By this time Mrs. Grayson's trembling hands, on whose hardened palms and slightly distorted fingers one might have read the history of a lifetime of work and hardship, had drawn out a cotton handkerchief in which were tied up thirty great round cumbersome Spanish and Mexican dollars, with some smaller silver. This she took to a table, where she proceeded slowly to count out for Tom the exact amount he had borrowed to redeem his clothes,—not a fi'-penny bit more did she spare him.
At this point Barbara began to speak. She raised her face from her work and drew her dark eyes to a sharp focus, as she always did when she was much in earnest.
"It don't matter much about us, Tom," she said, despondently. "Women are made to give up for men, I suppose. I've made up my mind a'ready to quit the school over at Timber Creek, though I do hate to."
"Yes," said her mother, "an' it's too bad, fer you did like that new-fangled study of algebray, though I can't see the good of it."
"I don't want to hurt your feelings," Barbara went on, "but maybe it'll do you good, Tom, to remember that I've got to give up the school, and it's my very last chance, and I've got to spin and knit enough this winter to make up the money you've thrown away in one night. You wouldn't make us trouble a-purpose for anything,—I know that. And, any way, we don't care much about ourselves; it don't matter about us. But we do care about you. What'll happen if you go on in this heels-over-head way? Uncle Tom'll never stand it, you know, and your only chance'll be gone. That's what'll hurt us all 'round—to give up all for you, and then you make a mess of it—in spite of all we've done."
"You're awful hard on me, Barb," said Tom, writhing a little in his chair. "I wish I'd made an end of myself, as I thought of doing, when I was done playing that night."
"There you are again," said Barbara, "without ever stopping to think. I suppose you think it would have made mother and me feel better about it, for you to kill yourself!"
"Don't be so cuttin' with your tongue, Barb'ry," said her mother, "we can stand it, and poor Tom didn't mean to do it."
"Pshaw!" said Barbara, giving herself a shake of impatience, "what a baby excuse that is for a grown-up man like Tom! Tom's no fool if he would only think; but he'll certainly spoil everything before he comes to his senses, and then we'll all be here in the mud together;—the family'll be disgraced, and there'll be no chance of Tom's getting on. What makes me mad is that Tom'll sit there and let you excuse him by saying that he didn't mean any harm, and then he'll be just as gay as ever by day after to-morrow, and just as ready to run into some new scrape."
"Go on, Barb, that's hitting the sore spot," said Tom, leaning his head on his hand. "Maybe if you knew all I've gone through, you'd let up a little." Tom thought of telling her of the good resolutions he had made, but he had done that on other occasions like this, and he knew that his resolutions were by this time at a heavy discount in the home market. He would liked to have told Barbara how he intended to make it all up to them whenever he should get into a lucrative practice, but he dreaded to expose his cherished dreams to the nipping frost of her deadly common sense.