said
Mrs. Snow. "Oh, come over horseback, I suppose. Well, now, we're pleased
to see ye."

"No," said I, "I walked across the fields. It was too pleasant to stay
in the house, and I haven't had a long walk for some time before." I
begged them not to stop spinning, but they insisted that they should not
have turned the wheels a half-dozen times more, even if I had not come,
and they pushed them back to the wall before they came to sit down to
talk with me over their knitting--for neither of them were ever known to
be idle. Mrs. Snow was only there for a visit; she was a widow, and
lived during most of the year with her son; and Aunt Polly was at home
but seldom herself, as she was a famous nurse, and was often in demand
all through that part of the country. I had known her all my days.
Everybody was fond of the good soul, and she had been one of the most
useful women in the world. One of my pleasantest memories is of a long
but not very painful illness one winter, when she came to take care of
me. There was no end either to her stories or her kindness. I was
delighted to find her at home that afternoon, and Mrs. Snow also.

Aunt Polly brought me some of her gingerbread, which she knew I liked,
and a stout little pitcher of milk, and we sat there together for a
while, gossiping and enjoying ourselves. I told all the village news
that I could think of, and I was just tired enough to know it, and to be
contented to sit still for a while in the comfortable three-cornered
chair by the little front window. The October sunshine lay along the
clean kitchen floor, and Aunt Polly darted from her chair occasionally
to catch stray little wisps of wool which the breeze through the door
blew along from the wheels. There was a gay string of red peppers
hanging over the very high mantel-shelf, and the wood-work in the room
had never been painted, and had grown dark brown with age and smoke and
scouring. The clock ticked solemnly, as if it were a judge giving the
laws of time, and felt itself to be the only thing that did not waste
it. There was a bouquet of asparagus and some late sprigs of larkspur
and white petunias on the table underneath, and a Leavitt's Almanac lay
on the county paper, which was itself lying on the big Bible, of which
Aunt Polly made a point of reading two chapters every day in course. I
remember her saying, despairingly, one night, half to herself, "I don'
know but I may skip the Chronicles next time," but I hav