She seemed as jolly and full of fun as her husband was morose. Cyrus
Pritchett only glowered on the Bray girls when he looked at them at all.

But Lyddy and 'Phemie joined in the conversation with the rest of the
family. 'Phemie, although she had made so much fun of Lucas at first,
now made amends by declaring him to be a hero--and sticking to it!

"I'd never have got out of that pool if it hadn't been for Lucas," she
repeated; "unless I could have drunk up the water and walked ashore that
way! And o-o-oh! wasn't it cold!"

"Hope you're not going to feel the effects of it later," said her sister,
still anxious.

"I'm all right," assured the confident 'Phemie.

"I dunno as it'll be fit for you gals to stay in the old house to-night,"
urged Mrs. Pritchett. "You'll hafter have some wood cut."

"I'll do that when I take their stuff up to Hillcrest," said Lucas,
eagerly, but flushing again as though stricken with a sudden fever.

"There are no stoves in the house, I suppose?" Lyddy asked, wistfully.

"Bless ye! Dr. Polly wouldn't never have a stove in his house, saving a
cook-stove in the kitchen, an' of course, that's ate up with rust afore
this," exclaimed the farmer's wife. "He said open fireplaces assured every
room its proper ventilation. He didn't believe in these new-fangled ways
of shuttin' up chimbleys. My! but he was powerful sot on fresh air an'
sunshine.

"Onct," pursued Mrs. Pritchett, "he was called to see Mis' Fibbetts--she
that was a widder and lived on 'tother side of the ridge, on the road to
Adams. She had a mis'ry of some kind, and was abed with all the winders
of her room tight closed.

"'Open them winders,' says Dr. Polly to the neighbor what was a-nussin' of
Mis' Fibbetts.

"Next time he come the winders was down again. Dr. Polly warn't no gentle
man, an' he swore hard, he did. He flung up the winders himself, an'
stamped out o' the room.

"It was right keen weather," chuckled Mrs. Pritchett, her double chins
shaking with enjoyment, "and Mis' Fibbetts was scart to death of a leetle
air. Minute Dr. Polly was out o' sight she made the neighbor woman shet
the winders ag'in.

"But when Dr. Polly turned up the ridge road he craned out'n the buggy an'
he seen the winders shet. He jerked his old boss aroun', drove back to the
house, stalked into the sick woman's room, cane in hand, and smashed
every pane of glass in them winders, one after another.

"'Now I reckon ye'll git air enough to cu