“Can’t you make her take it, Uncle Adoniram?”

“She can’t make herself take it; but I’m jest as much obliged to ye, J’rome.”

Adoniram was about to re-enter the house.  “She’ll wonder where I be,” he muttered, but Jerome stopped him.  “If I do begin work on the mill to-morrow,” said he, “I sha’n’t be able to fetch and carry to Dale, nor to do as much work in Uncle Ozias’s shop.  Do you suppose you can help out some?”

“I can, if I’m as well as I be now, J’rome.”

“Of course, you can earn more than you do now,” said Jerome.  That was really the errand upon which he had come to the Judds that evening.  He had been quite elated with the thought of the pleasure it would give them, when the possibility of larger service—­Henry’s cure by means of his cherished hoard—­had suddenly come to him.

He arranged with Adoniram Judd that he should go to the shop the next morning, then bade him good-night, and turned his own steps thither.

When he came in sight of Ozias Lamb’s shop, its window was throwing a long beam of light across the field creeping with dry grass before the frosty wind.  When Jerome opened the door, he started to see Ozias seated upon his bench, his head bowed over and hidden upon his idle hands.  Jerome closed the door, then stood a moment irresolute, staring at his uncle’s dejected figure.  “What’s the matter, Uncle Ozias?” he asked.

Ozias did not speak, but made a curious, repellent motion with his bowed shoulders.

“Are you sick?”

Again Ozias seemed to shunt him out of the place with that speaking motion of his shoulder.

Jerome went close to him.  “Uncle Ozias, I want to know what is the matter?” he said, then started, for suddenly Ozias raised his face and looked at him, his eyes wild under his shaggy grizzle of hair, his mouth twisted in a fierce laugh.  “Want to know, do ye?” he cried—­“want to know?  Well, I’ll tell ye.  Look at me hard; I’m a sight.  Look at me.  Here’s a man, ’most threescore years and ten, who’s been willin’ to work, an’ has worked, an’ ’ain’t been considered underwitted, who’s been strugglin’ to keep a roof over his head an’ his wife’s, an’ bread in their two mouths; jest that, no more.  He ‘ain’t had any children; nobody but himself an’ his wife, an’ she contented with next to nothin’.  Jest a roof an’ bread for them—­jest that; an’ he an able-bodied man, that’s worked like a dog—­jest that; an’ he’s got to give it up.  Look at him, he’s a sight for wise men an’ fools.”  Ozias laughed.

“What on earth do you mean, Uncle Ozias?”

“Simon Basset is goin’ to foreclose to-morrow.”

Jerome stared at his uncle incredulously.  “Why, I thought you had earned plenty to keep the interest up of late years!” he said.