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“Some of ’em came to our house, I know,” said Miss Binson.”She’d take a lot o’ trouble to please a child, ‘stead o’ shoving of it out o’ the way, like the rest of us when we’re drove.”

“I can tell you the biggest thing she ever give, and I don’t know ‘s there’s anybody left but me to tell it. I don’t want it forgot,” Sarah Binson went on, looking up at the clock to see how the night was going.”It was that pretty-looking Trevor girl, who taught the Corners school, and married so well afterwards, out in New York State. You remember her, I dare say?”< /p>

“Certain,” said Mrs. Crowe, with an air of interest.

“She was a splendid scholar, folks said, and give the school a great start; but she’d overdone herself getting her education, and working to pay for it, and she all broke down one spring, and Tempy made her come and stop with her a while, — you remember that? Well, she had an uncle, her mother’s brother, out in Chicago, who was well off and friendly, and used to write to Lizzie Trevor, and I dare say make her some presents; but he was a lively, driving man, and didn’t take time to stop and think about his folks. He hadn’t seen her since she was a little girl. Poor Lizzie was so pale and weakly that she just got through the term o’ school. She looked as if she was just going straight off in a decline. Tempy, she cosseted her up a while, and then, next thing folks knew, she was tellin’ round how Miss Trevor had gone to see her uncle, and meant to visit Niagary Falls on the way, and stop over night. Now I happened to know, in ways I won’t dwell on to explain, that the poor girl was in debt for her schoolin’ when she come here, and her last quarter’s pay had just squared it off at last, and left her without a cent ahead, hardly; but it had fretted her thinking of it, so she paid it all; they might have dunned her that she owed it to. An’ I taxed Tempy about the girl’s goin’ off on such a journey till she owned up, rather ‘n have Lizzie blamed, that she’d given her sixty dollars, same ‘s if she was rolling in riches, and sent her off to have a good rest and vacation.”

“Sixty dollars!” exclaimed Mrs. Crowe.”Tempy only had ninety dollars a year that came in to her; rest of her livin’ she got by helpin’ about, with what she raised off this little piece o’ ground, sand one side an’ clay the other. An’ how often I’ve heard her tell, years ago, that she’d rather see Niagary than any other sight in the world!”

The women looked at each other in silence; the magnitude of the generous sacrifice was almost too great for their comprehension.

“She was just poor enough to do that!” declared Mrs. Crowe at last, in an abandonment of feeling.”Say what you may, I feel humbled to the dust,” and her companion ventured to say nothing. She never had given away sixty dollars at once, but it was simply because she never had it to give. It came to her very lips to say in explanation, “Tempy was so situated;” but she checked herself in time, for she would not break in upon her own loyal guarding of her dependent household.

“Folks say a great deal of generosity, and this one’s being public-sperited, and that one free-handed about giving,” said Mrs. Crowe, who was a little nervous in the silence.”I suppose we can’t tell the sorrow it would be to some folks not to give, same ‘s ‘t would be to me not to save. I seem kind of made for that, as if ‘t was what I’d got to do. I should feel sights better about it if I could make it evident what I was savin’ for. If I had a child, now, Sarah Ann,” and her voice was a little husky, — “if I had a child, I should think I was heapin’ of it up because he was the one trained by the Lord to scatter it again for good. But here’s Crowe and me, we can’t do anything with money, and both of us like to keep things same ‘s they’ve always been. Now Priscilla Dance was talking away like a mill-clapper, week before last. She’d think I would go right off and get one o’ them new-fashioned gilt-and-white papers for the best room, and some new furniture, an’ a marble-top table. And I looked at her, all struck up.’Why,’ says I, ‘Priscilla, that nice old velvet paper ain’t hurt a mite. I shouldn’t feel ‘t was my best room without it. Dan’el says ‘t is the first thing he can remember rubbin’ his little baby fingers on to it, and how splendid he thought them red roses was.’ I maintain,” continued Mrs. Crowe stoutly, “that folks wastes sights o’ good money doin’ just such foolish things. Tearin’ out the insides o’ meetin’-houses, and fixin’ the pews different; ‘t was good enough as ‘t was with mendin’; then times come, an’ they want to put it all back same ‘s ‘t was before.”