ain't very darin', neither. Not much like father, I ain't, nor what
brother Will used to be. Either o' them'd face Old Nick an' give him as
good as he sent."

"Well, all I can say is, folks can't be too near for me. What would you
do if you should be sick in the night?"

"I dunno," said Ann gayly. "Set down an' suck my claws, I guess, an'
wait till daylight. I can't think o' nothin' else." She had finished her
polishing and set back the silver, to eye it with a critical and
delighted gaze. Then she washed her hands at the sink, and brought out a
fine white napkin from the high-boy, and spread it on a little table
between the windows. "I dunno but I'm dretful childish," she said, "but
arter I've got it all rubbed up, I keep it here in sight, a day or two,
it ketches the sun so. Then I set it away in the best-room cluzzet."

"It's real handsome," said Mrs. John C. "How many pieces be there? This
is the whole on 't, as I remember it."

"Jest as you see it. Yes, 'tis handsome. Mother set the world by it."

"I dunno but I'd ruther have the wuth on 't," said Mrs. John C., as she
had said many times before.

"Well," agreed Ann, "I dunno but father would. He wa'n't doin' very well
that year. I was a little mite of a thing then, an' I remember it all as
if 'twa'n't but yesterday. Father come in, an' he says: 'Well, I guess
I've saved the judge a pretty good smash-up. That span o' colts run away
down the river road.' 'Who's in the carriage?' says mother. 'He drivin'
himself?' 'No,' says father. 'He'd jest lifted Annie in, an' there was a
paper blew along the road, an' they started.' 'Annie?' says mother,
'that little mite? He don't deserve to have a child. Why, father,' says
she, lookin' up over her glasses,--mother had near-sighted eyes,--'your
clo's are all tore off o' you, an' there's your hand all bleedin'.'
Father begun to wash himself up at the sink, an' while he stood there,
in walked the judge. He was white as a cloth. 'Barstow,' says he, 'you
name anything you want that's in my power to git ye, an' you shall have
it.' 'Twas a pretty hard year for father, as I told ye, but he never
asked favors from nobody. I can see jest how he looked when he turned
round an' answered. Father was a real handsome man. 'Much obleeged,
judge,' says he. 'I don't want nothin' I can't git for myself.' The
judge looked kinder hurt, but he turned to mother. 'Mis' Barstow,' says
he, 'can't you think o' some kind of a keepsake you'd like?' Mo