"I dunno—I dunno," groaned the old lady. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! I'm a poor, rheumaticky creeter—and nobody but Jabez would have taken me out o' the poorhouse an' done for me as he has."
"You mean, you have done for him!" cried Ruth, in some passion. "You have kept his house for him, and mended for him, and made a home for him, for years. And I doubt if he has ever thanked you—not once!"
"But I have thanked him, deary," said Aunt Alvirah, sweetly. "And I do thank him, same as I do our Father in Heaven, ev'ry day of my life, for takin' me away from that poorfarm an' makin' an independent woman of me a'gin. Oh, Jabez ain't all bad. Fur from it, my pretty—fur from it!
"Now that you ain't no more beholden to him for your eddication, an' all, he is more pennyurious than ever—yes he is! For Jabez's sake, I could almost wish you hadn't got all that money you did, for gittin' back the lady's necklace. Spendin' money breeds the itch for spendin' more. Since you wrote him that you was goin' to pay all your school bills, Jabez Potter is cured of the little itch of that kind he ever had."
"Oh, Aunt Alvirah! Think of me—I am glad to be independent, too."
"I know—I know," admitted Aunt Alvirah. "But it's hard on Jabez. He was givin' you the best eddication he could——"
"Grumblingly enough, I am sure!" interposed Ruth, with a pout. She could speak plainly to the little old woman, for Aunt Alvirah knew.
"Surely—surely," agreed the old lady. "But it did him good, jest the same. Even if he only spent money on ye for fear of what the neighbors would say. Opening his pocket for your needs, my pretty, was makin' a new man of Jabez."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Ruth, thinking it rather hard. "You want me to be poor again, Aunt Alvirah."
"Only for your uncle's sake—only for his sake," she reiterated.