sake! It’s a shanty, and you know it. And you know that it needs everything from plumbing to linen. I don’t see any sense in sinking thousands in making it livable when we don’t want to live in it.”

“But I do want to live in it — once in a while. I’m used to it. I was brought up in it. So was the kid. He likes it, too. Don’t you, Giddy?” The boy was present, as usual, at this particular scene.

The boy worshipped his mother. But, also, he was honest. So, “Yeh, I like the ol’ barn all right,” he confessed.

Encouraged, his father went on: “Yesterday the kid was standing out there on the bluff-edge breathing like a whale, weren’t you, Giddy? And when I asked him what he was