time I could make my call. The house was low and long and unpainted,
with a great many frost-bitten flowers about it. Some hollyhocks were
bowed down despairingly, and the morning-glory vines were more miserable
still. Some of the smaller plants had been covered to keep them from
freezing, and were braving out a few more days, but no shelter would
avail them much longer. And already nobody minded whether the gate was
shut or not, and part of the great flock of hens were marching proudly
about among the wilted posies, which they had stretched their necks
wistfully through the fence for all summer. I heard the noise of
spinning in the house, and my dog scurried off after the cat as I went
in the door. I saw Miss Polly Marsh and her sister, Mrs. Snow, stepping
back and forward together spinning yarn at a pair of big wheels. The
wheels made such a noise with their whir and creak, and my friends were
talking so fast as they twisted and turned the yarn, that they did not
hear my footstep, and I stood in the doorway watching them, it was such
a quaint and pretty sight. They went together like a pair of horses, and
kept step with each other to and fro. They were about the same size, and
were cheerful old bodies, looking a good deal alike, with their checked
handkerchiefs over their smooth gray hair, their dark gowns made short
in the skirts, and their broad little feet in gray stockings and low
leather shoes without heels. They stood straight, and though they were
quick at their work they moved stiffly; they were talking busily about
some one.

"I could tell by the way the doctor looked that he didn't think there
was much of anything the matter with her," said Miss Polly Marsh. "'You
needn't tell me,' says I, the other day, when I see him at Miss
Martin's. 'She'd be up and about this minute if she only had a mite o'
resolution;' and says he, 'Aunt Polly, you're as near right as usual;'"
and the old lady stopped to laugh a little. "I told him that wa'n't
saying much," said she, with an evident consciousness of the underlying
compliment and the doctor's good opinion. "I never knew one of that
tribe that hadn't a queer streak and wasn't shif'less; but they're
tougher than ellum roots;" and she gave the wheel an emphatic turn,
while Mrs. Snow reached for more rolls of wool, and happened to see me.

"Wherever did you come from?" said they, in great surprise. "Why, you
wasn't anywhere in sight when I was out speaking to the doctor,"