"I used to have so afraid to be all alone—I can't tell you what it is to me to feel so safe like what I do now, with this here kind Miss Wenreich takin' care of me; and not bein' afraid to take a second cup of tea when I feel fur it; because now when my tea is all, I kin buy more; and havin' no fear of freezin' to death if my wood gets all fur me and I not able to go out and chop more; and not being forced any more to eat only just what would keep me alive. To have now full and plenty and to feel safe and at peace—and to have you to love me! And the dear babies!
"One day, my dear, sich a sharper come to my house out there in the country and he says, 'Where's your husband at?' Well, he looked so wicked (fur all, he was nice dressed) that I didn't say to him, 'I'm a widow, my husband ain't livin'!' I had so afraid if he knowed I was alone, he might do me somepin. So I sayed, 'You kin tell me your business, I'm the same as Mister.' 'You run things and handle the money, do you?' he ast me. 'Well, then, I want you to give some fur to buy Bibles fur the poor.' I said I didn't have no money to spare, but I had an exter Bible I could give him. I knowed well enough he was a sharper, but I thought mebby my old Bible might do him some good. So I offered it to him. But he said the Lord didn't want no second-hand stuff fur His poor. 'You're not a Christian,' he said, 'if you won't give any to buy new Bibles fur the poor.' And Margaret, he looked so ugly, I had so afraid of him, I shook all over; but I purtended to call Mister, and him dead near twenty years. Well, but at that, the sharper took hisself off! Goodness knows what he might of done at me if I hadn't of purtended to call Mister! Ain't? Well," she drew a long sigh, "them worryin' days is all over now, thanks to you, my dear. It's as Danny says: I'd be in the poorhouse if it hadn't of been fur you."
Margaret often marvelled, as she found herself deriving the keenest pleasure from old Mrs. Leitzel's happiness and deep content, how the Leitzels could so blindly miss, in their selfish materialism, the true sources of joy in life.
XXX
When a year after she had moved into town old Mrs. Leitzel died, it was Margaret's private conviction that the Leitzels had worried her to death trying to find out how she had made her will. It is said that people of mild temper are usually obstinate, and the fact stands that no one of them ever succeeded in getting from the old woman the least hint as to the disposition she had made of her large property.
"She would tell you," Daniel used to urge Margaret to find out the coveted secret.
"But I don't care to know."
"I do. Find out for me."
"Not for any consideration on earth or in heaven, my dear, would I lift my finger about a matter which is so absolutely Mrs. Leitzel's own private and personal concern and no one else's."