always really welcomed; because, notwithstanding the trouble she
gave, she always stirred things up. As was said once, you could no
more have remained dull where she was than you could have dozed with
a chinkapin-burr down your back. Her retort was that a chinkapin-burr
might be used to rouse people from a lethargy (she had an old maid's
tongue). By the younger members of the family she was always welcomed,
because she furnished so much fun. She nearly always fetched some little
thing to her host--not her hostess--a fowl, or a pat of butter from her
one old cow, or something of the kind, because, she said, "Abigail
had established the precedent, and she was 'a woman of good
understanding'--she understood that feeding and flattery were the way to
win men." She would sometimes have a chicken in a basket hung on the off
pummel of her old saddle, because at times she fancied she could not eat
anything but chicken soup, and she did "not wish to give trouble." She
used to give trouble enough; for it generally turned out that she had
heard some one was sick in the neighborhood, and she wanted the soup
carried to her. I remember how mad Joe got because she made him go with
her to carry a bucket of soup to old Mrs. Ronquist.

Cousin Fanny had the marks of an old maid. She was thin ("scrawny" we
used to call her, though I remember now she was quite erect until she
grew feeble); her features were fine; her nose was very straight; her
hair was brown; and her eyes, which were dark, were weak, so that she
had often to wear a green shade. She used to say herself that they were
"bad eyes". They had been so ever since the time when she was a young
girl, and there had been a very bad attack of scarlet fever at her home,
and she had caught it. I think she caught a bad cold with it--sitting up
nursing some of the younger children, perhaps--and it had settled in her
eyes. She was always very liable to cold.

I believe she had a lover then or about that time; but her mother had
died not long before, and she had some notion of duty to the children,
and so discarded him. Of course, as every one said, she'd much better
have married him. I do not suppose he ever could have addressed her. She
never would admit that he did, which did not look much like it. She
was once spoken of in my presence as "a sore-eyed old maid"--I have
forgotten who said it. Yet I can now recall occasions when her eyes,
being "better", appeared unusually soft, and, had sh