Again Sam smiled. "Sure we’ll go. You fairly earned a day off, mother. All these sixteen years, working like Sam Hill, and never a grouch out of you. Yes, we’ll go—and, I tell you what’s more, we’ll spend some. We’ll just let go for once, and spend some, on something we don’t _have_ to. I haven’t made out to do as well by you as Peter Gilroy would, Martha. He used to say, if you’d marry _him_, he’d put velvet under your feet. It’s been more than I could do, sometimes, to put good shoe-leather." "Well, I never been Little Barefoot, yet, have I?" inquired Martha blandly. Sam shook his head. "Since we been up here, we made out to save a bit and, by this and by that, we got more coming to us. We never could seem to fix things, before, so’s we could lay by. Couldn’t square the bills, _and_ save, but——" "It’s a kinda stunt to square your bills, _an’_ lay by when, every week, nothin’s comin’ in." "Sure," said Sam. Martha meditated in silence for a moment. "If Cora knew what’s goin’ on inside me this minute, it’d be my finish in the bossin’ business, so far as she’s concerned. She’s almost got to the place, now, where she feels she could give Moses points on the Fifth Commandment. She’s pretty near caught on to the little game that parents is a grand bluff, an you’re wastin’ time to bother with their figaries. But she’d do it sure, if she knew how I feel at present—just as much of a silly kid as her." Sam’s satisfaction broadened. "Good work!" said he. "An’ talkin’ o’ work," his wife took him up quickly, in an altered tone, "we better get busy on ours, or we won’t be done this side o’ mornin’. You get a move on, Sammy, an’ bring in a good stock o’ wood, out o’ the shed there. An’ when you got that done, we’ll talk about coal from the cella." "What’s the matter with the old lady hiring her own help?" inquired Sam practically. "She’s got money to burn, hasn’t she?" "Sure. But, she don’t burn it. It’s to keep the young lady from a wintry chill, I’m lendin’ a hand. An’ if it comes to that, a body as close as ol’ lady Crewe, you’d have to feel sorry for her, on her own account. She must be cold comfort to herself, with a heart like that inside her. Them kind, that’s so wrapped up in their money, some part of’m’s bound to go bare. A thing like money won’t reach all the way ’round a human creature, not by a long sight, an’ you can’t make it. Them kind needs help in their nakedness, as much, an’ more, than the rest of us." Sam making no attempt to dispute it, the two worked on in silence, until they were interrupted by the abrupt opening of the door. "Mrs. Slawson!" Martha raised herself slowly from her kneeling posture, at sound of Katherine Crewe’s cry of appeal. "The ol’ lady—she ain’t—_worse_?" "Not worse, but—unmanageable. She won’t let Dr. Ballard go near her. We can’t do a thing with her. Won’t you, please, come up and try what you can do. You made her mind about the bath, you know."