ut for somebody. His
release from confinement at home had been the result of Aunt Eunice's
call, he having been permitted to walk home with her, and to spend the
day with Katharine. Alfaretta was recovered and able to do her own
dish-washing, and on the Monday the boy must return to school. So Madam
had made him array himself once more in his best attire and had duly
instructed him how young gentlemen of the Sturtevant race should conduct
themselves toward young ladies of the Maitland family.

Arrived at the stone mansion, Susanna had promptly sent the boy to the
woods to hunt up his playmate, if he desired her, and in any case to
remind Moses that he had gone off without killing the chicken for
dinner.

"You tell him to come right straight back here an' do it now, if he
wants a bite to eat. I ain't never wrung a fowl's neck nor chopped off
her head, nor Eunice hain't, nuther, an' we ain't a-goin' to begin at
our time o' life. Killin' poultry or pigs, ary one, is man's work an'
not woman's, an' so say to him 't if he wants his dinner he can come
kill it. He's gettin' so forgetful lately 't he can't remember nothin'
'cept fishin', an' though he took his axe along I 'low he'll do more
threshin' nut-trees for that young one than choppin'; an' you remember,
Montgomery Sturtevant, that you've got on your Sunday clothes; and no
matter if your rich city relations do give 'em to you without no trouble
to you nor your grandma, 'at you ought to take care of 'em and keep 'em
clean. Don't go climbin' trees with 'em on, but just pick up what's on
the ground an' you'll eat enough then, fat white worms an' all, to make
you sick. Katy, she can give you part her cookies, but don't you get
carryin' on with her little basket, 'cause it was her pa's, an' she's
goin' to set great store by it. Tell him it's half-past nine if it's a
minute, an' them old fowls what we're killin' off first is ruther tough.
I ought to have her in the pot right now, an' there she ain't caught
yet, runnin' 'round the hen-yard at loose ends, an' I'll try to catch
her an' that'll help, an--My suz! if that boy ain't half 'crost the
pastur' an' me not done talkin' to him. The sassy thing! If I'd had my
way makin' this world there wouldn't have been nobody in it 'cept girls,
an' them grown up and come to their gumption. But that hen--I'll try
catch her or she'll never be caught."

Which was very true; as also the fact that before the garrulous
housekeeper had more t