to the kitchen where Susanna was seeding
raisins--more raisins than the girl had ever seen together, save at a
grocer's counter. "What are you doing it for?"

"Fruit-cake. For Thanksgivin' an' Christmas. I ought to of done it long
ago, but the weather kep' so warm, an' one thing another's hendered. I'm
all behind with everything this fall, seems if. I've got to make my soft
soap yet, and--Laws, child, what do you lug that humbly dog all round
with you for? A beast as ugly favored as he is ought to do his own
walkin', and would, if he belonged to me."

"That's just why, I suppose. Because he 'belongs.' And because he isn't
old. Not so very. He isn't gray, anyway."

The Widow Sprigg looked over her spectacles and saw such a dejected face
that she immediately suggested caraway cookies. A delicacy which had
used to bring smiles to "Johnny's" countenance, even after he had
suffered that worst of all boyish trials,--a "lickin',"--and if there
was anything in heredity should restore cheer to the heart of "Johnny's"
daughter.

"No, thank you. But I'd like to help. I shall--shall burst if I don't do
something mighty soon," said Kate, excitedly. "I am hungry, but it's for
folks, not cookies. And why do you make cake for Christmas now when it's
forever and ever before it will come?"

"'Tain't so much for Christmas. Marsden folks don't set no great store
by any other holiday than Thanksgivin'. Another why is that fruit-cake
ain't fit to put in a body's mouth afore it's six seven months old at
the least. This here won't be worth shucks, but Eunice says better late
'n never, an' if it ain't ripe then t'will be for Easter. We never used
to hear tell of Easter, here in Marsden, till late years. Though Madam,
she always kep' it. She's met with a change of heart, however, sence she
became a Sturtevant, an' I'd ruther you wouldn't mention it, as comin'
from me, but--" here Susanna leaned forward and whispered,
sibilantly--"they say she used to be a Catholic when she was a girl!
Nobody lays it up ag'in her, an' folks pertend they've forgot it; and if
there is a good Christian goin', I 'low it's Madam Elinor Sturtevant.
Your Aunt Eunice--though she ain't your real aunt at all, only third
cousin once removed--she was promised to Schuyler Sturtevant, Madam's
husband's brother, but he was killed out on a fox-hunt, an' she ain't
never married nobody sence. That's one why she an' Madam are such good
friends, most like sisters; as they would