"Not if we gave my time willingly?"
"No; but, Meg, you needn't do it unless you like it, my dear."
"I thought you would be sure to tell me to help your mother all I can," said Meg, almost ready to cry.
"An' so I should, sweetheart, while we had breath in our bodies, if she were ill or needed it. But it's different as it is. Jenny don't serve her well, that she don't."
"Who is 'Jenny'?" asked Meg.
"Jenny lives on our first floor. She has an old blind father, but she's out a deal. I fancy they have some sort of little income, for she don't work steady enough to keep him, and pay rent for those two rooms."
"And does she iron for mother?"
"Yes; and wash too sometimes. But mother has a knack or two with the washing, and likes to do most of that herself; she says folks don't get the things clean."
"Then you would like me to earn something if I could, Jem?" she asked.
"Well, dear," he answered very kindly, "if you was to ask me what I'd like, I'd say as I should like you never to have a need to work all your life! But, Meg, I've looked at things a long time, and I've laid awake at night too thinkin' of them, and I've come to learn this. That our God don't mean us to be idle—none of us—and that it's whatsoever our hands find to do, that we are to do with our might."