dy
Brown after she drove her husband ou' doors, or of Bill Harmon's bull
terrier, who set an entire community quarreling among themselves. His
racy accounts of Mrs. Popham's pessimism, which had grown prodigiously
from living in the house with his optimism; his anecdotes of Lallie Joy
Popham, who was given to moods, having inherited portions of her
father's incurable hopefulness, and fragments of her mother's
ineradicable gloom,--these were of a character that made the finishing
of the hall a matter of profound unimportance.

"I ain't one to hurry," he would say genially; "that's the reason I
won't work by the hour or by the day. We've got one 'hurrier' in the
family, and that's enough for Lallie Joy 'n' me! Mis' Popham does
everything right on the dot, an' Lallie Joy 'n' me git turrible sick o'
seein' that dot, 'n' hevin' our 'tention drawed to it if we _don't_ see
it. Mis' Bill Harmon's another 'hurrier,'--well, you jest ask Bill,
that's all! She an' Mis' Popham hev been at it for fifteen years, but
the village ain't ready to give out the blue ribbon yet. Last week my
wife went over to Harmon's and Mis' Harmon said she was goin' to make
some molasses candy that mornin'. Well, my wife hurried home, put on her
molasses, made her candy, cooled it and worked it, and took some over to
treat Mis' Harmon, who was jest gittin' her kittle out from under
the sink!"

The Careys laughed heartily at this evidence of Mrs. Popham's celerity,
while Osh, as pleased as possible, gave one dab with his paste brush and
went on:--

"Maria's blood was up one while, 'cause Mis' Bill Harmon always
contrives to git her wash out the earliest of a Monday morning.
Yesterday Maria got up 'bout daybreak (I allers tell her if she was real
forehanded she'd eat her breakfast overnight), and by half past five she
hed her clothes in the boiler. Jest as she was lookin' out the kitchen
winder for signs o' Mis' Bill Harmon, she seen her start for her side
door with a big basket. Maria was so mad then that she vowed she
wouldn't be beat, so she dug for the bedroom and slat some clean sheets
and piller cases out of a bureau drawer, run into the yard, and I'm
blamed if she didn't get 'em over the line afore Mis' Harmon found her
clothespins!"

Good old Osh! He hadn't had such an audience for years, for Beulah knew
all its own stories thoroughly, and although it valued them highly it
did not care to hear them too often; but the Careys were absolutely
fre