Mrs. Dicey went back into the house, and sat for a time in envious
meditation, fairly silenced, and with her apron flung over her face.
Then she fell to lamenting that she had been working all her life
for nothing, and it would take so little to make the family
comfortable, and that her children seemed "disabled somehow in thar
heads, an' though always rootin' around in the woods, hed never fund
no gold mine nor nuthin' else out o' the common."

Birt kept silent, but the gloom and trouble in his face suddenly
touched her heart.

"Thar now, Birt!" she exclaimed, with a world of consolation in her
tones, "I don't mean ter say that, nuther. Ain't I a-thinkin' day
an' night o' how smart ye be--stiddy an' sensible an' hard-workin'
jes' like a man--an' what a good son ye hev been to me! An' the
t'other chill'n air good too, an' holps me powerful, though Rufe air
hendered some, by the comical natur o' the critter."

She broke out with a cheerful laugh, in which Birt could not join.

"An' I mus' be gittin' breakfus fur the chill'n," she said, kneeling
down on the hearth, and uncovering the embers which had been kept
all night under the ashes.

"Don't ye fret, sonny. I ain't goin' ter grudge Nate his gold mine.
I reckon sech a good son ez ye be, an' a gold mine too, would be too
much luck fur one woman. Don't ye fret, sonny."

Birt's self-control gave way abruptly. He rose in great agitation,