g up money, depriving themselves of comforts, and their families
of the advantages of society and education, just to add a few dollars to
their hoard every year; and so they keep on till they die and leave it
to their children, who would be much better off if a little more had
been invested in the cultivation of their minds and manners, and less in
stocks and bonds.

"Jedwort was just one of that class of men, although perhaps he carried
the fault I speak of a little to excess. A dollar looked so big to him,
and he held it so close, that at last he couldn't see much of anything
else. By degrees he lost all regard for decency and his neighbor's
opinions. His children went barefoot, even after they got to be great
boys and girls, because he was too mean to buy them shoes. It was
pitiful to see a nice, interesting girl, like Maria, go about looking as
she did, while her father was piling his money into the bank. She wanted
to go to school and learn music, and be somebody; but he wouldn't keep a
hired girl, and so she was obliged to stay at home and do housework; and
she could no more have got a dollar out of him to pay for clothes and
tuition than you could squeeze sap out of a hoe-handle.

"The only way his wife could ever get anything new for the family was by
stealing butter from her own dairy, and selling it behind his back.
'You needn't say anything to Mr. Jedwort about this batch of butter,'
she would hint to the storekeeper; 'but you may hand the money to me,
or I will take my pay in goods.' In this way a new gown, or a piece of
cloth for the boys' coats, or something else the family needed, would be
smuggled into the house, with fear and trembling lest old Jedwort should
make a row and find where the money came from.

"The house inside was kept neat as a pin; but everything around it
looked terribly shiftless. It was built originally in an ambitious
style, and painted white. It had four tall front pillars, supporting the
portion of the roof that came over the porch--lifting up the eyebrows of
the house, if I may so express myself, and making it look as if it was
going to sneeze. Half the blinds were off their hinges, and the rest
flapped in the wind. The front doorstep had rotted away. The porch had
once a good floor, but for years Jedwort had been in the habit of going
to it whenever he wanted a board for the pig-pen, until not a bit of
floor was left.

"But I began to tell about Jedwort leaning on the gate tha