Suddenly Mrs. Green stopped and laid a heavy hand on Mrs. Field's arm. “Look here, Mis' Field, I dun'no' as you'll thank me for it, but I'm goin' to speak real plain to you, the way I'd thank anybody to if 'twas my Jenny. I'm dreadful afraid you don't realize how bad Lois is, Mis' Field.”
“Mebbe I don't.” Mrs. Field's voice sounded hard.
The other woman looked perplexedly at her for a moment, then she went on:
“Well, if you do, mebbe I hadn't ought to said anything; but I was dreadful afraid you didn't, an' then when you come to, perhaps when 'twas too late, you'd never forgive yourself. She hadn't ought to teach school another day, Mis' Field.”
“I dun'no how it's goin' to be helped,” Mrs. Field said again, in her hard voice.
“Mis' Field, I know it ain't any of my business, an' I don't know but you'll think I'm interferin'; but I can't help it nohow when I think of—my Abby, an' how—she went down. Ain't you got anybody that could help you a little while till she gets better an' able to work?”
“I dun'no' of anybody.”
“Wouldn't your sister's husband's father? Ain't he got considerable property?”
Mrs. Field turned suddenly, her voice sharpened, “I've asked him all I'm ever goin' to—there! I let Esther's husband have fifteen hundred dollars that my poor husband saved out of his hard earnin's, an' he lost it in his business; an' after he died I wrote to his father, an' I told him about it. I thought mebbe he'd be willin' to be fair, an' pay his son's debts, if he didn't have much feelin'. There was Esther an' Lois an' me, an' not a cent to live on, an' Esther she was beginnin' to be feeble. But he jest sent me back my letter, an' he'd wrote on the back of it that he wa'n't responsible for any of his son's debts. I said then I'd never go to him agin, and I didn't; an' Esther didn't when she was sick an' dyin'; an' I never let him know when she died, an' I don't s'pose he knows she is dead to this day.”
“Oh, Mis' Field, you didn't have to lose all that money!”