"Now I guess Mis' Doctor Prescott won't think we're starvin' to death here, if her husband has got a mortgage on our house," said Mrs. Edwards. "I made up my mind that time she sent over that pitcher of lamb broth that I'd send her somethin' back, if I lived. I wouldn't have taken it anyhow, if it hadn't been for the rest of you. I guess I'll let folks know we ain't quite beggars yet." Jerome nodded. A look of entire sympathy with his mother came into his face. "Guess so too," said he. Mrs. Edwards threw back her head with stiff pride, as if it bore a crown. "So far," said she, "nobody on this earth has ever give me a thing that I 'ain't been able to pay 'em for in some way. I guess there's a good many rich folks can't say 's much as that." "Guess so too," said Jerome. "Pass over your plate; you must be hungry by this time," said his mother. She heaped his plate with the stew. "There," said she, "don't you wait any longer. I guess mebbe you'd better set the dish down on the hearth to keep warm for Elmira and your father first, though." "Ain't you goin' to eat any yourself?" asked Jerome. "I couldn't touch a mite of that stew if you was to pay me for it. I never set much by parsnip stew myself, anyway." Jerome eyed his mother soberly. "There's enough," said he. "I've got all I can eat here." "I tell you I don't want any. Ain't that enough? There's plenty of stew if I wanted it, but I don't. I never liked it any too well, an' to-day seems as if it fairly went against my stomach. Set it down on the hearth the way I told you to, an' eat your dinner before it gets any colder." Jerome obeyed. He ate his plate of stew; then his mother obliged him to eat another. When Elmira returned she had her fill, and there was plenty left for Abel Edwards when he should come home. Jerome, well fed, felt like another boy when he returned to his task in the garden. "Guess I can get this spadin' 'most done this afternoon," he said to himself. He made the brown earth fly around him. He whistled as he worked. As the afternoon wore on he began to wonder if he could not finish the garden before his father got home. He was sure he had not come as yet, for he had kept an eye on the road, and besides he would have heard the heavy rattle of the wood-wagon. "Father 'll be real tickled when he sees the garden all done," said Jerome, and he stopped whistling and bent all his young spirit and body to his work. He never thought of feeling anxious about his father. At five o'clock the back door of the Edwards house opened. Elmira came out with a shawl over her head and hurried up the hill. "Oh, Jerome," she panted, when she got up to him. "You must stop working, mother says, and go right straight off to the ten-acre lot. Father 'ain't come home yet, an' we're dreadful worried about him. She says she's afraid something has happened to him."