Gray death was marching.

Suddenly she walked fiercely up to the kitchen table and seized the turnover. "Take the dam' pie!" she growled, and went out of doors.

Martha Griggs was doing her neverfinished housework when Deb entered the Griggs kitchen for the second time that day.

"What you got?" she asked suspiciously. In silence the old woman opened Petey's door and walked into his room. She saw his features twitch; light shone from his half-opened eyes. His hands rose from the comfortable and fell quickly back.

"Mince-pie!" he whispered.

Deb nodded as she put the turnover on a chair beside him.

"There it is," she barked; "now eat it!" "Ma! Ma!" The boy raised his whisper to a hoarse cry. "Get me a knife quick!"

Mrs. Griggs peered into the room, withdrew, and entered, bearing a steel knife.

"Mince-turnover!" She sniffed at it. "Where did you get mince-turnover?"

"Found it growin' on a fence-post," answered Deb, reaching out to take the knife from Petey's strengthless grasp. She cut the turnover into small squares of a size to fit the human mouth. The odors of the luscious, brown mince-meat filled he nose. Her eyes filmed. She turned away and moved toward the door, unable to see another eat that pie.