Sprawled in front of the fireplace, nine-year-old Little Joe Cartwright looked up from his book with a puzzled expression.  “What’s ‘penury?’”

            A half-smile played at the lips of his oldest brother, who was sitting in his favorite blue chair, reading.  “Something you know nothing about.”

            With a frown of frustration, Little Joe scrambled up and came to lean his elbows on Adam’s knees.  “But I gots to know, Adam,” he pleaded.  “It’s on my vocabilary list.”

            Adam chuckled and reached out to lift his small brother to his lap.  “You have to know, and it’s on your vocabulary list.”

            “Yeah, that’s what I said,” Joe returned with an earnest expression.  “So, what’s it mean?”

            Adam leaned his head back, and a dreamy look entered his hazel eyes.  “Penury is a man walking west with a barefoot boy at his side.  It’s stopping at every town along the way, being willing to take any job, however hard, just to put food in that boy’s mouth.  It’s going hungry yourself so your child has food, and when that child becomes sick, it’s not even having enough money to buy salt pork and onions to soothe his aching throat.”

            Little Joe snuggled closer to his big brother.  “I’m glad I never knew nothin’ ‘bout that penury, if that’s what it’s like.”

            Adam smoothed the unruly curls lying on his chest.  “I’m glad, too, little buddy, but there is another side.”

            Joe’s head came up.  “Yeah?”

            Adam smiled warmly.  “Sometimes, if a man and a boy are lucky, that penury brings them to a woman with the biggest heart in all the world, and she not only gives them salt pork and onions for the sick little boy, but she gives herself to both of them.  She gives the boy a new mother and the father new hope, and she gives them both a brand new boy to travel west with them.”

            “And that boy was Hoss!” Joe cried, finally recognizing the story.  He sobered abruptly.  “I’m sorry you had to be barefoot and hungry and sick, Adam, but all things considered, I’m kinda glad you went through that penury.”

            “You know,” Adam returned, cuddling Joe close as mist fogged his eyes, “I’m kinda glad myself.”