Volume I Part 80 (2/2)
”Oh, never mind the cows,” said Barby, ”they aint suffering ?
I wish we was as well off as they be; but I guess, when he went away, he made a hole in our pockets for to mend his'n. I don't say he hadn't ought to ha' done it, but we've been pretty short ever sen, Fleda ? we're in the last bushel of flour, and there aint but a handful of corn meal, and mighty little sugar, white or brown. I did say something to Mis'
Rossitur, but all the good it did was to spoil her appet.i.te, I s'pose; and if there's grain in the floor, there aint n.o.body to carry it to mill ? nor to thrash it ? nor a team to draw it, fur's I know.”
”Hugh cannot cut wood,” said Fleda, ”nor drive to mill either, in this weather.”
”I could go to mill,” said Barby, ”now you're to hum; but that's only the beginning, and it's no use to try to do everything ? flesh and blood must stop somewhere.”
”No, indeed!” said Fleda. ”We must have somebody immediately.”
”That's what I had fixed upon,” said Barby. ”If you could get hold o' some young feller that wa'n't sot up with an idee that he was a grown man and too big to be told, I'd just clap to and fix that little room up-stairs for him, and give him his victuals here, and we'd have some good of him; instead o'
having him streaking off just at the minute when he'd ought to be along.”
”Who is there we could get, Barby?”
”I don't know,” said Barby; ”but they say there is never a nick that there aint a jog some place; so I guess it can be made out. I asked Mis' Plumfield, but she didn't know anybody that was out of work; nor Seth Plumfield. I'll tell you who does ? that is, if there is anybody ? Mis' Dougla.s.s. She keeps hold. of one end of most everybody's affairs, I tell her.
Anyhow, she's a good hand to go to.”
”I'll go there at once,” said Fleda. ”Do you know anything about making maple sugar, Barby?”
”That's the very thing,” exclaimed Barby, ecstatically.
”There's lots o' sugar-maples on the farm, and it's murder to let them go to loss; and they ha'n't done us a speck o' good ever since I come here. And in your grandfather's time, they used to make barrels and barrels. You and me and Hugh, and somebody else we'll have, we could clap to and make as much sugar and mola.s.ses in a week as would last us till spring come round again. There's no sense into it All we'd want would be to borrow a team some place. I had all that in my head long ago. If we could see the last of that man, Didenhover, oncet, I'd take hold of the plough myself, and see if I couldn't make a living out of it. I don't believe the world would go now, Fleda, if it wa'n't for women. I never see three men, yet, that didn't try me more than they were worth.”
”Patience, Barby!” said Fleda, smiling. ”Let us take things quietly.”
”Well, I declare, I'm beat, to see how you take 'em,” said Barby, looking at her lovingly.
”Don't you know why, Barby?”
”I s'pose I do,” said Barby, her face softening still more ?
”or I can guess.”
”Because I know that all these troublesome things will be managed in the best way, and by my best Friend, and I know that He will let none of them hurt me. I am sure of it ? isn't that enough to keep me quiet?”
Fleda's eyes were filling, and Barby looked away from them.
”Well, it beats me,” she said, taking up her dish-cloth again, ”why you should have anything to trouble you. I can understand wicked folks being plagued, but I can't see the sense of the good ones.”
”Troubles are to make good people better, Barby.”
”Well,” said Barby, with a very odd mixture of real feeling and seeming want of it, ”it's a wonder I never got religion, for I will say that all the decent people I ever see were of that kind, ? Mis' Rossitur aint, though, is she?”
”No,” said Fleda, a pang crossing her at the thought that all her aunt's loveliness must tell directly and heavily in this case to lighten religion's testimony. It was that thought, and no other, which saddened her brow as she went back into the other room.
”Troubles already!” said Mrs. Rossitur. ”You will be sorry you have come back to them, dear.”
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