It did n't seem right to have him anywhere but in that room where he had lived so long. But August said it would have to be that way.

The Kaetterhenrys moved to town in the late fall. There was no house that they could get to rent. They had to take rooms in old Mrs. Freeman's house until they could get a place of their own. Houses were scarce in Richland, where little business was done. This was a little house in the south part of town, the old and hilly part beyond the railroad tracks. It was half-frame, half-brick, painted a cream-yellow. They lived in the brick half. There were three rooms. They did their cooking and eating in one, August and Emma slept in another, and Marguerite had a cot and dresser in the third, which was their sitting-room. The rooms had the old square, small-paned windows, close to which some oak-trees rustled dry leaves. They had to get all their water from the pump next door. They had a stove only in the room where Marguerite slept, except the little oil-burner in the kitchen.

Emma did n't know just what August intended to do, whether he meant to buy or to build a house of his own. He still kept all such things to himself. He managed all the money. Once Johnnie said to her when he came over, "Heard pa was trying to buy one of those lots over by Cunningham's." "Ach, is he?" she said. "Ja, he don't tell me nothing." She did not think of making a fuss, as some would have done, but no one suspected the resentment that lay deep under her silence.

The children all said cheerfully: "Well, Mama, you can take it easy this winter. You ain't got much to

do here." She said a little complainingly: "No, I should say I ain't. I wish I had a little more." These three small rooms were nothing after she had looked after a farm-house. Of course there were the meals to get, and they were hard to cook on this little three-burner oil-stove, when she was used to her big range. Johnnie ate with them, although they did n't have room for him to stay there.

But she had all afternoon to herself and she hardly knew what to do. It was a long, snowy winter. There were not many sidewalks in this part of town, and it was hard to get out anywhere. She did n't see the children as often as she had in the country. She did n't get out to Mary's once all winter. She knew a few people in town, her two sisters-in-law, Mrs. Henry and Mrs. Willie Stille,-but this was too far for them to come and see her much. She had a cold, and did n't even get to church most of the winter.

Once she said to August:

"Johnnie says you 're buying one of them lots over north."

"Ja, I guess may be," he admitted. "Well, are we going to build?"

"I guess we better build. They ain't no good houses for sale. Why, don't you want to build?" he demanded.

"Ach, I'd like it, I guess. I just wondered what you was doing."

He grunted. But she had to find out from the children that he had actually bought a lot and that he was ordering lumber from the Great Western Lumber-yard. Elva demanded angrily, "Why don't pa ask you something about it? You ought to have some say-so about your own house, I should think. I'd like to see Roy do

August's interest was all in the new house now. It was something to build up, as he had built up the farm. There were some pictures of houses in the window of the bank, a large card showing four of them, all planned by the same company, all more or less on the bungalow type. August went in several times to look at them. The banker always said, "Sure! Any of those appeal to you, Mr. Kaetterhenry?" August replied cautiously: "Ach, I don't know. I ain't quite ready to build yet a'ready." "No, no. Well, they 're pretty nice little houses." "Ja, they 're pretty nice all right."

$ 5

When he had got his mind pretty well made up, he asked for one of the sheets with the pictures and took it home to show to Emma.

"How'd you like to live in one of those?" he asked. He had always had a kind of idea that when he came to town he would put up a big house, one like Mr. Nixon's, the banker's, that had a porch all the way around. But it seemed that they were n't putting up many of those houses now. Mr. Mr. Nixon sent the contractor, Herb Carter, to see them. "Heard you folks were thinking some of building." Herb tried to get them to put up a nebble-dashed bungalow, like the one

he had put up for Dan Myers the summer before. But they would n't quite agree to that. Emma wanted an up-stairs. August was n't sure that he liked this pebble-dash. It was a pretty new thing, and he was n't sure how it would "hold." They compromised on a kind of semicottage, with no attic and three small up-stairs rooms.

That was a good part of town where their lot was. their lot was. It was where the building would be going on now. The banker's son, Clarence Nixon, owned the lot next to theirs, they had heard. He would probably build as soon as he got married. There was no house so far on their side of the street except Tom Cunningham's, on the corner, and that faced the other street. There were no trees either; just a short, vacant block, beyond which were pastures.

He

They began work on the house as soon as they could in the spring. Herb Carter had a lot of houses to build. He always promised more than he could do. But they got along because August did so much of the work himself. He got a wagon and team from the boys and hauled his own sand and earth for the yard. was a pretty good carpenter, handy, as many Germans are, and he helped with the lathing and siding. It kept the men on the job, too, to have him there. There was n't much fooling with August Kaetterhenry, as people who had had to deal with him knew. He meant to have the house ready, so that they could move into it before winter.

The boys said laughingly: "Thought pa was going to town to take it easy. He's working as hard as he did on the farm. I'd want to be paid good and

But August liked it. The house filled up the blank left by the farm. It fed his pride to be putting up a good house, showing people that he could afford it. There was the thought that he had worked hard for this, that he owed most of it to himself. People said, "You always see Mr. Kaetterhenry going back and forth from his new house. It must be going up pretty fast."

It was up now, although the finishing was n't done inside. The "Banner" had an item about it:

"Mr. August Kaetterhenry has put up his fine new house in the north part of town and is about ready for the finishing. Mr. Kaetterhenry says that the first of October will see them established in the new house."

He went over to see it in the early summer evening, to take some more boards over, so that the men would have them there in the morning, but really to see how the place looked when he was n't working on it.

The house stood, new, bare, bright, on the raw earth that was littered over with boards, shavings, pails of dirtyish mortar. It had had its first coat of paint, the upper story yellow, and the lower white. The shingles looked brown and fresh and had a woody smell. The porch roof sloped, and there was one of those dormer-windows in the center that looked as if it had slipped down half-way. Narrow planks that bent a little led up over the porch steps and to the shining front door. The door was locked now. The house was past the stage when little girls could go in and find shaving curls to hang over their hair, and when women could go there, looking around

Inside the house was new, echoing, still. The unstained floors and woodwork made August feel that he should n't be stepping about in his heavy shoes. The walls were rough, white, untinted. The bath-room was finished, although chunks of plaster lay around. He was proud of the shining pipes, the white porcelain of the fixtures still unwashed, with labels sticking to it. Another thing that he admired was the colonnade between the dining-room and living-room. seemed queer to both of them not to have a parlor, but that was the way that houses were being made now. Although he had worked on this house, August could hardly believe in it, somehow, and that he was ever going to live here.

It

There were some small boards laid over the stairs to keep them clean. He thought he 'd go up and see how it looked up there. But he did not stay long. It was dim up there, more silent, and his shoes made a fearful noise as he creaked from room to room. He had a stealthy feeling, as if some one would catch him there. These rooms kept the heat of the day. He was proud of the shining bronze-andblack registers in the walls.

Well, he guessed there was nothing he could do in here. He'd seen it all often enough.

He went outside. In the early summer evening there was a kind of sadness and bareness in the new house, standing stark against the pale evening sky, the new boards around, the raw dirt, the tools thrown down wherever the men had happened to drop them, the vacant lots beyond, and then the pastures stretching away, damp and

woodwork was all stained and varnished-light, shining golden-oak. They had had the walls in the front room "tiffanied." In the other rooms the walls were tinted light green or blue, with stenciled borders. They had bought new rugs for the two front rooms, with bright mottled patterns, and had had the old rag rugs made up into strips for the bedrooms. They were "doing everything right."

They had n't brought in all of their furniture. August said some of it was n't worth carting. The combination desk and book-case, their bedroom furniture, the standard rocker, and three or four others all these they had. The old rockers and the little old stand they put up-stairs. Grandpa's old German Bible and the album and other old things went into the small storeroom at the head of the stairs. Down-stairs, as people said admiringly, half the things were new. The dining-room furniture was all new -a round table and four chairs with leather seats. They had kept some of the old chairs to help out when they had company. They had a new set of dishes, too, although they themselves used the old ones. The new ones were white, with scalloped edges and a thin gold line. The diningroom table remained immaculate, on it a round, embroidered crash doily and a plant. They would do their eating in the kitchen. In the livingroom was the piece of furniture that the children admired—a large brown davenport upholstered in stiff half leather.

People went in to see the Kaetter

At first it seemed queer to the children to see ma and pa in this brand-new modern house, with the shining floors and white plumbing and new furniture. But they got used to it quickly. Now, when they came into town, it was a settled thing that they should go to the folks' for dinner, and leave the babies there while they did their buying. They came in on Sundays to church, and all ate in the new dining-room, the daughters holding babies on their laps.

There was one thing that disappointed them, Emma especially. They had fixed up such a nice room for Johnnie and had thought that they could have him with them again. He had been rooming over in an old house near the garage. But just before they moved into the new house he had driven over to Wapsie one day with his landlady's daughter, and had come back and announced himself married. Emma felt dreadfully, both because of the girl he had married and because he had n't told her and his father about it.

They hated to think of his marrying "such a little flip," as people in town called her. The other two boys had married good workers, good sensible girls, although in some ways they did n't care much for Frank's wife. This Bernice was only a junior in high school, a silly, rather pretty girl, with a large, soft, powdered face and great buns of dark hair showing the rats, melting, foolish, brown eyes. She wore sleazy over-blouses molded by her large, soft breasts, and knee skirts showing her fat, white legs in cheap, thin silk stockings that had a brownish cast. She did n't know how

to do anything. She and Johnnie were to stay with mama.

If Frank had married a girl like that, August might not have forgiven him for years. He did storm and say that he would n't do anything more for Johnnie. But, although the marriage was known as a great disappointment to the Kaetterhenrys, August's anger did n't last. In a way this crazy action of Johnnie's, while it hurt August, partly satisfied his old grudge about the way he had been treated in war-time, the peremptoriness of the Government in taking his boys off the farm, being called "Old Dutchy Kaetterhenry." If Johnnie had not gone to war, he would never have done such a thing. He had not been the same boy since, could see.

as any one

Johnnie quarreled with Bernice's mother, an old Tatar, and he and Bernice went to live in some rooms up over the hardware store. Their baby was born soon after that. Women whispered how long it should have been before the baby ought to have come. But Junior was the prettiest, sturdiest, fattest baby in the relationship. It gave Emma something to do to go over to Johnnie's rooms and clean up and help Bernice with the baby.

Johnnie seemed to be settling down now. Being older than Bernice made him seem older and more staid to himself. himself. August said that if he had really made up his mind now to stay in the garage business, and not just tinker, they'd see what they could do for him.