indows.

And she talked about when she was a little girl in Ireland, and how she
and her sisters and Pat Maloney used to wade together in the river, that
wasn't so very much bigger than our "crick."

And then she folded her hands on her work, and gazed away into the lower
meadow, where we could spy a spot of white moving against the green,
that was Pat's shirt, with Pat inside of it, mowing, and began to tell
what a fine "b'y" Pat was (Aunt Mari's Pat is the one), and how he had
raked and scraped and gone without things ever since he had been in
America, so as to save enough money to buy a snug little home over here
for his old mother, and get her everything she wants before she dies.

But just as Polly was saying that _she_ was laying by her money, too,
and that when the old woman had come she had promised to go and live
with them, all at once I heard an awful racket, and looked toward the
road, and oh cricky! what do you think I saw? Tearing round Deacon
Stiles's corner, lickety-split, was a span of horses and a buggy, with
the reins dragging in the dust, and the buggy spinning from one side of
the road to the other, and in it was a lady with great wide-open eyes,
and a face as white as a sheet, clutching a little girl in her arms like
death!

I knew right off that it was the lady who was staying at Judge Gillis's,
in the village, because I had seen her and her little girl in meeting,
Sunday; but my heart flew into my throat and almost choked me, and at
first I couldn't speak a word. Then I screamed, "Polly! _Polly_!"

Polly jumped as if she was shot--for, if you will believe it, she had
been so busy thinking of Pat that she hadn't heard a sound--and got to
the gate in two leaps, scattering her spools and scissors and pieces of
pink calico on the grass. When she saw the horses, she stood stock-still
for a minute, and stared with all her eyes. Then she gave a screech like
a wild Indian, and stooped and grabbed Pa's umbrella from where I had
thrown it on the ground, and rushing into the middle of the road, she
opened and shut it as fast as she could work her arms, and shouted as
loud as she could yell!

At that the horses slacked up a bit. The road is pretty narrow, and they
didn't seem to know how to get past the frightful-looking creature that
was blocking their way of a sudden, with a big green thing
flippety-flopping before her.

Anyhow, they went slower and slower, till they got to the beginning of
our fenc