"I will bring it back myself," said Matilda. "I only want it for a little while."
"Is Mis' Eldridge sick?"
"No. I only want to make her a cup of tea."
"I hadn't heerd nothin' of her bein' sick. Be you a friend o' hern?"
"Yes."
"We've got sickness in this house," the woman went on. "And everythin's wantin' where there's sickness; and hard to get it. It's my old mother. She lies in there"—nodding towards an inner room—"night and day, and day and night; and she'd like a bit o' comfort now and then as well as another; and 'tain't often as I kin give it to her. Life's hard to them as hain't got nothin' to live on. I hadn't ought to complain, and I don't complain; but sometimes it comes over me that life's hard."
Here was another!
"What does she want?" Matilda asked. "Is she very sick?"
"She won't never be no better," her daughter answered; "and she lies there and knows she won't never be no better; and she's all as full of aches as she kin be, sometimes; and other times she's more easy like; but she lies there and knows she can't never get up no more in this world; and she wants 'most everythin'. I do what I kin."
"Do you think you can lend me your tea-kettle? I will be very much obliged."