e think of a hummin'-bird; quick as a flash, here, and
there, gone in a minute, and back again before you could wink. She had a
little black mare she used to ride, Firefly, she called her. Eigh, sirs,
to see them two kitin' round the country was a sight, now I tell ye. I
recall one day I was out in the medder behind Darracott House--you know
that gully that runs the len'th of the ten-acre lot? Well, there used to
be a bridge over that gully, just a footbridge it was, little light
thing, push it over with your hand, seemed as if you could. Wal, sir, I
was pokin' about the way boys do, huntin' for box-plums, or woodchucks,
or nothin' at all, when all of a suddin I heard hoofs and voices, and I
slunk in behind a tree, bein' diffident, and scairt of bein' so near the
big house.

"Next minute they come out into the ro'd, two on 'em, Miss Marshy
Darracott and George Tennaker, Squire Tennaker's son, over to Bascom. He
was a big, red-faced feller, none too well thought of, for all his folks
had ben in the country as long as the Darracotts, or the Butterses
either, for that matter, and he'd ben hangin' round Miss Marshy quite a
spell, though she wouldn't have nothin' to say to him. I was in her
Sabbath-school class, and thought the hull world of her, this one and a
piece of the next; and I gredged George Tennaker so much as lookin' at
her. Wal, they come along, and he was sayin' something, and she
answered him short and sharp; I can see her now, her eyes like black
di'monds, and the red comin' and goin' in her cheeks: she was a pictur
if ever I seed one. Pooty soon he reached out and co't holt of her
bridle. Gre't Isrel, sir! she brought down her whip like a stroke of
lightning on his fingers, and he dropped the rein as if it burnt him.
Then she whisked round, and across that bridge quicker'n any swaller
ever you see. It shook like a poplar-tree, but it hadn't no time to fall
if it wanted to; she was acrost, and away out of sight before you could
say 'Simon Peter;' and he set there in the ro'd cussin', and swearin',
and suckin' his fingers. I tell ye, I didn't need no dinner that day; I
was full up, and good victuals, too."

"This is extremely interesting, Mr. Butters," said Mr. Homer.
"You--a--you present my venerable relative in a wholly new light. She
is so--a--so extremely venerable, if I may so express myself, that I
confess I have never before had an accurate conception of her youth."

"You thought old folks was born old