"Oh, I can't stand it no longer. He don't give me nothin' to git anything with, an' we can't live on nothin'. Whenever he gits mad he plagues me by keepin' everything out o' my han's, an' he won't answer when I ask him fer anything. I'd like to know if a woman an' five children kin live without money! Before I was married I used to earn some. I had enough to live on, but now, what with the cookin', an' washin' an' nussin' all these babies, I ain't no time ter earn a livin'!" "I should say you _were_ earning it! You earn more than he does!" exclaimed Nannie hotly. "He don't look at it that way," sobbed the woman. "He's ferever makin' me feel so beholten ter him fer every penny an' ter-day when I needed some money awful fer tea an' I went ter his pocket an' got it, he went on so afore ther children it seems like I can't never look them in ther face agin. He said--he said"--she stammered amid her sobs--"thet I was a thief--a low-down common thief--that's what he said, and the children heard him." Nannie rose from her chair with clinched hands and a flaming face. "Where is he?" she asked under her breath. "He's gone ter ther grocery. He ain't working ter-day. He said he'd 'tend ter the spendin' of the money. I couldn't be trusted with it. He said thet, he did, afore the children." And she broke down again. Just then the man himself came walking in. "What's up now?" he asked when he saw Nannie's face. "You are!" she blazed, "and you're a contemptible brute!" His face flushed. He looked both ashamed and angry, but a man in his position is at a loss to know what to do when attacked by a woman outside his family. He had enough pride to shrink from this invasion of his affairs, but he did not know just how to resent it. "It ain't no matter fer discussion," he said, "but she's been into my pockets, an' thet's what I can't stand." "What do you steal her money for, then?" demanded Nannie. He stared at her in stupid astonishment. "It's you who steal!" continued Nannie in ringing tones. "There she is, earning more than you do, and----" "I don't know how you make that out," said the man in a sulky tone. "Try to hire some one to take her place, and you'll learn. She could hire your work done fast enough, but there never has been and there never will be money enough in all your horrid pockets put together to hire what she does for you and the children; and then you are so nasty, and mean, and dishonest as to clutch the money and pretend you have the right to dole out what belongs to her. I wonder you aren't ashamed to be alive!" He certainly did look ashamed now. He had probably never before viewed matters from this point. "Well, I don't suppose I done just the right thing. I'm not going ter deny it, but money comes hard, anyhow." "And her life is hard enough, anyhow, without your making it harder by tyrannizing over her." Here one of the five little ones began to cry, and the mother started forward to take it, but Nannie intercepted her.