It was a dull frame cottage with four rooms, perched
just below the brow of the hill, amid peach-trees. The father
was a quiet, simple soul, calmly ignorant, with no touch of
vulgarity. The mother was different,--strong, bustling, and
energetic, with a quick, restless tongue, and an ambition to
live "like folks." There was a crowd of children. Two boys
had gone away. There remained two growing girls; a shy
midget of eight; John, tall, awkward, and eighteen; Jim,
younger, quicker, and better looking; and two babies of
indefinite age. Then there was Josie herself. She seemed to
be the centre of the family: always busy at service, or at
home, or berry-picking; a little nervous and inclined to scold,
like her mother, yet faithful, too, like her father. She had
about her a certain fineness, the shadow of an unconscious
moral heroism that would willingly give all of life to make
life broader, deeper, and fuller for her and hers. I saw much
of this family afterwards, and grew to love them for their
honest efforts to be decent and comfortable, and for their
knowledge of their own ignorance. There was with them no
affectation.
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