you a nickel for
yourself only last week?"

"Yes--an' you took it away from me soon's you found it out," Bessie
flashed back. There were tears in her eyes, but she went at her dishes,
and Mrs. Hoover, after a minute in which she glared at Bessie, turned
and left the kitchen, muttering something about ingratitude as she went.

As she worked, Bessie wondered why it was that she must always do the
work about the house when other girls were at school or free to play.
But it had been that way for a long time, and she could think of no way
of escaping to happier conditions. Mrs. Hoover was no relation to her at
all. Bessie had a father and mother, but they had left her with Mrs.
Hoover a long time before, and she could scarcely remember them, but she
heard about them, her father especially, whenever she did something that
Mrs. Hoover didn't like.

"Take after your paw--that's what you do, good-for-nothin' little
hussy!" the farmer's wife would say. "Leavin' you here on our hands when
he went away--an' promisin' to send board money for you. Did, too, for
'bout a year--an' since then never a cent! I've a mind to send you to
the county farm, that I have!"

"Now, maw," Paw Hoover, a kindly, toil-hardened farmer, would say when
he happened to overhear one of these outbursts, "Bessie's a good girl,
an' I reckon she earns her keep, don't she, helpin' you like, round the
place?"

"Earn her keep?" Mrs. Hoover would shrill. "She's so lazy she'd never do
anythin' at all if I didn't stand over her. All she's good fer is to eat
an' sleep--an' to hide off som'ere's so's she can read them trashy books
when she ought to be reddin' up or doin' her chores!"

And Paw Hoover would sigh and retire, beaten in the argument. He knew
his wife too well to argue with her. But he liked Bessie, and he did his
best to comfort her when he had the chance, and thought there was no
danger of starting a dispute with his wife.

Bessie finished her dishes, and then she went out obediently to the wood
pile, and set to work to chop kindling. She had been up since
daylight--and the sun rose early on those summer mornings. Every bone
and muscle in her tired little body ached, but she knew well that Mrs.
Hoover had been listening to the work of washing the dishes, and she
dared not rest lest her taskmistress descend upon her again when the
noise ceased.

Mrs. Hoover came out after she had been chopping wood for a few minutes
and eyed her crossly.

"'Pear