Debby haled her awkward self out of her humble cot, out of her coarse and frilless nightgown, into her matter-of-fact clothes, and slumped down to a chill, bare kitchen. There she made a fire in a cold stove, that she might warm up oatmeal and fry eggs and petrify a few slices of bread into a scratchy toast. Not hearing her mother’s slippers flap and shuffle on the stairs as usual, she climbed again to learn the cause. She found her mother filled with rheumatism and bad news. A letter had come the day before, and she had concealed it from Deborah so that the child might have a nice time at the party; and did she have a nice time, and who was there? But that could wait, for never was there such news as she had now, and there was never any let-up in bad luck, and them with no man to lean on or turn to. When Deborah finally pried the letter from the poor old talons she found an announcement that the A.G.&St.P.Ry. would pass its dividend this year. To the Larrabees the A.G.&St.P. had always been the most substantial thing in the world next to the Presbyterian Church. Deborah’s father had said that his death-bed was cheered by the fact that he had left his widow and his child several shares of that soulful corporation’s stock. He called it the "Angel Gabriel & St. Peter Railway." The dividend was as sure as flowers in June. It had never failed, and the Larrabee women always spent it before it was paid. They had pledged it this year. If they had followed the stock-market, of which they had hardly heard, they would have known that the railroad’s shares had fallen from 203 to 51 in two years and that the concern was curving gracefully toward a receivership. The two women breakfasted that morning on cold dismay and hot flashes of terror. The few hundred dollars that had come to them like semi-annual manna and quails would not drop down this year, perhaps not next year, or ever again. Their creditors would probably throw them into the town jail. The poorhouse would be a paradise. In her distraction Debby had an impulse to consult Newt Meldrum. She hurried to Shillaber’s Bazar, hoping he might be there. Asaph met her himself and told her that Newt had gone back to New York on an early train. Debby broke down and told of her plight. She supposed that she would have to go to work at once somewhere. But what could she do? Asaph was feeling amiable; he had won a reprieve from Meldrum and had made it up with his wife in private for the public quarrel. His heart melted at the thought of helping poor old Dubby Debby, whom everybody was fond of in a hatefully unflattering way. He had helped other gentlewomen in distress, and now he dumfounded Debby by saying, "Why don’t you clerk here, Debby?" "Why, I couldn’t clerk in a store!" she gasped, terrified. "I don’t know the least thing about it."