with Keith seated snugly between its four legs, it became a sleigh
drawn across icy plains by a team of swift reindeer, or a ship rocking
mightily on the high seas.

The kitchen was full of a peculiar sweetish smell, by which Keith knew
without looking that Granny was dressing the old wound on her left leg
that had developed "the rose" and would not heal. She was leaning far
over, busy with a bandage which she wound tightly about her leg, from
the ankle to the knee. The boy sniffed the familiar smell with a vague
sense of discomfort, which, however, did not prevent him from going up
to the grandmother and putting one arm about her neck.

"Old hurt is hard to mend," she muttered quoting one of the old saws
always on her lips. Then without raising her head, she added in the
peevish, truculent tone of a thwarted child: "You had better go back in
there before they come and get you. I am nothing but a servant, and as
such I know my place and keep it. I am less than a servant, for they
wouldn't dare do to Lena what they do to me."

"Oh, yes, they would," Lena put in from across the room. "And they would
have a right, too."

As if she had not heard at all, Granny sat up straight and looked hard
at the boy.

"Whatever you do, Keith," she said, and he noticed that her voice
sounded a little strange, "see that you make a lot of money when you
grow up. To be poor is to have no rights, and the worst thing of all is
to be dependent on others, no matter how near they are to you."