I hain't got a cent o' money; she paid
eout the last for sugar abeout a week ago.' Poor Jim always speaks as if
his nose had been pinched together when he was a baby, and had never
come apart since; but when I turned around he looked so sorrowful, my
heart ached for him.

'What ails your mother, Jim?' said I.

'She's got some kind o' fever, and her head aches awful; she wants to
drink all the time, but she won't eat nothin'. I fried a slice of pork
real good for her, but she didn't eat a mite!'

'Well, Jim,' said I, 'go up to our house, and tell Miss Calanthy about
your mother, and I guess she'll buy a basket; we want a new
clothes-basket, come to think.'

I walked on, but somehow I did not feel so much like buying ribbons as
before I met Jim. I couldn't help thinking of poor Mrs. Burt, without
any comforts for sickness, and no one to take care of her but this
half-witted son; however, I comforted myself by supposing the neighbors
would not let her suffer, and that Calanthy would likely give Jim
something good to take to her.

When I got to the store, who should be there but Abby Matilda Stevens
and Rhody Mills! Abby is generally thought _a beauty_, because she has
great black eyes that are always so bright and shiny I wonder the hens
don't try and peck at them; then she is tall and slim waisted, and her
hair is as black as a coal, and longer than common; but I never liked
such dreadful _sparkly_ eyes, do you? I think the kind that have a sort
o' hazy look come into them--like the pond when a little summer cloud
passes over the sun--are a great deal handsomer. However, I never dared
to say so, for fear people might think I was jealous of Abby Matilda.

Rhody Mills is a very good-natured girl, and always ready for a frolic,
and the moment she saw me she said, 'Here comes Dimpey Swift now;'--they
had been talking about me, I guess;--'oh, Dimpey, are you going to the
picnic on Spring Mountain?'

'Our boys were talking about it at noon,' said I; 'I suppose some of us
will go--Polly Jane or I; I don't much think Calanthy will.'

'I wish we could go on horseback,' said Rhody; 'that would be real fun;
but our Will says we must have a wagon to carry the baskets, so we had
better all drive.'

'Who are you going with, Dimpey?' said Abby Matilda.

I knew well enough _who_ would be likely to ask me, but as I had no
invitation yet, I answered, 'Oh, Joe or Biel, I suppose; father won't
trust me with anyone else!'

'Well