If she had had a daughter of her own, it is doubtful if her
treatment of her would have been much different.
Still, Ann was too young to understand all this, and, sometimes,
though she was strong and healthy, and not naturally averse to work,
she would rebel, when her mistress set her stints so long, and kept
her at work when other children were playing.
Once in a while she would confide in grandma, when Mrs. Polly sent her
over there on an errand and she had felt unusually aggrieved because
she had had to wind quills, or hetchel, instead of going berrying, or
some like pleasant amusement.
"Poor little cosset," grandma would say, pityingly.
Then she would give her a simball, and tell her she must "be a good
girl, and not mind if she couldn't play jest like the others, for
she'd got to airn her own livin', when she grew up, and she must learn
to work."
Ann would go away comforted, but grandma would be privately indignant.
She was, as is apt to be the case, rather critical with her sons'
wives, and she thought "Sam'l's kept that poor little gal too stiddy
at work," and wished and wished she could shelter her under her own
grandmotherly wing, and feed her with simballs to her heart's content.
She was too wise to say anything to influence the child against her
mistress, however. She was always cautious about that, even while
pitying her.
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