These words were quoted against Holcroft, far and near. "Filling his own mouth
and making a little money are all he cares for," was the general verdict. And
thus people are misunderstood. The farmer had never turned anyone hungry from
his door, and he would have gone to the poorhouse rather than have acted the
part of the man who misrepresented him. He had only meant to express the hope
that he might be able to fill his mouth--earn his bread, and get it from his
native soil. "Plowing and planting"--working where he had toiled since a
child---would be a solace in itself, and not a grudged means to a sordid end.

Mr. Weeks was a thrifty man also, and in nothing was he more economical than
in charitable views of his neighbors' motives and conduct. He drove homeward
with the complacent feeling that he had done a shrewd, good thing for himself
and "his folks" at least. His wife's cousin was not exactly embraced in the
latter category, although he had been so active in her behalf. The fact was,
he would be at much greater pains could he attach her to Holcroft or anyone
else and so prevent further periodical visits.

He regarded her and her child as barnacles with such appalling adhesive powers
that even his ingenuity at "crowding out" had been baffled. In justice to
him, it must be admitted that Mrs. Mumpson was a type of the poor relation
that would tax the long suffering of charity itself. Her husband had left her
scarcely his blessing, and if he had fled to ills he knew not of, he believed
that he was escaping from some of which he had a painfully distinct
consciousness. His widow was one of the people who regard the "world as their
oyster," and her scheme of life was to get as much as possible for nothing.
Arrayed in mourning weeds, she had begun a system of periodical descents upon
his relatives and her own. She might have made such visitations endurable and
even welcome, but she was not shrewd enough to be sensible. She appeared to
have developed only the capacity to talk, to pry, and to worry people. She
was unable to rest or to permit others to rest, yet her aversion to any useful