full wood-box,
and the supper laid out under the screen cloth on the kitchen table, and
he come up to me at the sink, and says he, 'Diademy, you 're the best
wife in this county, and the brightest jewel in my crown,--that 's what
_you_ are!' (He got that idea out of a duet he sings with Almiry Berry.)
Now I'd like to know whether that ain't pleasanter than 't is to have a
man do all the shed 'n' barn work up smart, and then set round the stove
looking as doleful as a last year's bird's nest? Take my advice, Miss
Hollis: get a good provider if you can, but anyhow try to find you a
husband that'll keep on courting a little now and then, when he ain't
too busy; it smooths things consid'able round the house.

"There, I got so int'rested in what I was saying, I've went on and
finished the carnation, and some of the stem, too. Now what comes next?
Why, the thing that happened next, of course, and that was little Jot.

"I'll work in a bud on my rose and one on Lovey's, and my bud'll be made
of Jot's first trousers. The goods ain't very appropriate for a rosebud,
but it'll have to do, for the idee is the most important thing in this
rug. When I put him into pants, I hadn't any cloth in the house, and it
was such bad going Jot couldn't get to Wareham to buy me anything; so I
made 'em out of an old gray cashmere skirt, and lined 'em with flannel."

"Buds are generally the same color as the roses, aren't they?" ventured
Priscilla.

"I don't care if they be," said Diadema obstinately. "What's to hender
this bud's bein' grafted on? Mrs. Granger was as black as an Injun, but
the little Granger children were all red-headed, for they took after
their father. But I don't know; you've kind o' got me out o' conceit
with it. I s'pose I could have taken a piece of his baby blanket; but
the moths never et a mite o' that, and it's too good to cut up. There's
one thing I can do: I can make the bud up with a long stem, and have it
growing right up alongside of mine,--would you?"

"No, it must be stalk of your stalk, bone of your bone, flesh of your
flesh, so to speak. I agree with you, the idea is the first thing.
Besides, the gray is a very light shade, and I dare say it will look
like a bluish white."

"I'll try it and see, but I wish to the land the moths _had_ eat
the pinning-blanket, and then I could have used it. Lovey worked the
scallops on the aidge for me. My grief! what int'rest she took in my
baby clothes! Little Jot was born a