rson, 'you are a most amazin' child: you don't
say nothin' but you do more than most folks.'

"Arter that the parson set sich store by Huldy that he come to her and
asked her about every thing, and it was amazin' how every thing she put
her hand to prospered. Huldy planted marigolds and larkspurs, pinks and
carnations, all up and down the path to the front door, and trained
up mornin' glories and scarlet-runners round the windows. And she
was always a gettin' a root here, and a sprig there, and a seed from
somebody else: for Huldy was one o' them that has the gift, so that ef
you jist give 'em the leastest sprig of any thing they make a great
bush out of it right away; so that in six months Huldy had roses and
geraniums and lilies, sich as it would a took a gardener to raise. The
parson, he took no notice at fust; but when the yard was all ablaze with
flowers he used to come and stand in a kind o' maze at the front door,
and say, 'Beautiful, beautiful: why, Huldy, I never see any thing like
it.' And then when her work was done arternoons, Huldy would sit with
her sewin' in the porch, and sing and trill away till she'd draw the
meadow-larks and the bobolinks, and the orioles to answer her, and the
great big elm-tree overhead would get perfectly rackety with the
birds; and the parson, settin' there in his study, would git to kind o'
dreamin' about the angels, and golden harps, and the New Jerusalem;
but he wouldn't speak a word, 'cause Huldy she was jist like them
wood-thrushes, she never could sing so well when she thought folks was
hearin'. Folks noticed, about this time, that the parson's sermons got
to be like Aaron's rod, that budded and blossomed: there was things
in 'em about flowers and birds, and more 'special about the music o'
heaven. And Huldy she noticed, that ef there was a hymn run in her head
while she was 'round a workin' the minister was sure to give it out next
Sunday. You see, Huldy was jist like a bee: she always sung when she was
workin', and you could hear her trillin', now down in the corn-patch,
while she was pickin' the corn; and now in the buttery, while she was
workin' the butter; and now she'd go singin' down cellar, and then she'd
be singin' up over head, so that she seemed to fill a house chock full
o' music.

"Huldy was so sort o' chipper and fair spoken, that she got the hired
men all under her thumb: they come to her and took her orders jist
as meek as so many calves; and she traded at t