children had grubbed them together.
Every penny there represented more than the sweat of the brow: the
sweat of the heart.

Squire Eben Merritt, with some dim perception of the true magnitude
and meaning of that little hoard, gained partly through Ann's manner,
partly through his own quickness of sympathy, fairly started as he
looked at it and her.

"There's twenty-one dollars, all but two shillin's, there," said Ann,
with hard triumph. "The two shillin's Jerome is goin' to have
to-night. He's been splittin' of kindlin'-wood, after school, for
your sister, this week, and she's goin' to pay him the same as she
did for weedin'. You can take this now, if you want to, or wait and
have it all together."

"I'll wait, thank you," replied Eben Merritt. For the moment he felt
actually dismayed and ashamed at the sight of his ready interest
money. It was almost like having a good deed thrust back in his face
and made of no account. He had scarcely expected any payment,
certainly none so full and prompt as this.

"I thought I'd let you see you hadn't any cause to feel afraid you
wouldn't get it," said Ann, with dignity. "Elmira, you can put the
money back in the stockin' now, and put the stockin' back under the
feather-bed."

Squire Merritt felt like a great school-boy before this small,
majestic woman. "I did not feel afraid, Mrs. Edwards," he said,
awkwardly.

"I didn't know but you might," said she, scornfully; "people didn't
seem to think we could do anything."

"All I wonder at is," said the Squire, rallying a little, "how you
managed to get so much money together."

"Do you want to know? Well, I'll tell you. We've bound shoes, Elmira
an' me, for one thing. We've took all they would give us. That wa'n't
many, for the regular customers had to come first, and I didn't do
any in Abel's lifetime--that is, not after I was sick. I used to a
while before that. Abel wouldn't let me when we were first married,
but he had to come to it. Men can't do all they're willin' to. I
shouldn't have done anything but dress in silk, set an' rock, an'
work scallops an' eyelets in cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, if Abel
had had his say. After I was sick I quit workin' on boots, because
the doctor he said it might hurt the muscles of my back to pull the
needle through the leather; but there's somethin' besides muscles in
backs to be thought of when it comes to keepin' body an' soul
together. Two days after the funeral I sent Jerome up to C