he store, and kep' the
accounts, and she hed her eyes everywhere, and tied up all the ends so
tight that there want no gettin' 'round her. She wouldn't let nobody put
nothin' off on Parson Carryl, 'cause he was a minister. Huldy was allers
up to anybody that wanted to make a hard bargain; and, afore he knew
jist what he was about, she'd got the best end of it, and everybody said
that Huldy was the most capable gal that they'd ever traded with.

"Wal, come to the meetin' of the Association, Mis' Deakin Blodgett and
Mis' Pipperidge come callin' up to the parson's, all in a stew, and
offerin' their services to get the house ready; but the doctor, he jist
thanked 'em quite quiet, and turned 'em over to Huldy; and Huldy she
told 'em that she'd got every thing ready, and showed 'em her pantries,
and her cakes and her pies and her puddin's, and took 'em all over the
house; and they went peekin' and pokin', openin' cupboard-doors, and
lookin' into drawers; and they couldn't find so much as a thread out o'
the way, from garret to cellar, and so they went off quite discontented.
Arter that the women set a new trouble a brewin'. Then they begun to
talk that it was a year now since Mis' Carryl died; and it r'ally wasn't
proper such a young gal to be stayin' there, who everybody could see was
a settin' her cap for the minister.

"Mis' Pipperidge said, that, so long as she looked on Huldy as the hired
gal, she hadn't thought much about it; but Huldy was railly takin' on
airs as an equal, and appearin' as mistress o' the house in a way that
would make talk if it went on. And Mis' Pipperidge she driv 'round up to
Deakin Abner Snow's, and down to Mis' 'Lijah Perry's, and asked them
if they wasn't afraid that the way the parson and Huldy was a goin' on
might make talk. And they said they hadn't thought on't before, but now,
come to think on't, they was sure it would; and they all went and talked
with somebody else, and asked them if they didn't think it would make
talk. So come Sunday, between meetin's there warn't noth-in' else talked
about; and Huldy saw folks a noddin' and a winkin', and a lookin' arter
her, and she begun to feel drefful sort o' disagreeable. Finally Mis'
Sawin she says to her, 'My dear, didn't you, never think folk would talk
about you and the minister?'

"'No: why should they?' says Huldy, quite innocent.

"Wal, dear,' says she, 'I think it's a shame; but they say you're tryin'
to catch him, and that it's so bold