Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/355

 work. Empires are rotting from the hinges of history. Civilizations are crumbling. Men and women go workless and go hungry. Behind us, over there, is a world to be reconstructed—nations, families, individuals to be rebuilt. And it isn't just in Europe and Asia where reconstruction is going on. It's here." She was speaking with quivering enthusiasm now, the beautiful eyes ablaze with a kind of earnestness her husband had never seen in them before.

"Let's do our part to make that re-building a fact, husband mine," she pleaded, and drew affectionately close once more. "The world is down. It has to be helped up. And your first step toward that is that mutual ownership program you had in mind once. You haven't abandoned that, have your I want you to get it going, and I want to stand right beside you and help you operate it as the chief part of your job."

But George Judson had suddenly a very peculiar expression on his face, and his eyes were lowered to a crumpled slip of paper in his hand. "I—I haven't got any job," he recalled confusedly. "They just elected a new board of directors over my head."

"Over your head?" inquired his wife in surprise. "But didn't Simon—?"

"Yes, Simon did. But," and George stared sheepishly at that wrinkled slip of paper in his