“Indeed; well, she was a faithful servant, and has gone to her reward; and poor Sambo, how patiently he toiled, early and late, to purchase her freedom, and they were very happy.”

“O, yes, because they loved each other, and there was no one to interfere with them.”

They were now startled by hearing Mr. Benson chiding the children in a loud, angry voice, with many oaths, for leaving the gate open, and letting a cow into a small yard of shrivelled, stinted looking cabbages.

The children scampered for the house, with terrified looks, whispering, “father has come,” and crouching down in a heap in one corner of the room, remained very quiet; the old cow ran for the street, with Mr. Benson at her heels, storming furiously, and plying a large stick across her back, which he had picked up in his rage.

The sisters placed the large bundle of dried apple in as secure a place as possible, and returned to the kitchen.

The door was burst violently open, and Mr. Benson entered the room, exclaiming, as he did so,

“What in thunder is going on here?”

And he proceeded to disarrange chairs, tables and everything that came in his way, till the house was all in confusion.  He went to the cupboard, that stood in the corner of the room, to get a large jug he used to keep brandy in, in his better days, but which now was often filled with New England rum.  Not finding it, he almost screamed,

“Hannah, you Jezebel, where is my jug?”

“I thought I would sell it, as you were boarding out.”

“Woman,” shouted he, “that shall be a dear jug to you.”

“It has been that already.”

The enraged husband cast at her the look of a fiend, and passed on to the adjoining room, which was calculated to be an elegant parlor when the house was raised, but which was now converted into a store room, for old barrels, old baskets, old hats and bonnets, and, in fine, a great variety of old things.  In one corner stood a little old bedstead, with an old flock bed, covered with patched sheets and a ragged quilt, where James slept.  The loom was in that room and the spinning wheels; an old churn and many other things, too numerous to mention.

Mr. Benson reached up his hand, to take down a large bunch of woolen yarn that hung suspended on a nail.  His wife sprang forward, saying, “Do not touch that—­it is not mine.”

“I don’t care whose it is.  I must and will have something that will sell.”

At that moment, seeing the package of dried apple, he pounced upon it, like a tiger upon its prey, and bore it rapidly away, with the remonstrances of a weeping wife ringing in his ears.