omfort now instead of adding farm to
farm, and saving up so much for the woman who will come in here when you
are dead and gone. Think of the men who have second and third wives and
whose children are often turned adrift to look out for themselves.
Hundreds of poor women are living hard and joyless lives just to save up
money. And it is a shame to grind their children to the lowest ebb."

Mrs. Manning was very angry. She had no argument at hand, so she turned
in an arrogant manner and said austerely:

"I had better go and look after my daughter, to see that she doesn't
work herself quite to death. But I don't know what we should do without
bread."

"Now you have done it!" cried Betty. "I only hope she won't vent her
anger on the poor child."

"It is a curious thing," said Mrs. King reflectively, "that women--well,
men too--make such a point of church-going on Sunday, and hardly allow
the poor children to draw a comfortable breath, and on Monday act like
fiends. Women especially seem to think they have a right to indulge in
dreadful tempers on washing day, and drive all before them. Think of the
work that has been done in this house to-day, and the picture of
Elizabeth, worn out, falling asleep over her knitting. I should have
sent her to bed with the chickens. I'd like to take her home with me,
but it would spoil her for the farm."

Betty knit away on the stocking. "I can't see what makes Mary so hard
and grasping," she said. "It troubles mother a good deal."

When they went in the house was quiet and the kitchen dark. Mrs. Manning
sat sewing. Their candles were on the table. Betty and Mrs. King said a
cordial good-night.

The sisters-in-law were to come the next day, and grandmother Manning,
with an addition of four children. The Salem sister, Mrs. Gates, was
stout and pleasant; the farmer sister thin and with a troublesome cough,
and she had a young baby besides her little girl of six. She was to make
a visit in Salem, and doctor somewhat, to see if she could not get over
her cough before cold weather.

The children were turned out of doors on the grassy roadside, where they
couldn't hurt anything. Mrs. Gates and Betty helped in the kitchen, and
after the dinner was cleared away Elizabeth was allowed to put on her
second-best gingham and go out with the children. They ran and played
and screamed and laughed.

"I'd a hundred times rather sit still and hear you talk," she said to
Doris. "And I'm awful sorry t