s, I am. You see for yourself we can't find any place fer him
hereabouts."

"Well, I've ben waitin' for days to see what you was goin' to do, and
now I'll tell you what I'm goin' to do, if you'd like to know. I'm goin'
to keep Timothy myself; to have and to hold from this time forth and for
evermore, as the Bible says. That's what I'm goin' to do!"

Miss Cummins gasped with astonishment.

"I mean what I say, Vildy. I ain't so well off as some, but I ain't a
pauper, not by no means. I've ben layin' by a little every year for
twenty years, 'n' you know well enough what for; but that's all over for
ever and ever, amen, thanks be! And I ain't got chick nor child, nor
blood relation in the world, and if I choose to take somebody to do for,
why, it's nobody's affairs but my own."

"You can't do it, and you sha'n't do it!" said Miss Vilda excitedly.
"You ain't goin' to make a fool of yourself, if I can help it. We can't
have two children clutterin' up this place and eatin' us out of house
and home, and that's the end of it."

"It ain't the end of it, Vildy Cummins, not by no manner o' means! If we
can't keep both of 'em, do you know what I think 'bout it? I think we'd
ought to give away the one that everybody wants and keep the other that
nobody does want, more fools they! That's religion, accordin' to my way
o' thinkin'. I love the baby, dear knows; but see here. Who planned this
thing all out? Timothy. Who took that baby up in his own arms and
fetched her out o' that den o' thieves? Timothy. Who stood all the resk
of gittin' that innocent lamb out o' that sink of iniquity, and hed wit
enough to bring her to a place where she could grow up respectable?
Timothy. And do you ketch him say in' a word 'bout himself from fust to
last? Not by no manner o' means. That ain't Timothy. And what doos the
lovin' gen'rous, faithful little soul git? He gits his labor for his
pains. He hears folks say right to his face that nobody wants him and
everybody wants Gay. And if he didn't have a disposition like a
cherubim-an-seraphim (and better, too, for they 'continually do cry,'
now I come to think of it), he'd be sour and bitter, 'stid o' bein' good
as an angel in a picture-book from sun-up to sun-down!"

Miss Vilda was crushed by the overpowering weight of this argument, and
did not even try to stem the resistless tide of Samantha's eloquence.

"And now folks is all of a high to take in the baby for a spell, jest
for a plaything, becau