.
"You would better," and the girl laughed, and nodded. "It was one day
when I was sweepin' the sittin' room--ye know, what Mercy Curtis had
for her bedroom while she was out here last Summer."

Ruth nodded again encouragingly, and the little old woman went on in her
usual rambling way:

"I was a-sweepin', as I say, and Jabez come by and put his head in at
the winder. 'That's too hard for ye, Alviry,' says he. 'Let the dust
be--it ain't eatin' nothin'.' Jest like a man, ye know!

"'Well,' says I, 'if I didn't sweep onc't in a while, Jabez, we'd
be wadin' to our boot-tops in dirt.' Like that, ye know, Ruthie. And he
says, 'They hev things nowadays for suckin' up the dirt, instead of
kickin' it up that-a-way,' and with that a voice says right in the
yard, 'You're right there, Mister. An' I got one of 'em here to
sell ye.'

"There was a young feller in the yard with a funny lookin' rig-a-ma-jig
in his hand, and his hat on the back of his head, and lookin' jest
as busy as a toad that's swallered a hornet. My! you wouldn't think
that feller had a minnit ter stay, the way he acted. Scurcely had time
to sell Jabez one of them 'Vac-o-jacs,' as he called 'em."

"A vacuum cleaner!" exclaimed Ruth.

"That's something like it. Only it was like a carpet-sweeper, too. I
seen pitchers of 'em in the back of a magazine onc't. I never b'lieved
they was for more'n ornament; but that spry young feller come in and
worked it for me, and he sucked up the dust out o' that ingrain carpet
till ye couldn't beat a particle out o' it with an ox-goad!

"But I didn't seem ter favor that Vac-o-jac none," continued Aunt
Alvirah. "Ye know how close-grained yer Uncle is. I don't expect him
ter buy no fancy fixin's for an ol' creetur like me. But at noon time
he come in and set one o' the machines in the corner."

"He bought it!" cried Ruth.

"That's what he done. He says, 'Alviry, ef it's any good to ye, there
it is! I calkerlate that's a smart young man. He got five dollars out
o' me easier than _I_ ever got five dollars out of a man in all my
days.'

"I tell ye truthful, Ruthie! I can't use it by myself. It works too
hard for anybody that's got my back and bones. But Ben, he comes in once
in a while and works it for me. I reckon your uncle sends him."

"But, Aunt Alviry!" cried Ruth. "What about the Tintacker Mine? You
haven't told me a thing about _that_."

"But I'm a-comin' to it," declared the old woman. "It's all of a
piece--that an