Nancy's place was four miles from town on the Monk Road, and Tom Piper had found it a convenient spot for rest and refreshment, both going and returning from his visit to Cousin Jim's. Sophia had often warned him against the house, saying that it was an evil den, peopled with the thriftless scourings of the countryside, and presided over by a sort of human she-devil, who waited by the window to coax wayfarers in to buy her vile drinks. Tom answered by repeating some of the good acts traceable to Nancy McVeigh's door. He explained to her that the hostess was just a poor, hard-worked woman, who reaped small reward for her labors, and divided what she got with any who might be in need of it. He also told of waifs whom Nancy had mothered and fed from her own cupboard until they were old enough to shift for themselves. But Sophia was firm in her convictions, and only permitted herself to know one side of the story.
"No good can come out of that tavern," she had said, with a stamp of her foot and a fire in her eye that forbade contradiction.
Through the vale of years Sophia never forgot the grudge, and when she made herself an influence in the highest circles of reform, she turned with grim persistence to the agitation for the cancelling of the tavern license.
Nancy McVeigh, the woman against whom this thunderbolt was to be launched, kept patiently at her work. She had heard of the efforts being put forth, and often wondered why the great people bothered about one of so little consequence as herself. She did not fight back, as she had nothing to defend, but waited calmly, telling her neighbors, when they came to gossip, that they need not worry her with news of it at all.
Sophia championed her pet theme at the County Convention, and carried it to an issue where she and a committee were empowered to wait on the License Board with a strong plea in favor of the abolition of the tavern. The three stout gentlemen who listened to their petition were all good men who had families of their own and wanted as little evil as possible abroad to tempt their boys from the better path. They gave a long night's deliberation to the question, and then brought in a verdict that they would extend Nancy's rights for another year. Sophia was completely overcome by the decision, and straightway sought out one of the Commissioners, a friend of Cousin Jim's, whom she knew quite intimately.
"Why did you do it?" she asked wrathfully.
"My dear Miss Piper," he replied, "perhaps you have not realized that Nancy McVeigh has a heart as big as a bushel basket, and we can find no instance where she has abused the power which she holds. If we take it away from her, some other will step into her place, and he might be ten times worse."
Sophia brought the interview to a close very abruptly, and went home angry and unshaken in her resolve; but an unexpected event changed the course of her meditation. Cousin Jim was planning a winter's stay in California for her and his children. She needed the rest and change, and so did the youngsters. Their preparations were completed in a few days, and the big house was closed. Thus the questions which had raised such an excitement were shelved for a more convenient season.
It was in the spring of the next year that Jennie, Nancy McVeigh's adopted daughter, brought her the news from town of Tom Piper's illness.
"The poor fellow's goin' fast, wi' consumption, and he's at the 'ospital. It was Dan Conors who told me, an' he said, 'Tom hasn't a dollar fer the luxuries he requires,'" Jennie explained. Nancy's face relaxed somewhat from its habitually austere expression when Jennie had finished.