have it, he returned before the weary traveller had partaken of the meal
prepared for her. As soon as he saw how matters stood he gave his wife
a stern rebuke for "encouraging beggars"; and, with many harsh words,
ordered the woman to leave the house. The poor woman rose wearily to
obey the command, and, as she was passing from the room, she turned, and
fixing her eyes upon Mr. Judson, said in a stern voice, "I am poor and
needy--it was hunger alone which compelled me to ask charity--but with
all your riches I would not exchange places with you who have the heart
to turn from your door one in need of food; surely, out of your
abundance you might have at the least given food to one in want; but go
on hoarding up your dollars, and see how much softer they will make your
dying pillow." It was said that the farmer actually turned pale as the
woman left the house. Perhaps his conscience was not quite dead, and it
may be that a shadow from the events of future years, even then, fell
across his mind. It would have been difficult to find two natures more
unlike than were those of Mr. Judson and his wife. The former was
stingy, even to miserly niggardliness, as well as ill-tempered, sullen
and morose, while the latter was one of the most kind-hearted and
motherly old ladies imaginable, that is, had her kindly nature been
allowed to exhibit itself. As it was, not daring to act according to the
dictates of her own kind heart, through fear of her stern companion, she
had in the course of years, become a timid broken-spirited woman. In her
youthful days she had been a regular attendant at church, she also was a
valuable teacher in the sabbath-school; but, after marrying Lemuel
Judson, she soon found that all religious privileges of a social nature
were at an end. Poor man, money was the god he worshipped; and so
entirely did the acquisition of wealth engross his mind that every other
emotion was well-nigh extinguished. He seldom, if ever, entered a place
of public worship, and did what he could to prevent his wife from doing
so. She did at the first venture a feeble remonstrance when he refused