"And so, Miss Hannah, we will give you what work we have to put out. And you must try and knock along and do as well as you can this season. And before the next the poor child will die, and the people will forget all about it, and employ you again."
"But the child is not a-going to die!" burst forth Hannah, in exasperation. "If he was the son of rich parents, whose hearts lay in him, and who piled comforts and luxuries and elegances upon him, and fell down and worshiped him, and had a big fortune and a great name to leave him, and so did everything they possibly could to keep him alive, he'd die! But being what he is, a misery and shame to himself and all connected with him, he'll live! Yes, half-perished as he is with cold and famine, he'll live! Look at him now!"
The professor did turn and look at the little, thin, wizen-faced boy who lay upon the bed, contentedly sucking his skinny thumb, and regarding the speaker with big, bright, knowing eyes, that seemed to say:
"Yes, I mean to suck my thumb and live!"
"To tell you the truth, I think so, too," said the professor, scarcely certain whether he was replying to the words of Hannah or to the looks of the child.
It is certain that the dread of death and the desire of life is the very earliest instinct of every animate creature. Perhaps this child was endowed with excessive vitality. Certainly, the babe's persistence in living on "under difficulties" might have been the germ of that enormous strength and power of will for which the man was afterwards so noted.
The professor kept his word with Hannah, and brought her some work. But the little that he could afford to pay for it was not sufficient to supply one-fourth of Hannah's necessities.
At last came a day when her provisions were all gone. And Hannah locked the child up alone in the hut and set off to walk to Baymouth, to try to get some meal and bacon on credit from the country shop where she had dealt all her life.
Baymouth was a small port, at the mouth of a small bay making up from the Chesapeake. It had one church, in charge of the Episcopal minister who had baptized Nora's child. And it had one large, country store, kept by a general dealer named Nutt, who had for sale everything to eat, drink, wear, or wield, from sugar and tea to meat and fish; from linen cambric to linsey-woolsey; from bonnets and hats to boots and shoes; from new milk to old whisky; from fresh eggs to stale cheese; and from needles and thimbles to plows and harrows.
Hannah, as I said, had been in the habit of dealing at this shop all her life, and paying cash for everything she got. So now, indeed, she might reasonably ask for a little credit, a little indulgence until she could procure work. Yet, for all that, she blushed and hesitated at having to ask the unusual favor. She entered the store and found the dealer alone. She was glad of that, as she rather shrank from preferring her humble request before witnesses. Mr. Nutt hurried forward to wait on her. Hannah explained her wants, and then added: