“Be—careful, child! You know why I can't take you up on that. Would you want we should leave him here alone—without even Becky? You're only trying me for fun.”
“No; I am not!” Emmy was pale now. Her breast was rising in strong excitement. “If we were gone, he would know then what you are worth to him. Now, you're only Adam! He thinks he can put you down like a boy. He won't believe I care for you. There's only one way to show him—that is, if we do care. In one month he would be sending for us back. Then we could come, and you would take your right place here, and be somebody. You would not eat in the kitchen, then. Haven't you been like a son to him? And why shouldn't he own it?”
“But if he won't? Suppose he don't send for us to come back?”
“Then you could strike out for yourself. What was Tom Madden, before he went away to Colorado, or somewhere—where was it? And now everybody stops to shake hands with him;—he's as much of a man as anybody. If you could make a little money. That's the proof he wants. If you were rich, you'd be all right with him. You know that!”
“I'd hate to think it. But I'll never be rich. Put that out of your mind, Emmy. It don't run in the blood. I don't come of a money-making breed.”
“What a silly thing to say! Of course, if you don't believe you can, you can't. Who has made the money here for the last ten years?”
“It was his capital done it. It ain't hard to make money after you've scraped the first few thousands together. But it's the first thousand that costs.”
“How much have you got ahead?”
Adam answered awkwardly, “Eleven hundred and sixty odd.” He did not like to talk of money to the girl who was the prayer, the inspiration, of his life. It hurt him to be questioned by her in this sordid way.
“You earned it all, didn't you?”