She was scrubbing furiously at a line of grease spots which led from the stove towards the door to the dining-room. That was where Henry had held the platter tilted as he carried the steak in yesterda...

She was scrubbing furiously at a line of grease spots which led from the stove towards the door to the dining-room. That was where Henry had held the platter tilted as he carried the steak in yesterda...

She was scrubbing furiously at a line of grease spots which led from the stove towards the door to the dining-room. That was where Henry had held the platter tilted as he carried the steak in yesterda...

When Mother was scrubbing a floor was always a good time for Stephen. She forgot all about you for a while. Oh, what a weight fell off from your shoulders when Mother forgot about you for a while! How...

When Lester Knapp stepped dispiritedly out from Willing’s Emporium, he felt, as he usually did, a thin little mittened hand slip into each of his. “Hello, Father,” said Helen. “Hello, Father,” said He...

“Don’t you want to sit by the window here, Mrs. Farnham?” suggested Mrs. Prouty, the rector’s wife. “The light’ll be better for your sewing. That dark material is hard on the eyes.” All the Ladies’ Gu...

“Who swoon in sleep and awake wearier.” As he woke up, Lester Knapp heard the words in the air as he so often heard poetry, “… and awake wearier!” He was tired to the bone. He would have given anythin...

That afternoon when at half-past four he stepped out on the street again, his long lean face was quite without expression. But it was not sallow. It was very white. He walked straight before him for a...

Mrs. Anderson never forgot a detail of what happened that afternoon, and she soon became letter-perfect in her often-repeated statement of the essential facts. She told and retold her story word for w...

It was after an almost continuous thirty-six-hour session of work that Jerome Willing finally stepped out of his office, walked down the dark aisles between brown-linen-covered counters, nodded to the...

It was after an almost continuous thirty-six-hour session of work that Jerome Willing finally stepped out of his office, walked down the dark aisles between brown-linen-covered counters, nodded to the...

As they stepped quickly along in the dark, they tried to piece together the chronology of the late afternoon for Knapp and decided that this tragic ending to his feeble life must have come even before...

Mrs. Willing was as much interested as her husband in the arrival of Mrs. Knapp in the store. When he had finished telling her about the interview and they had laughed and wondered over the acuteness ...

Evangeline Knapp was eating her breakfast with a good appetite, the morning paper propped up in front of her, so that she could study attentively Mrs. Willing’s clever advertising for the day. She adm...

In the hurly-burly of the rearrangement of life, nobody had been able to pay much attention to Stephen, and he had reveled in this freedom from supervision. He had always steered his small, hard life ...

In the hurly-burly of the rearrangement of life, nobody had been able to pay much attention to Stephen, and he had reveled in this freedom from supervision. He had always steered his small, hard life ...

Helen and Henry Knapp were skipping home from school, hand in hand, to the tune of “Skippety hop to the barbershop To buy a stick of candy. One for you and one for me And one for⁠ ⁠…” They were interr...

“He that is down need fear no fall, He that is low, no pride,” said Lester Knapp aloud to himself. It was a great pleasure to him to be able to say the strong short Saxon words aloud. For years he had...

Lester was glad to see Mattie Farnham come bustling in the very afternoon of the day she returned from Maine. He liked Mattie⁠—indeed he almost loved her⁠—in spite of the fact that so far as he had be...

Saturdays were great days for “the Knapp Family, Incorporated.” They were together at home all day, and always with a great variety of schemes on hand. In the morning Henry usually relapsed from his e...

One of the most embittering elements of Lester’s old life had been the absence of any leisure when he could really think⁠—consider things consecutively enough to make any sort of sense out of them. He...

Old Mrs. Anderson, having borne seven children and raised three to maturity (not to speak of having made a business of guiding Mrs. Knapp by neighborly advice through the raising of her three), knew w...

When Evangeline read the little note asking her to step into Mr. Willing’s office, she thought of course the new things from Hasenheimer’s had come, and that Mr. Willing would ask her if she could com...

When Evangeline read the little note asking her to step into Mr. Willing’s office, she thought of course the new things from Hasenheimer’s had come, and that Mr. Willing would ask her if she could com...

With her materials and patterns laid out on the dining-room table, Mattie Farnham was trying to cut out a dress for her Margaret, an undertaking which was going jerkily because of the arrival, seriati...

On the evening of the day when Mrs. Knapp was informed that she would be put in Miss Flynn’s place Helen and her father celebrated by making an omelette with asparagus tips (Mother’s favorite supper d...

One of the interests of life for Lester was the uncertainty about who was to be his mental companion for any given day. It seemed to be something over which he had no control. Sometimes he had thought...

Dr. Merritt had telephoned Mrs. Knapp that he was going to make some very special tests of her husband’s condition that afternoon, tests which might be conclusive as to the possibility of recovery. He...