"I wish you were a little like him there," Hannah returned.

He admitted that this evening he was more untidy than need be. "I just
couldn't wait to see you," he declared; "with our place and--and all so
safe and happy."

II

The Braley table, spread after the Greenstream custom in the kitchen,
was surrounded by Richmond and Calvin--Hosmer had stayed late at the
bank--Hannah and Susan, the eldest of the children, prematurely aged
and wasted by a perpetual cough, while Lucy Braley moved carelessly
between the stove and the table. At rare intervals she was assisted by
Hannah, who bore the heavy dishes in a silent but perceptible air of
protest.

Calvin Stammark liked this; it was a part of her superiority to the
other girls of the locality. He made up his mind that she should never
lose her present gentility. Whenever he could afford it Hannah must
have help in the house. No greater elegance was imaginable. Senator
Alderwith, at his dwelling with its broad porch, had two servants--two
servants and a bathtub with hot water running right out of a tap. And
he Calvin Stammark, would have the same, before Hannah and he were too
old to enjoy it.

He had eleven hundred dollars now, after buying the land about his
house. When the right time came he would invest it in more property--
grazing, a few herd of cattle and maybe in timber. Calvin had
innumerable schemes for their betterment and success. To all this the
sheer fact of Hannah was like the haunting refrain of a song. She was