"I couldn't earn enough to get food or a bed, leave alone buy a new
stock."
Huldah wondered why she had come. Was it only to beg? In another
moment she knew.
"I came to see if you couldn't 'elp me a bit. You've got good
friends and a comfortable home, and plenty to eat and drink.
You surely wouldn't let me go starving--me that brought you up, and
did everything for you."
"Everything!" Huldah's thoughts flew back over her life, from the
time her mother died until she made her escape, a year ago, and
wondered what was meant by "everything."
"I know as you can make a good bit by your baskets, and it don't seem
fair that strangers should have it all, do it?"
"Strangers don't have it all," said Huldah, warmly. "Even my best
friends don't. I have what I earn, to buy what I like with.
I buy my own clothes, and I give Mrs. Perry a little for keeping
me--"
"Oh! a pretty fine thing that! Why, she ought to be paying you wages
for being a little galley-slave to her, and doing all her work!"
"I don't!" cried Huldah, indignantly. "I don't work nearly as hard
as I did for you, when I never had a penny of my own, not even from
what my baskets made."
In a moment, though, she was sorry she had lost her temper.
Mrs. Perry, standing at her door watching them, looked so frightened
when their words rose high, and Emma Smith herself looked so weary
and miserable one could not help pitying her.
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