"And your friend Mr. Olmney has sent us a corn-basket fill of the superbest apples you ever saw. He has one tree of the finest in Queechy, he says."
"_My_ friend!" said Fleda, colouring a little.
"Well, I don"t know whose he is, if he isn"t yours," said Hugh. "And even the Finns sent us some fish that their brother had caught, because, they said, they had more than they wanted. And Dr. Quackenboss sent us a goose and a turkey. We didn"t like to keep them, but we were afraid, if we sent them back, it would not be understood."
"Send them back!" said Fleda. "That would never do! All Queechy would have rung with it."
"Well, we didn"t," said Hugh. "But so we sent one of them to Barby"s old mother, for Christmas."
"Poor Dr. Quackenboss!" said Fleda. "That man has as near as possible killed me two or three times. As for the others, they are certainly the oddest of all the finny tribes. I must go out and see Barby for a minute."
It was a good many minutes, however, before she could get free to do any such thing.
"You han"t lost no flesh," said Barby, shaking hands with her anew. "What did they think of Queechy keep, down in York?"
"I don"t know ? I didn"t ask them," said Fleda. "How goes the world with you, Barby?"
"I"m mighty glad you are come home, Fleda," said Barby, lowering her voice.
"Why?" said Fleda, in a like tone.
"I guess I aint all that"s glad of it," Miss Elster went on, with a glance of her bright eye.
"I guess not," said Fleda, reddening a little ? "but what is the matter?"
"There"s two of our friends ha"n"t made us but one visit apiece since ? oh, ever since some time in October!"
"Well, never mind the people," said Fleda. "Tell me what you were going to say."
"And Mr. Olmney," said Barby, not minding her, "he"s took and sent us a great basket chock full of apples. Now, wa"n"t that smart of him, when he knowed there wa"n"t no one here that cared about "em ?"
"They are a particularly fine kind," said Fleda.
"Did you hear about the goose and turkey?"
"Yes," said Fleda, laughing.
"The doctor thinks he has done the thing just about right, this time, I "spect. He had ought to take out a patent right for his invention. He"d feel spry if he knowed who ate one on "em."
"Never mind the doctor, Barby. Was this what you wanted to see me for?"
"No," said Barby, changing her tone. "I"d give something it was. I"ve been all but at my wit"s end; for you know, Mis"
Rossitur aint no hand about anything ? I couldn"t say a word to her; and ever since he went away, we have been just winding ourselves up. I thought I should clear out, when Mis" Rossitur said, maybe you wa"n"t a-coming till next week."
"But what is it, Barby? what is wrong?"
"There ha"n"t been anything right, to my notions, for a long spell," said Barby, wringing out her dish-cloth hard, and flinging it down, to give herself uninterruptedly to talk; "but now you see, Didenhover, nor none of the men, never comes near the house to do a ch.o.r.e; and there aint wood to last three days; and Hugh aint fit to cut it if it was piled up in the yard; and there aint the first stick of it out of the woods yet."
Fleda sat down, and looked very thoughtfully into the fire.
"He had ought to ha" seen to it afore he went away; but he ha"n"t done it, and there it is."
"Why, who takes care of the cows?" said Fleda.
"Oh, never mind the cows," said Barby, "they aint suffering ?
I wish we was as well off as they be; but I guess, when he went away, he made a hole in our pockets for to mend his"n. I don"t say he hadn"t ought to ha" done it, but we"ve been pretty short ever sen, Fleda ? we"re in the last bushel of flour, and there aint but a handful of corn meal, and mighty little sugar, white or brown. I did say something to Mis"
Rossitur, but all the good it did was to spoil her appet.i.te, I s"pose; and if there"s grain in the floor, there aint n.o.body to carry it to mill ? nor to thrash it ? nor a team to draw it, fur"s I know."
"Hugh cannot cut wood," said Fleda, "nor drive to mill either, in this weather."
"I could go to mill," said Barby, "now you"re to hum; but that"s only the beginning, and it"s no use to try to do everything ? flesh and blood must stop somewhere."
"No, indeed!" said Fleda. "We must have somebody immediately."
"That"s what I had fixed upon," said Barby. "If you could get hold o" some young feller that wa"n"t sot up with an idee that he was a grown man and too big to be told, I"d just clap to and fix that little room up-stairs for him, and give him his victuals here, and we"d have some good of him; instead o"
having him streaking off just at the minute when he"d ought to be along."
"Who is there we could get, Barby?"
"I don"t know," said Barby; "but they say there is never a nick that there aint a jog some place; so I guess it can be made out. I asked Mis" Plumfield, but she didn"t know anybody that was out of work; nor Seth Plumfield. I"ll tell you who does ? that is, if there is anybody ? Mis" Dougla.s.s. She keeps hold. of one end of most everybody"s affairs, I tell her.
Anyhow, she"s a good hand to go to."
"I"ll go there at once," said Fleda. "Do you know anything about making maple sugar, Barby?"
"That"s the very thing," exclaimed Barby, ecstatically.
"There"s lots o" sugar-maples on the farm, and it"s murder to let them go to loss; and they ha"n"t done us a speck o" good ever since I come here. And in your grandfather"s time, they used to make barrels and barrels. You and me and Hugh, and somebody else we"ll have, we could clap to and make as much sugar and mola.s.ses in a week as would last us till spring come round again. There"s no sense into it All we"d want would be to borrow a team some place. I had all that in my head long ago. If we could see the last of that man, Didenhover, oncet, I"d take hold of the plough myself, and see if I couldn"t make a living out of it. I don"t believe the world would go now, Fleda, if it wa"n"t for women. I never see three men, yet, that didn"t try me more than they were worth."
"Patience, Barby!" said Fleda, smiling. "Let us take things quietly."
"Well, I declare, I"m beat, to see how you take "em," said Barby, looking at her lovingly.
"Don"t you know why, Barby?"
"I s"pose I do," said Barby, her face softening still more ?
"or I can guess."
"Because I know that all these troublesome things will be managed in the best way, and by my best Friend, and I know that He will let none of them hurt me. I am sure of it ? isn"t that enough to keep me quiet?"
Fleda"s eyes were filling, and Barby looked away from them.
"Well, it beats me," she said, taking up her dish-cloth again, "why you should have anything to trouble you. I can understand wicked folks being plagued, but I can"t see the sense of the good ones."
"Troubles are to make good people better, Barby."
"Well," said Barby, with a very odd mixture of real feeling and seeming want of it, "it"s a wonder I never got religion, for I will say that all the decent people I ever see were of that kind, ? Mis" Rossitur aint, though, is she?"
"No," said Fleda, a pang crossing her at the thought that all her aunt"s loveliness must tell directly and heavily in this case to lighten religion"s testimony. It was that thought, and no other, which saddened her brow as she went back into the other room.
"Troubles already!" said Mrs. Rossitur. "You will be sorry you have come back to them, dear."