e, 'Wasting good money,' as your grandmamma said. Your poor
papa was a very easy gentleman. He wanted to please his wife, and he
wanted to please his mother. Deary me! I remember his coming to me in
this very pantry--I don't know if it would be more than three months
afore they were both taken--and, standing there, as it might be you,
Miss Grace, and saying--'Jael,' he says, 'this window looks out on the
yard,' he says; 'do you ever smell anything, Jael? You are here a good
deal.' 'Master John,' I says, 'I thank my Maker, my nose never
troubles me; but if it did,' I says, 'I hope I know better than to set
_my_self up to smell more than my neighbours.'--'To be sure, to be
sure,' he says, looking round in a foolish kind of a way at the sink.
Then he says, 'Jael, do you ever taste anything in the water? My wife
thinks there's something wrong with the well.' 'Master John,' I says,
'with all respect to your good lady, she disturbs her mind a deal too
much with books. An ounce of ex-perience, I says, is worth a pound of
book learning; and I'll tell you what my father said to them parties
that goes round stirring up stinks, when they were for meddling with
his farm-yard. "Let wells alone," he says, "and muck-heaps likewise."
And my father passed three-score years and ten, Master John, and died
where he was born.' Well-a-day! I see your poor Pa now. He stood and
looked as puzzled as a bee in a bottle. Then he says--'Well, Jael, my
wife says Sunflowers are good against fevers; and there's no harm in
sowing some.' Which he did that very afternoon, she standing by him,
with her hand on his shoulder; but, bless ye, my dear! they were took
long before the seeds was up. Your mother was a pretty woman, I'll say
that for her. You'd never have thought it, to look at her, that she
was so fond of poking in dirty places."

"Jael!" I said, "Mamma was right about the smells in the back-yard.
Margery and I hold our noses"--"you'd a deal better hold your
tongues," interrupted Jael.

"We do, Jael, we do, because I don't like mustard-plasters on my
throat, and when the back-yard smells a good deal, my throat is always
sore. But oh, Jael! If Sunflowers are good for smells, don't you think
we might tell Grandmamma, and she would let us have them for that?"

"She'll not, Miss Grace," said Jael, "so don't worry on. They're
ragged things at the best, and all they're good for is to fatten
fowls; and I shall tell Gardener he may cut their heads off a