enrod in it really looked
better than mine with beans. I told Louisa that I could not see why
the original states of inanimate things ought to be remembered
against them when they were elevated to finer uses any more than
those of people, and now that the bean-pot had become a vase in a
parlor why its past could not be forgotten. Louisa agreed with me,
but I don't doubt that many people never looked at those pots full of
goldenrod without seeing beans. It was to my way of thinking more
their misfortune than the Jamesons' mistake; and they made enough
mistakes which were not to be questioned not to have the benefit of
any doubt.

Soon the Jamesons, with their farm, were the standing joke in our
village. I had never known there was such a strong sense of humor
among us as their proceedings awakened. Mr. H. Boardman Jameson did
not remain in Fairville long, as he had to return to his duties at
the custom-house. Mrs. Jameson, who seemed to rouse herself suddenly
from the languid state which she had assumed at times, managed the
farm. She certainly had original ideas and the courage of her
convictions.

She stopped at nothing; even Nature herself she had a try at, like
some mettlesome horse which does not like to be balked by anything in
the shape of a wall.

Old Jonas Martin was a talker, and he talked freely about the people
for whom he worked. "Old Deacon Sears had a cow once that would jump
everything. Wa'n't a wall could be built that was high enough to stop
her," he would say. "'Tain't no ways clear to my mind that she ain't
the identical critter that jumped the moon;--and I swan if Mis'
Jameson ain't like her. There ain't nothin' that's goin' to stop her;
she ain't goin' to be hendered by any sech little things as times an'
seasons an' frost from raisin' corn an' green peas an' flowers in her
garden. 'The frost'll be a-nippin' of 'em, marm,' says I, 'as soon as
they come up, marm.' 'I wish you to leave that to me, my good man,'
says she. Law, she ain't a-goin' to hev any frost a-nippin' her
garden unless she's ready for it. And as for the chickens, I wouldn't
like to be in their shoes unless they hatch when Mis' Jameson she
wants 'em to. They have to do everything else she wants 'em to, and I
dunno but they'll come to time on that. They're the fust fowls I ever
see that a woman could stop scratchin'."

With that, old Jonas Martin would pause for a long cackle of mirth,
and his auditor would usually join him, fo