Pearl went on with her work with a preoccupied air.
"Tom, can you take a parcel for me to town to-day?"
"I am not goin'," he said in surprise. "Pa always goes if we need anything. I haven't been in town for a month."
"Don't you go to church?" Pearl asked in surprise.
"No, you bet I don't, not now. The preacher was sassy to pa and tried to get money. Pa says he'll never touch wood in his church again, and pa won't give another cent either, and, mind you, last year we gave twenty-five dollars."
"We paid fourteen dollars," Pearl said, "and Mary got six dollars on her card."
"Oh, but you town people don't have the expenses we have."
"That's true, I guess," Pearl said doubtfully—she was wondering about the boot bills. "Pa gets a dollar and a quarter every day, and ma gets seventy-five cents when she washes. We're gettin' on fine."
Then Mrs. Motherwell made her appearance, and the conversation came to an end.
That afternoon when Pearl had washed the dishes and scrubbed the floor, she went upstairs to the little room to write in her diary. She knew Mrs. Francis would expect to see something in it, so she wrote laboriously: