"So the neighbors were helpful, after all!" said she. "And if ever I
get sick, I shall be willin' to have help, Miss Perrit. I'm sure I
would take what I would give; I think givin' works two ways. I don't
feel afraid yet."

Miss Perrit groaned a little, and wiped her eyes, and got up to go
away. She hadn't never offered to help mother, and she went off to the
sewing-circle and told that Miss Langdon hadn't got no feelings at
all, and 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