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Updated: June 20, 2025
When I was sixteen, though, and it was time for me to be got a place somewhere, the matron put me back a couple of years; we were gettin' more babies from the poor-farm than usual, an' I was kinder handy with them. She had to let me go now because one of the visitin' deaconesses let out that she'd seen me there sixteen years ago herself, an' I was toddlin' round then. Oh, I missed him!"
I went up to the poor-farm one evening, to carry a basket of strawberries. We had a great quantity, and I thought some of the people up there might like them, for they had few luxuries, though I don't believe they ever went hungry. And when I came there, Mrs. Green, who kept the farm then, came out looking all in a maze.
But twenty-eight dollars remained to me after it was gone, the poor-house, or death. I had already resolved upon death as my choice rather than go back to be of that dolorous company, the living dead of the poor-farm. But I did not go back, nor did I die.
Keep on gettin' ideas like that, and you'll land in Congress or the poor-farm before many years!" Then, abandoning his pretense of gravity, he slapped the other on the back. "Why didn't I think of that? It's the best yet. Seigert's team? Oh, hang Seigert's team. We don't need it. We'll have a little merry Christmas out of this yet. Only they mustn't know where it came from.
The two selectmen protested, official alarm in their faces, but Hiram suddenly took the keeper's side, after the manner of his impetuous nature, and after he had shrewdly noted that Reeves seemed to be most alarmed. "I'm the challenger," he roared. "I've got something to say. Bring 'em, Wixon. Let 'em have a taste of fun. I may wind up on the poor-farm myself. Bring 'em in.
"I'll drive her over to the poor-farm when she turns up," said Weeks. "Then they'll take her, an' apprentice her to someone as wants a girl to work aroun' his place, like. Bind her over till she's twenty-one, and let her work for her keep. I might take her myself guess 'twouldn't cost such a lot to feed her. She's thin reckon she ain't ever had much to eat here."
"Lots of people act as if they were being charitable when they get a good deal more than they give," said the lawyer dryly. "Maw Hoover was always calling me lazy, and saying she'd send me to the poor-farm," said Bessie. "But it was she and Jake that made things so hard. Paw Hoover was always good to me, and he helped me to get away, too." "That's what I'm driving at," said Jamieson.
I always wanted to have a real good time, an' now I'm havin' it." Two or three days later, two pathetic figures might have been seen crossing the slopes of the poor-farm field, toward the low shores of Byfield pond. It was early in the morning, and the stubble of the lately mown grass was wet with rain and hindering to old feet.
He could not bear the thought of betraying her innocent confidences by handing her over to the nearest authorities; it would mean her being held as a vagrant and possibly sent to the county poor-farm.
Keeper Wixon, of the poor-farm, had the big floor of the barn nicely swept, had hung lanterns about on the wooden harness-pegs, and was in a state of great excitement and impatience. Second Selectman Reeves came first, lugging his crate from his beach-wagon. The crate held the Widow Pike's rooster. His nomination had his head up between the slats, and was crowing regularly and raucously.
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