t. She had met Janie Clifton at the Pour
Corners, and had stopped for a chat with her, had waylaid Molly Wilson in
the middle of the road, in order to inquire for her mother and baby
sister, had stopped for a moment at Mrs. Jenks' door just to ask if she
had heard the wonderful news about Dot Marvin's old uncle Jehiel, had
paused to look over the wall at the new Jersey cow which old Mr. Simpkins
had recently purchased, and to casually inquire if Timotheus was intending
to again be a pupil at the deestrict school, bein's he'd growed so durin'
the summer'n seemed more like a man than a boy, and had asked little
Johnny Buffum what on airth his sister Hitty had her head tied up in hot
weather for, when beet juice dropped in her ear would cure her earache in
two minutes, and had been informed that,

"Hitty hadn't got no earache, 'twas a bee sting on her cheek;" all this
and much more had filled Mrs. Hodgkins' mind so completely that she was
amazed to find that eleven o'clock had arrived, and that she must turn
about and hasten home if she wished to have dinner ready when the kitchen
clock struck twelve.

"I'll git something on the table when Joel gits in from the field, though
land knows what it'll be with only an hour ter git it in," she muttered
between short, puffing breaths, for Mrs. Hodgkins was stout, and she had
already taken a long walk.

The dinner was indeed an odd one, made up from what were termed by Mrs.
Hodgkins "odds and ends," but Joel Hodgkins was a patient man, and his
appetite was one which never needed tempting, so he partook of the viands
which his wife offered him with an apparent relish, and was soon at work
again in the field.

Then Mrs. Hodgkins donned a fresh apron preparatory to going out,
remarking as she tied her sunbonnet strings with a twitch,

"I reely must go over to Almiry's, it's only a step er two, and what's the
use of havin' a niece in the neighborhood ef not ter tell news ter, an'
what's the use er hearin' news an' keepin' it ter yourself?

"I'll git home in time ter bake a batch er gingerbread fer tea," she
continued, "Joel's paowerful fond er gingerbread an' it'll sort er pay
him fer eatin' such a dinner with such endurin' patience."

Almira Meeks lay back in the big old fashioned rocker, too tired, she
declared, to care "whether school kept or not."

Meek in name and in nature, there was not a day that she did not overwork,
and when the forenoon's tasks were completed, she wo