"Well, when I was to your house last summer, an' you told me about th' effect it had on a baby t' have a mother that never got mad, I come home an' tried t' do everything I thought you meant an'--seems t' me I never was s' mean in my life. Mean feelin' I mean. I got along pretty well at first--I guess it was somethin' new--? but th' nearer I got t' th' time, th' worse I got. I scolded Luther Hansen till I know he wished he'd never been born. Th' worst of it was that I'd told 'im how--what a difference it made, and he was that anxious----?" Luther raised his hand to protest, but Sadie waved him aside and continued: "Oh, you needn't defend me, Luther!" she exclaimed. "I've been meaner 'n you know of." Turning to Elizabeth again, "I used t' look over t' your house an' feel--an' feel 's if I could only see you an' talk a while, I'd git over wantin' t' be s' mean, but you wouldn't never come t' see us--an'--an' I didn't feel's if--I didn't feel free t' go any more, 'cause ma said you didn't want t' be sociable with our kind of folks." Sadie paused a moment to crease the hem of her apron and get the twitching out of the corners of her distressed mouth. "Well, at last, when you didn't come, an' I couldn't git no help from no one, I just said every mean thing I could. I told Hornby a week 'fore his wife died that you said you didn't want t' change visits with us country jakes, 'cause you wanted your boy t' be different from th' likes of us. Ma'd heard that somewhere, but I told it t' 'im 's if you'd said it t' me. Sue Hornby put 'er hand on my arm an' said, so kind like, 'Sadie, ain't you 'fraid t' talk that way an' you in that fix?' An' I just cried an' cried, an' couldn't even tell 'er I'd tried t' do different." Luther Hansen had been trying to interrupt the flow of his wife's confession, and broke in at this point by saying: "Sadie's nervous an' upset over----" "No, I ain't," Sadie replied hastily. "I've been as mean as mud, an' here she's took care of you, an' I've gone an' got Hornby mad at 'er. He believed what I told, if 'is wife didn't. They say, Lizzie, that 'e lives there all by 'iself an'----" Sadie choked, and waited for Elizabeth to speak. "I guess you've worried about nothing," Elizabeth said brightly. "I've been to see him, and we're good friends--the best kind in fact, and no one could ever make us anything else hereafter." She looked down at Luther and smiled. "Will it make any difference with my baby?" Sadie asked anxiously, her mind working like a treadmill in its own little round. "No, Sadie--that is, I guess not. I've been thinking, as I listened to you, that the way you tried would have to count--it's bigger than anything else you've done." Sadie Hansen dropped into a chair sobbing hysterically. Elizabeth's hand went to the girl's shoulder comfortingly. "God does not ask that we succeed, Sadie; he asks that we try." * * * * *