"Ah, well, question him yourself, and if your suspicions prove correct, don't let us be outdone in that kind of well-doing."
"Caleb," Grace asked at her first opportunity, "aren't there any deserving objects of charity in Claybanks?"
"Well," Caleb replied, "that depends on what you mean by deservin', an' by charity—too. I s'pose none of us—except p'r'aps you—deserve anythin' in particular, an' as you seem to have ev'rythin' you want, there ain't any anyhow. But there's some that's needy, an' that'll get along better for a lift once in a while."
"Do tell me about some of them. I don't want any one to suffer if my husband and I can prevent it."
"That sounds just like you, but I don't exactly see what you can do. Fact is, you have to know the folks mighty well, or you're likely to do more harm'n good, for the best o' folks seem to be spiled when they get somethin' for nothin'. But there's some of our people that's had their ups an' downs,—principally downs,—an' a little help now an' then does 'em a mighty sight o' good. There's women that's lost their husbands, an' have to scratch gravel night an' day to feed their broods. Watchin' the ways of some of 'em's made me almost b'lieve the old yarn about the bird that tears itself to pieces to feed its young."
"Oh, Caleb!"
"Fact. There's no knowin' what you can see 'till you look for it good an' hard."
"But food is so cheap in this country that I didn't suppose the poorest could suffer. Corn-meal less than a cent a pound, flour two cents, meat only four or five—"
"Yes, but folks that don't have grist-mills, nor animals to kill, would put it the other way; they'd say that dollars an' cents are awfully dear. Why, Mis' Somerton, when some folks, that I could name, comes into the store with their truck to trade for things, an' I see 'em lookin' at this thing, an' that, an' t'other, that shows what they're wantin,' and needin,' an' can't get,—oh, it brings Crucifixion Day right before my eyes—that's just what it does. I've seen lots o' sad things in my day—like most men, I s'pose. I've seen hundreds o' men shot to pieces, an' thousands dyin' by inches, but you never can guess what it was that broke me up most an' longest."