“I think it’s a shame!” quoth Ann.  “I don’t believe there’s any need of so much law.”

“Hush, child!  You mustn’t set yourself up against the judgment of your elders.  Such things have to be done.”

Ann said no more, but the indignant sparkle did not fade out of her eyes at all.  She watched her opportunity, and took down Mr. Wales’ old blue jacket from its peg behind the shed-door, ran with it up stairs and hid it in her own room behind the bed.  “There,” said she, “Mrs. Wales sha’n’t cry over that!”

That night, at tea time, the work of taking the inventory was complete.  Mr. Whitcomb and Mr. White walked away with their long lists, satisfied that they had done their duty according to the law.  Every article of Samuel Wales’ property, from a warming pan to a chest of drawers, was set down, with the sole exception of that old blue jacket which Ann had hidden.

She felt complacent over it at first; then she begun to be uneasy.

“Nabby,” said she confidentially to the old servant woman, when they were washing the pewter plates together after supper, “what would they do, if anybody shouldn’t let them set down all the things—­if they hid some of ’em away, I mean?”

“They’d make a dretful time on’t,” said Nabby, impressively.  She was a large, stern-looking old woman.  “They air dretful perticklar ’bout these things.  They hev to be.”

Ann was scared when she heard that.  When the dishes were done, she sat down on the settle and thought it over, and made up her mind what to do.

The next morning, in the frosty dawning, before the rest of the family were up, a slim, erect little figure could have been seen speeding across lots toward Mr. Silas White’s.  She had the old blue jacket tucked under her arm.  When she reached the house, she spied Mr. White just coming out of the back door with a milking pail.  He carried a lantern, too, for it was hardly light.

He stopped, and stared, when Ann ran up to him.

“Mr. White,” said she, all breathless, “here’s—­something—­I guess yer didn’t see yesterday.”

Mr. White set down the milk pail, took the blue jacket which she handed him, and scrutinized it sharply, by the light of the lantern.

“I guess we didn’t see it,” said he, finally.

“I will put it down—­it’s worth about three pence, I judge.  Where”—­

“Silas, Silas!” called a shrill voice from the house.  Silas White dropped the jacket and trotted briskly in, his lantern bobbing agitatedly.  He never delayed a moment when his wife called; important and tyrannical as the little man was abroad, he had his own tyrant at home.

Ann did not wait for him to return; she snatched up the blue jacket and fled home, leaping like a little deer over the hoary fields.  She hung up the precious old jacket behind the shed-door again, and no one ever knew the whole story of its entrance in the inventory.  If she had been questioned, she would have told the truth boldly, though.  But Samuel Wales’ Inventory had for its last item that blue jacket, spelled after Silas White’s own individual method, as was many another word in the long list.  Silas White consulted his own taste with respect to capital letters too.