's
folks."

"We did certain," agreed Mrs. Fosdick, rocking steadily. "There, it does
seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance that knows what you
know. I see so many of these new folks nowadays, that seem to have
neither past nor future. Conversation's got to have some root in the
past, or else you've got to explain every remark you make, an' it wears
a person out."

Mrs. Todd gave a funny little laugh. "Yes'm, old friends is always best,
'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of,"
she said, and we gave an affectionate glance at each other which Mrs.
Fosdick could not have understood, being the latest comer to the house.

XIII. Poor Joanna

ONE EVENING my ears caught a mysterious allusion which Mrs. Todd made to
Shell-heap Island. It was a chilly night of cold northeasterly rain, and
I made a fire for the first time in the Franklin stove in my room, and
begged my two housemates to come in and keep me company. The weather had
convinced Mrs. Todd that it was time to make a supply of cough-drops,
and she had been bringing forth herbs from dark and dry hiding-places,
until now the pungent dust and odor of them had resolved themselves into
one mighty flavor of spearmint that came from a simmering caldron
of syrup in the kitchen. She called it done, and well done, and had
ostentatiously left it to cool, and taken her knitting-work because
Mrs. Fosdick was busy with hers. They sat in the two rocking-chairs, the
small woman and the large one, but now and then I could see that Mrs.
Todd's thoughts remained with the cough-drops. The time of gathering
herbs was nearly over, but the time of syrups and cordials had begun.

The heat of the open fire made us a little drowsy, but something in the
way Mrs. Todd spoke of Shell-heap Island waked my interest. I waited to
see if she would say any more, and then took a roundabout way back to
the subject by saying what was first in my mind: that I wished the Green
Island family were there to spend the evening with us,--Mrs. Todd's
mother and her brother William.

Mrs. Todd smiled, and drummed on the arm of the rocking-chair. "Might
scare William to death," she warned me; and Mrs. Fosdick mentioned her
intention of going out to Green Island to stay two or three days, if the
wind didn't make too much sea.

"Where is Shell-heap Island?" I ventured to ask, seizing the
opportunity.

"Bears nor-east somewheres about three miles from Green Island; ri