THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT WRITE. 61.

relations in light mourning and Poppet and her mother had
kept her so busy. So for a little while she sat and cried on
the sign.

Nobody but Jem knew what comfort she and her father had
taken in the shop behind that false, persisting sign. How she
had run on the errands, and held the nails, and tacked the
bindings, and chosen the chintz, and measured the mould-
ings, and sawed the legs, and even helped to cover the
lounges. Howhe had made fun of her and said, “ We ought
to let a J. into the old shingle, Jem,—‘H & J.’ Or Jasper
and Daughter— eh?” How he had told her that she knew
how to strike a nail, and had an eye for a foot-rule, and hung
a curtain as well as he did; and he hoped that Poppet, when
he got through college, would be half as smart. How the
mention of ‘college reminded her faintly of Icarus, but very
faintly, and she was sure that it did not remind him, and
that made her very happy. What a help she had been to
him, and how pleasant life had been! How suddenly and
awfully help and pleasure stopped that day a week ago!
How drearily and darkly her two happy years came down
with the old sign !

Ah, well! Ah, well! Jem wiped up the sign and her
eyes together. This would never do. She had cried ten
minutes by the clock, and she could spare the time to cry no
longer. Something must be done. H. Jasper had left no
will, his furniture, an ailing wife, Poppet, and a daughter
eighteen years old who could not write a composition.