"Well," said I, "you may be sure I shall never do it. I must go back to my work now."
"O, you feel above looking at town-poor's things, don't you? Wait till I've showed you my new apron. I didn't ride in it for fear I'd dust it. It's real gay, ain't it, now?"
"Yes," said I; "it looks like a piece of a tulip-bed. But I must really go. I hope you will like your room."
When I went back into the sitting-room, grandmother was wiping her eyes. She had been laughing till she cried at the new help Uncle Oliver had brought into the house.
"No matter, though," she was saying; "let him call them help if he likes. If Dorothy will put up with it, I am sure we ourselves may. He says Hepsy more than pays her way in eggs and chickens. Just as if he thought about the eggs and chickens! Of course, if persons are really in need, it always pays to help them; and I guess Oliver has about as much capital invested that way as any one I know of, and I'm glad of it. But it's his funny way of doing it; it's all help, you see." And she laughed again till the tears came.
In half an hour, during which time grandmother had a nap in her chair and Aunt Janet read, the little apparition stood in the doorway again. She had doffed the huge bonnet; and in her lint-white locks, drawn back from her forehead so straight and tight that it seemed as if that were what made her eyes open so round, she wore a tall horn comb. Around her neck, and standing well out, was a broad frill of the same material as her dress, highly suggestive of Queen Elizabeth.
"You hain't got any old things, coats and trousers and such, all worn out, have you? 'Cause if you have, I guess I'll begin a braided rug. When folks are poor, they've got to work, if they know what's good for 'em."
"They'd better work, if they know what's good for 'em, whether they're poor or not," said grandmother.
"There's a pedler going to bring me a diamond ring when I get a dollar to pay him for it."
This remark was elicited by a fiery spark on grandmother's finger.