"

"No, Jane," said Holcroft firmly, "you'd make me no end of trouble if
you did that. If you'll be a good girl and learn how to do things,
I'll try to find you a place among kind people some day when you're
older and can act for yourself."

"You're afraid 'fi's here mother'd come a-visitin," said the girl
keenly.

"You're too young to understand half the trouble that might follow. My
plans are too uncertain for me to tangle myself up. You and your
mother must go away at once, so I can do what I must do before it's too
late in the season. Here's a couple of dollars which you can keep for
yourself," and he went up to his room, feeling that he could not
witness the child's distress any longer.

He fought hard against despondency and tried to face the actual
condition of his affairs. "I might have known," he thought, "that
things would have turned out somewhat as they have, with such women in
the house, and I don't see much chance of getting better ones. I've
been so bent on staying and going on as I used to that I've just shut
my eyes to the facts." He got out an old account book and pored over
it a long time. The entries therein were blind enough, but at last he
concluded, "It's plain that I've lost money on the dairy ever since my
wife died, and the prospects now are worse than ever. That Weeks tribe
will set the whole town talking against me and it will be just about
impossible to get a decent woman to come here. I might as well have an
auction and sell all the cows but one at once. After that, if I find I
can't make out living alone, I'll put the place in better order and
sell or rent. I can get my own meals after a fashion, and old Jonathan
Johnson's wife will do my washing and mending. It's time it was done
better than it has been, for some of my clothes make me look like a
scarecrow. I believe Jonathan will come with his cross dog and stay
here too, when I must be away. Well, well, it's a hard lot for a man;
but I'd be about as bad off, and a hundred-fold more lonely, if I went
anywhere else.

"I can only feel my way along and live a day at a time. I'll learn
what can be done and what can't be. One thing is clear: I can't go on
with this Mrs. Mumpson in the house a day longer. She makes me creep
and crawl all over, and the first thing I know I shall be swearing like
a bloody pirate unless I get rid of her.

"If she wasn't such a hopeless idiot I'd let her stay for the sake of
Jane, but I wo