you'll think I'm interferin'; but I can't help it nohow when I think
of--my Abby, an' how--she went down. _Ain't_ you got anybody that
could help you a little while 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