When Mr. Jeminy left Anna, at the edge of the village, he went to call on Grandmother Ploughman.  He found her in the company of old Mrs. Crabbe, who had brought her knitting over, for society’s sake.  Mrs. Ploughman received him with quiet dignity, due to a sense of the wrong she had suffered, for which she blamed Mrs. Wicket, and the Democratic Party.  Mr. Ploughman, she often said, had been a good Republican all his life.  Unfortunately, he was dead; otherwise, things would have been different.

It seemed to her that the country was being run by a set of villains.  “The world is in a bad way,” she declared.  “I don’t know what we’re coming to.”  And an expression of bleak satisfaction illuminated her face, wrinkled with age.

“Yes,” said Mr. Jeminy, “these are unhappy times.  I am afraid we are leaving behind us a difficult task for those who follow.  They had a right to expect better things of us, Mrs. Ploughman.”

“I’ve not left anything behind,” said Mrs. Ploughman decidedly; “not yet.”

“I should hope not,” ejaculated Mrs. Crabbe.  “No.”

“It’s the young,” said Mrs. Ploughman, “who get the old into trouble.  Nothing ever suits them until they’re in mischief; and then it’s up to their elders to pull them out again.  I know, for I’ve seen it, father and son.”

“It is the old,” said Mr. Jeminy, “who get the young into trouble.”

“Is it, indeed?” said Mrs. Ploughman.

“Well, I don’t believe it.”  And she gave Mr. Jeminy a bright, peaked look.

“Then,” she continued, “when you’ve done for them, year in and year out, off they go, and that’s the end of it.”

“Ah, yes,” croaked Mrs. Crabbe; “off they go.”

“If it isn’t one thing,” said Mrs. Ploughman, “it’s another.  Trouble and death—­that’s a woman’s lot in this world, like the Good Book says.”

“Death is the end of everything,” remarked Mrs. Crabbe.

“I’m not afraid to die,” Mrs. Ploughman declared.  “There’s things to do the other side of the grave, same as here.  And it’s a joy to do them, in the light of the Lord.  I can tell you, Mrs. Crabbe, I won’t be sorry to go.  My folks are waiting there for me.”  Her voice trembled, and she rocked up and down to compose herself.  “He needn’t try to mix me up,” she thought to herself; “not in my own home.  No.”

“Then,” said Mr. Jeminy, “you believe in an after life, Mrs. Ploughman?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Ploughman firmly, directing her remarks to Mrs. Crabbe, “I do.  I believe there’s a life hereafter, when our sorrows will be repaid us.  There weren’t all those hearts broke for nothing, Mrs. Crabbe, nor for what’s going on here now, with strikes, and famine, and bloody murders.”

“That’s real edifying, Mrs. Ploughman,” said Mrs. Crabbe, “real edifying.  Yes,” she exclaimed with energy, “these are terrible times.  Now they give me tea without sugar in it.  For there’s no sugar to be had.  Well, I won’t drink it.  I spit it out, when nobody’s looking.”