, satisfied that they had done their duty according to the law.
Every article of Samuel Wales's property, from a warming-pan to a
chest of drawers, was set down, with the sole exception of that old
blue jacket, which Ann had hidden.

She felt complacent over it at first; then she began to be uneasy.

"Nabby," said she confidentially to the old servant woman, when they
were washing the pewter plates together after supper, "what would they
do if anybody shouldn't let them set down all the things--if they hid
some of 'em away, I mean?"

"They'd make a dretful time on't," said Nabby impressively. She was
a large, stern-looking old woman. "They air dretful perticklar 'bout
these things. They hev to be."

Ann was scared when she heard that. When the dishes were done, she sat
down on the settle and thought it over, and made up her mind what to
do.

The next morning, in the frosty dawning, before the rest of the family
were up, a slim, erect little figure could have been seen speeding
across lots toward Mr. Silas White's. She had the old blue jacket
tucked under her arm. When she reached the house, she spied Mr. White
just coming out of the back door with a milking pail. He carried a
lantern, too, for it was hardly light.

He stopped and stared when Ann ran up to him.

"Mr. White," said she, all breathless, "here's--something--I guess yer
didn't see yesterday."

Mr. White set down the milk pail, took the blue jacket which she
handed him, and scrutinized it sharply by the light of the lantern.

"I guess we didn't see it," said he finally. "I will put it down--it's
worth about three pence, I judge. Where"--

"Silas, Silas!" called a shrill voice from the house. Silas White
dropped the jacket and trotted briskly in, his lantern bobbing
agitatedly. He never delayed a moment when his wife called; important
and tyrannical as the little man was abroad, he had his own tyrant at
home.

Ann did not wait for him to return; she snatched up the blue jacket
and fled home, leaping like a little deer over the hoary fields. She
hung up the precious old jacket behind the shed door again, and no one
ever knew the whole story of its entrance in the inventory. If she had
been questioned, she would have told the truth boldly, though. But
Samuel Wales's Inventory had for its last item that blue jacket,
spelled after Silas White's own individual method, as was many another
word in the long list. Silas White consulted his own taste with