e till she gets better an' able to work?"

"I dun'no' of anybody."

"Wouldn't your sister's husband's father? Ain't he got considerable
property?"

Mrs. Field turned suddenly, her voice sharpened, "I've asked him all
I'm ever goin' to--there! I let Esther's husband have fifteen hundred
dollars that my poor husband saved out of his hard earnin's, an' he
lost it in his business; an' after he died I wrote to his father, an'
I told him about it. I thought mebbe he'd be willin' to be fair, an'
pay his son's debts, if he didn't have much feelin'. There was Esther
an' Lois an' me, an' not a cent to live on, an' Esther she was
beginnin' to be feeble. But he jest sent me back my letter, an' he'd
wrote on the back of it that he wa'n't responsible for any of his
son's debts. I said then I'd never go to him agin, and I didn't; an'
Esther didn't when she was sick an' dyin'; an' I never let him know
when she died, an' I don't s'pose he knows she is dead to this day."

"Oh, Mis' Field, you didn't have to lose all that money!"

"Yes, I did, every dollar of it."

"I declare it's wicked."

"There's a good many things that's wicked, an' sometimes I think some
things ain't wicked that we've always thought was. I don't know but
the Lord meant everybody to have what belonged to them in spite of
everything."

Mrs. Green stared. "I guess I don't know jest what you mean, Mis'
Field."

"I meant everybody ought to have what's their just due, an' I believe
the Lord will uphold them in it. I've about come to the conclusion
that folks ought to lay hold of justice themselves if there ain't no
other way, an' that's what we've got hands for." Suddenly Mrs.
Field's manner changed. "I know Lois hadn't ought to be teachin'
school as well as you do," said she. "I ain't said much about it, it
ain't my way, but I've known it all the time."

"She'd ought to take a vacation, Mis' Field, an' get away from here
for a spell. Folks say Green River ain't very healthy. They say these
low meadow-lands are bad. I worried enough about it after my Abby
died, thinkin' what might have been done. It does seem to me that if
something was done right away, Lois might get up; but there ain't no
use waitin'. I've seen young girls go down; it seems sometimes as if
there wa'n't nothin' more to them than flowers, an' they fade away in
a day. I've been all through it. Mis' Field, you don't mind my
speakin' so, do you? Oh, Mis' Field, don't feel so bad! I'm real
sorry