“It’s the first thing he ever did for us, anyhow,” added Don, grumblingly. “And he sticks to his room upstairs and won’t let us come near him.”
“Do you want to visit gran’pa?” asked Phœbe, turning to her younger brother.
“No.”
“Then don’t complain, dear, if he doesn’t want you. He’s old and helpless; and as for helping us, I’m afraid gran’pa is almost as poor as we are,” she said, her eyes still regarding, with wistful earnestness, the scene across the street.
“Poor! Gran’pa Eliot poor, with this big house?” exclaimed Sue, incredulously.
“I think so; I’m sure it’s so,” answered Phœbe. “Old Miss Halliday asked me to keep you all from picking the fruit in the garden, when it ripens; because, she says gran’pa has to sell it to get enough money to pay taxes and his living expenses. And she gathers all the eggs from the chickens and sells them to Mr. Wyatt, the grocer. That must mean gran’pa’s pretty poor, you know.”
“Is old Miss Halliday any relation to us?” asked Don.
“No; she was an old servant of grandmother’s, before she died—her housekeeper, I believe; and afterward, when gran’pa became paralyzed, she took care of him.”
“She seems to run everything around this place as if she owned it,” muttered the boy.
“She’s a very faithful woman,” observed Phil; “and a very disagreeable one. I don’t know what gran’pa would have done without her. She gets his meals and waits on him night and day.”