but 't was the best I could do when
the child'n needed something every handturn o' the day. It put me to
some expense every year, tinkering of it up where the poor lumber
warped and split. There, I enjoyed try'n to cope with things and
gettin' the better of my disadvantages! The ground's too rich for me
over there to Tobias's; I don't want things too easy, for my part. I
feel most as young as ever I did, and I ain't agoin' to play helpless,
not for nobody.

"I declare for 't, I mean to come up here by an' by a spell an' stop
with the young folks, an' give 'em a good lift with their work. I
ain't needed all the time to Tobias' s now, and they can hire help,
while these can't. I've been favoring myself till I'm as soft as an
old hoss that's right out of pasture an' can't pull two wheels without
wheezin'."

There was a sense of companionship in the very weather. The bees were
abroad as if it were summer, and a flock of little birds came
fluttering down close to Mrs. Bascom as she sat on the doorstep. She
remembered the biscuits in her pocket and ate them with a hunger she
had seldom known of late, but she threw the crumbs generously to her
feathered neighbors. The soft air, the brilliant or fading colors of
the wide landscape, the comfortable feeling of relationship to her
surroundings all served to put good old Mercy into a most peaceful
state. There was only one thought that would not let her be quite
happy. She could not get her sister-in-law Ruth Parlet out of her
mind. And strangely enough the old grudge did not present itself with
the usual power of aggravation; it was of their early friendship and
Ruth's good fellowship that memories would come.

"I declare for 't, I wouldn't own up to the folks, but I should like
to have a good visit with Ruth if so be that we could set aside the
past," she said, resolutely at last. "I never thought I should come to
it, but if she offered to make peace I wouldn't do nothin' to hinder
it. Not to say but what I should have to free my mind on one or two
points before we could start fair. I've waited forty year to make one
remark to Ruthy Parlet. But there! we're gettin' to be old folks."
Mercy rebuked herself gravely. "I don't want to go off with hard
feelins' to nobody." Whether this was the culmination of a long, slow
process of reconciliation, or whether Mrs. Bascom's placid
satisfaction helped to hasten it by many stages, nobody could say. As
she sat there she thought of many