she b'lieved she'd just as soon beg for a livin' as not.
Polly Mariner, the tailoress, come and told mother all she said next
day, but mother only smiled, and set Polly to talkin' about the best
way to make over her old cloak. When she was gone, I begun to talk
about Miss Perrit, and I was real mad; but mother hushed me right up.

"It a'n't any matter, Ann," said she. "Her sayin' so don't make it so.
Miss Perrit's got a miserable disposition, and I'm sorry for her; a
mint of money wouldn't make her happy; she's a doleful Christian, she
don't take any comfort in anything, and I really do pity her."

And that was just the way mother took everything.

At first we couldn't sell the farm. It was down at the foot of
Torringford Hill, two good miles from meetin', and a mile from the
school-house; most of it was woodsy, and there wa'n't no great market
for wood about there. So for the first year Squire Potter took it on
shares, and, as he principally seeded it down to rye, why, we sold the
rye and got a little money, but 'twa'n't a great deal,--no more than
we wanted for clothes the next winter. Aunt Langdon sent us down a lot
of maple-sugar from Lee, and when we wanted molasses we made it out of
that. We didn't have to buy no great of groceries, for we could spin
and knit by fire-light, and, part of the land bein' piny woods, we had
a good lot of knots that were as bright as lamps for all we wanted.
Then we had a dozen chickens, and by pains and care they laid pretty
well, and the eggs were as good as gold. So we lived through the first
year after father died, pretty well.

Anybody that couldn't get along with mother and Major (I always called
Mary Jane "Major" when I was real little, and the name kind of stayed
by) couldn't get along with anybody. I was as happy as a cricket
whilst they were by, though, to speak truth, I wasn't naturally so
chirpy as they were; I took after father more, who was a kind of a
despondin' man, down-hearted, never thinkin' things could turn out
right, or that he was goin' to have any luck. That was my natur', and
mother see it, and fought ag'inst it like a real Bunker-Hiller; but
natur' is hard to root up, and there was always times when I wanted to
sulk away into a corner and think nobody wanted me, and that I was
poor and humbly, and had to work for my living.

I remember one time I'd gone up into my room before tea to have one of
them dismal fits. Miss Perrit had been in to see mother, and s