there's no money in sheep; and as for Hosmer—you know well as me that he is nothing outside of the bank and his own comfort. Store clothes is Hosmer all through."
"I wish you were a little like him there," Hannah returned.
He admitted that this evening he was more untidy than need be. "I just couldn't wait to see you," he declared; "with our place and—and all so safe and happy."
The Braley table, spread after the Greenstream custom in the kitchen, was surrounded by Richmond and Calvin—Hosmer had stayed late at the bank—Hannah and Susan, the eldest of the children, prematurely aged and wasted by a perpetual cough, while Lucy Braley moved carelessly between the stove and the table. At rare intervals she was assisted by Hannah, who bore the heavy dishes in a silent but perceptible air of protest.
Calvin Stammark liked this; it was a part of her superiority to the other girls of the locality. He made up his mind that she should never lose her present gentility. Whenever he could afford it Hannah must have help in the house. No greater elegance was imaginable. Senator Alderwith, at his dwelling with its broad porch, had two servants—two servants and a bathtub with hot water running right out of a tap. And he Calvin Stammark, would have the same, before Hannah and he were too old to enjoy it.
He had eleven hundred dollars now, after buying the
