hey'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' 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 respect to capital letters too.

After a few weeks, Grandma said she must have Ann again; and back she
went. Grandma was very feeble lately, and everybody humored her. Mrs.
Polly was sorry to have the little girl leave her. She said it was
wonderful how much she had improved. But she would not have admitted
that the improvement was owing to the different influence she had
been under; she said Ann had outgrown her mischievous ways.

Grandma did not live very long after this however. Mrs. Polly had her
bound girl at her own disposal