he
most. I should 'a' said Betsey was a good deal the most set in her
ways an' would 'a' been most tore up, but 't wa'n't so."

"Lucky that Holt's folks sets on the other aisle in the meetin'-house,
I do consider, so 't they needn't face each other sure as Sabbath
comes round."

"I see Hannah an' him come face to face two Sabbaths afore Enoch left.
So happened he dallied to have a word 'long o' Deacon Good'in, an' him
an' Hannah stepped front of each other 'fore they knowed what they's
about. I sh'd thought her eyes 'd looked right through him. No one of
'em took the word; Enoch he slinked off pretty quick."

"I see 'em too," said Mrs. Forder; "made my blood run cold."

"Nothin' ain't come of the curse yit,"--Mrs. Downs lowered the tone of
her voice,--"least, folks says so. It kind o' worries pore Phoebe
Holt--Mis' Dow, I would say. She was narved all up at the time o' the
trial, an' when her next baby come into the world, first thin' she
made out t' ask me was whether it seemed likely, an' she gived me a
pleadin' look as if I'd got to tell her what she hadn't heart to ask.
'Yes, dear,' says I, 'put up his little hands to me kind of wonted';
an' she turned a look on me like another creatur', so pleased an'
contented."

"I s'pose you don't see no great of the Knowles gals?" inquired
Mrs. Forder, who lived two miles away in the other direction.

"They stepped to the door yisterday when I was passin' by, an' I went
in an' set a spell long of 'em," replied the hostess. "They'd got
pestered with that ol' loom o' theirn. 'Fore I thought, says I, ''T is
all worn out, Betsey,' says I. 'Why on airth don't ye git somebody to
git some o' your own wood an' season it well so 't won't warp, same's
mine done, an' build ye a new one?' But Betsey muttered an' twitched
away; 't wa'n't like her, but they're dis'p'inted at every turn, I
s'pose, an' feel poor where they've got the same's ever to do with.
Hannah's a-coughin' this spring's if somethin' ailed her. I asked her
if she had bad feelin's in her pipes, an' she said yis, she had, but
not to speak of 't before Betsey. I'm goin' to fix her up some
hoarhound an' elecampane quick's the ground's nice an' warm an' roots
livens up a grain more. They're limp an' wizened 'long to the fust of
the spring. Them would be service'ble, simmered away to a syrup 'long
o' molasses; now don't you think so, Mis' Forder?"

"Excellent," replied the wheezing dame. "I covet a portion myself, now
yo