e jerked the words out in a spasmodic way, and put her hand to her
heart as if there was a pain or pressure. "When I was three year old I
had to take care of my little brother. I stood up on a bench to wash
dishes when I was four, and scoured milk-pans and the pewter plates we
used then. And at six I was spinning on the little wheel and knitting
stockings. I went to school part of every year, and at thirteen I was
doing a woman's work. No, I never was a little girl."

Doris put her soft hand over the one that had been strained and made
coarse and large in the joints, and roughened as to skin while yet it
was in its tender youth. And all the pay there had been from her
father's estate had been three hundred dollars to each girl, the
remainder being divided evenly among the boys. She felt suddenly
grateful to Hatfield Perkins for the easier times of her married life.

"Now, both of you go out in the kitchen and get a piece of Polly's fresh
gingerbread. She hasn't lost her art in that yet. Then you must run off
home, for it will soon be dark, and Betty will be needed about the
supper."

The gingerbread was splendid. Doris broke off little crumbs and fed them
to Solomon, and told him sometime she would come and spend the afternoon
with him. She should be so lonesome when Betty went away.

Polly carried the bandbox and bundle for them, and Betty took the box of
ribbons. Aunt Priscilla brought out the light-stand and set her candle
on it and turned over the leaves of her old Bible to read about the
daughters of Zion with their tinkling feet and their cauls and their
round tires like the moon, the chains and the bracelets and the bonnets,
the earrings, the mantles, the wimples and the crisping pins, the fine
linen and the hoods and the veils--and all these were to be done away
with! To be sure she did not really know what they all were, but her few
had been snares and a source of secret idolatry for years and years. She
had nothing to do now but to consider the end of all things and prepare
for it. But there was the dreaded will yet to make. If only there was
someone who really cared about her!

CHAPTER X

CONCERNING MANY THINGS

When Providence overruled, in the early part of the century, people
generally gave in. The stronger tide was called Providence. Perhaps
there was a small degree of fatalism in it. So Mrs. Leverett acquiesced,
and recalled the fact that she had promised Electa that Betty should
come.