e. There
were the usual last things to be done for breakfast, offices that
belonged to her as her grandmother's assistant. She took yesterday's
soda biscuits out of the steamer where they were warming and softening;
brought an apple pie and a plate of seed cakes from the pantry; settled
the coffee with a piece of dried fish skin and an egg shell; and
transferred some fried potatoes from the spider to a covered dish.

"Did you remember the meat, grandpa? We're all out," she said, as she
began buttoning a stiff collar around his reluctant neck.

"Remember? Land, yes! I wish't I ever could forgit anything! The butcher
says he's 'bout tired o' travelin' over the country lookin' for critters
to kill, but if he finds anything he'll be up along in the course of a
week. He ain't a real smart butcher, Cyse Higgins ain't.--Land, Rose,
don't button that dickey clean through my epperdummis! I have to sport
starched collars in this life on account o' you and your gran'mother
bein' so chock full o' style; but I hope to the Lord I shan't have to
wear 'em in another world!"

"You won't," his wife responded with the snap of a dish towel, "or if
you do, they'll wilt with the heat."

Rose smiled, but the soft hand with which she tied the neck-cloth about
the old man's withered neck pacified his spirit, and he smiled knowingly
back at her as she took her seat at the breakfast table spread near the
open kitchen door. She was a dazzling Rose, and, it is to be feared, a
wasted one, for there was no one present to observe her clean pink
calico and the still more subtle note struck in the green ribbon which
was tied round her throat,--the ribbon that formed a sort of calyx, out
of which sprang the flower of her face, as fresh and radiant as if it
had bloomed that morning.

"Give me my coffee turrible quick," said Mr. Wiley; "I must be down the
bridge 'fore they start dog-warpin' the side jam."

"I notice you're always due at the bridge on churnin' days," remarked
his spouse, testily.

"'Taint me as app'ints drivin' dates at Edgewood," replied the old man.
"The boys'll hev a turrible job this year. The logs air ricked up jest
like Rose's jackstraws; I never see'em so turrible ricked up in all my
exper'ence; an' Lije Dennett don' know no more 'bout pickin' a jam than
Cooper's cow. Turrible sot in his ways, too; can't take a mite of
advice. I was tellin' him how to go to work on that bung that's formed
between the gre't gray rock an' the s