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e mare Jenny and the colt Paul, fed the pigs, washed his face and hands, and was ready for breakfast. It would not have been like Rachel Walden, the only daughter, eighteen years old, to lie in bed and let her mother do all the work about the house. She came from her chamber with tripping steps, as if it were a pleasure to be wide awake after a good sleep. She fed the chickens, set the table, raked the potatoes from the ashes, drew a mug of cider for her father. When breakfast was ready, they stood by their chairs while Mr. Walden asked a blessing. The meal finished, he read a chapter in the Bible and offered prayer. When the "Amen" was said, Mr. Walden and Robert put on their hats and went about their work. Mrs. Walden passed upstairs to throw the shuttle of the loom. Rachel washed the dishes, wheyed the curd, and prepared it for the press, turned the cheeses and rubbed them with fat. That done, she set the kitchen to rights, made the beds, sprinkled clean sand upon the floor, wet the web of linen bleaching on the grass in the orchard, then slipped upstairs and set the spinning-wheel to humming. His neighbors said that Mr. Walden was thrifty and could afford to wear a broadcloth blue coat with bright brass buttons on grand occasions, and that Mrs. Walden was warranted in having a satin gown. Haying was over. The rye was reaped, the wheat and oats were harvested, and the flax was pulled. September had come,--the time when Mr. Walden usually went to Boston with the cheese. "Father," said Rachel at dinner, "I wish you would take the cheeses to market. It is hard work to turn so many every day." Mr. Walden sat in silence awhile. "Robert," he said at length, "how would you like to try your hand at truck and dicker?" "If you think I can do it I will try," Robert replied, surprised at the question, yet gratified. "Of course you can do it. You can figure up how much a cheese that tips the steelyard at twenty pounds and three ounces will come to at three pence ha'penny per pound. You know, or you ought to know, the difference between a pistareen and a smooth-faced shilling. When you truck and dicker, you've got to remember that the other feller is doing it all the time, while you will be as green as a pumpkin in August. When you are tasting 'lasses, you must run a stick into the bung-hole of the barrel clear down to the bottom and then lift it up and see if it is thick or thin. T'other feller will want you to taste
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