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His wife, however, had a plan. She sent East to friends for a little money at once, and with a few hundred dollars opened a little store in time for the holiday trade–wallpaper, notions, light dry goods, toys, and millinery. She did her own housework and attended to her shop in a grim, uncomplaining fashion that made Sanford feel like a criminal in her presence. He couldn’t propose to help her in the store, for he knew the people would refuse to trade with him, so he attended to the children and did little things about the house for the first few months of the winter.

His life for a time was abjectly pitiful. He didn’t know what to do. He had lost his footing, and, worst of all, he felt that his wife no longer respected him. She loved and pitied him, but she no longer looked up to him. She went about her work and down to her store with a silent, resolute, uncommunicative air, utterly unlike her former sunny, domestic self, so that even she seemed alien like the rest. If he had been ill, Vance and McPhail would have attended him; as it was, they could not help him.

She already had the sympathy of the entire town, and McIlvaine had said: "If you need more money, you can have it, Mrs. Sanford. Call on us at any time. "

"Thank you. I don’t think I’ll need it. All I ask is your trade," she replied. "I don’t ask anybody to pay more’n a thing’s worth, either. I’m goin’ to sell goods on business principles, and I expect folks to buy of me because I’m selling reliable goods as cheap as anybody else. "

Her business was successful from the start, but she did not allow herself to get too confident.

"This is a kind of charity trade. It won’t last on that basis. Folks ain’t goin’ to buy of me because I’m poor–not very long," she said to Vance, who went in to congratulate her on her booming trade during Christmas and New Year.

Vance called so often, advising or congratulating her, that the boys joked him. "Say, looky here! You’re gom’ to get into a peck o’ trouble with your wife yet. You spend about hall y’r time in the new store. "

Vance looked serene as he replied, "I’d stay longer and go oftener If I could. "

"Well, if you ain’t cheekier ‘n ol’ cheek! I should think you’d be ashamed to say it. "

"’Shamed of it? I’m proud of it! As I tell my wife, if I’d ‘a’ met Mis’ Sanford when we was both young, they wouldn’t ‘a’ be’n no such present arrangement. "

The new life made its changes in Mrs. Sanford. She grew thinner and graver, but as she went on, and trade steadily increased, a feeling of pride, a sort of exultation, came into her soul and shone from her steady eyes. It was glorious to feel that she
was holding her own with men in the world, winning their respect, which is better than their flattery. She arose each day at five o’clock with a distinct pleasure, for her physical health was excellent, never better.

She began to dream. She could pay off five hundred dollars a year of the interest–perhaps she could pay some of the principal, if all went well. Perhaps in a year br two she could take a larger store, and, if Jim got something to do, in ten years they could pay it all off–every cent! She talked with businessmen, and read and studied, and felt each day a firmer hold on affairs.