help her mother, and that he had been "try-
ing to make up for it ever since." On summer
afternoons he used to sit for hours on the side-
walk in front of his laundry, his newspaper
lying on his knee, watching his girls through
the big open window while they ironed and
talked in Danish. The clouds of white dust
that blew up the street, the gusts of hot wind
that withered his vegetable garden, never dis-
turbed his calm. His droll expression seemed
to say that he had found the secret of content-
ment. Morning and evening he drove about
in his spring wagon, distributing freshly
ironed clothes, and collecting bags of linen
that cried out for his suds and sunny drying-
lines. His girls never looked so pretty at the
dances as they did standing by the ironing-
board, or over the tubs, washing the fine pieces,
their white arms and throats bare, their cheeks
bright as the brightest wild roses, their gold
hair moist with the steam or the heat and
curling in little damp spirals about their ears.
They had not learned much English, and were
not so ambitious as Tony or Lena; but they
were kind, simple girls and they were always
happy. When one danced with them, one
smelled their clean, freshly ironed clothes that

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v?