"I think
boys are kind of--middling," she added. It was evident that a more
severe adjective than this had been withheld only from motives of
politeness. "I've got an own relation, though, that's an awful nice
boy--awful smart too; you never know what he's going to do next."

Little Adoniram pricked up his ears; Aunt Esther had been known to say
that of him without meaning to be complimentary. City standards of
behavior seemed to be cheerfully different from those of Bayberry
Corner.

"I wouldn't have said a word if Jicksy could have come too," continued
Grazella, and her snapping black eyes slowly filled with tears. "A
cousin is a real comfort."

"Do you mean that you didn't want to come?" asked Phemie, in a
disappointed tone.

"I'm in the newspaper business; 'twas kind of risky to leave it;
there's so many pushin' in. But they don't want me to home; mother she's
married again, and _he_ don't like me. Jicksy is all I've got that's
really my own. If he could have come too--"

She swallowed a lump in her throat with determination, and raised her
eyes to the old sweet apple-tree whose fruit was yellowing in the August
sunshine.

"Are them apples?" she asked. "They ain't near so shiny and handsome as
Judy Magrath keeps on her stand; Judy shines 'em with her apron. I never
was in the country before, and I don't know as I'm going to like it. But
I'm run down, they say, and I've got a holler cough, so I had to come."

Phemie had almost begun to wish that they had not taken a country-week
girl; but now she noticed, suddenly, the meagreness of the tall form,
and the deep hollows under the snapping black eyes, and repented. It was
proverbial that people grew plump and strong on Sweet Apple Hill.

Aunt Esther came out, and the girl's manner softened under the influence
of her tactful kindness. She seemed to like Grandpa Trueworthy too; she
said she had a grandpa once, and 'twas the most she ever did have that
was like other folks.

But, after all, it was she and Gideon who seemed most congenial. Gideon
explained, with a gravely approving wag of the head, that she was
"business." Gideon flattered himself that he had abilities in that line,
and he was cultivating them diligently. He had not expected to get any
hints from a girl; but the country-week girl was assistant at a
newspaper stand, and she also "tended" for Judy Magrath when Judy, as
she explained with sad and severe head-shakings, was obliged to go to a
funeral