“Shan’t I pull up the bucket for you?” asked Gabriel.

“Ah, I know you.  You want to splash me!” returned Mother Lemon, eying him warily; but the boy put his strong arm to the task, and the dripping bucket rose from the depths, while the little old woman withdrew to a safer distance.

“Show me where to put it and I will carry it into the house for you,” said Gabriel.

“Now bless your rosy cheeks, you’re an honest lad,” said Mother Lemon gratefully; but she took the precaution to walk behind him all the way, lest he should still be intending to play her some trick.  When, however, he had entered the low door and filled the kettle and the pans, according to her directions, she smiled on him, and as she thanked him, she asked him his name.

“Gabriel,” said the lad.

“Ah,” she exclaimed, “you are the miser’s boy.”

Gabriel could not knock Mother Lemon down, so he only hung his head while his cheeks grew redder.

“It isn’t your fault, child, and by the time you are grown you will be rich.  When that time comes, I pray you be kinder to me than your father is, for he oppresses the poor and makes me pay my last shilling for the rent of this hovel.”

“I would give the cottage to you if it were mine,” returned Gabriel, looking straight into her eyes with his honest gray ones; “but at present I am poorer than you.”

“In that case,” said Mother Lemon, “I wish I had something worthy to reward you for your kindness to me.  As I have not, here is a penny that you must keep to remember me by.”  And in spite of Gabriel’s protestations she took from her side-pocket a coin.

“I cannot take it from you,” protested the boy.

“No one ever grew richer by refusing to give,” returned Mother Lemon, and she tucked the penny inside Gabriel’s blouse and turned him out the door with her blessing; so that, being a peaceable boy of few words, he objected no longer, but moved along the road toward home, for it was nearly dinner time.

He found his stepmother setting the table, and his father busily calculating with figures on a bit of paper.

“Get the water, Gabriel, and be quick now,” was his welcome from the sorry-faced woman.

When he had done all she directed him, there was still a little time, for William and Henry had not come in from the field.  Gabriel sat down near his father and, noting a rusty, dusty little book lying on the table, he picked it up.

“What is this, father?” he asked, for there were few books in that house.

The man looked up from his figuring and sneered.  “It is called by some the Book of Life,” he said.  “As a matter of fact it would not bring two shillings.”

So saying he returned to his pleasant calculations and Gabriel idly opened the book.  His gaze widened, for the verse on which his eyes fell stood out from the others in tiny letters of flame.

“The love of money is the root of all evil,” he read.