churnin's. You've hearn tell o' that piece she carried to the
Centennial? Now, no sech doin's 's that ever come into my head. I've
went on makin' round balls for twenty years: 'n', massy on us, don't I
remember when my old butter stamp cracked, 'n' I couldn't get another
with an ear o' corn on it, 'n' hed to take one with a beehive, why, I
was that homesick I couldn't bear to look my butter 'n the eye! But that
woman would have had a new picter on her balls every day, I shouldn't
wonder! (For massy's sake, Maria, don't stan' stock still 'n' let the
flies eat yer right up!) No, I tell yer, it takes all kinds o' folks to
make a world. Now, I couldn't never read poetry. It's so dull, it makes
me feel 's if I'd been trottin' all day in the sun! But there's folks
that can stan' it, or they wouldn't keep on turnin' of it out. The
children are nice children enough, but have they got any folks anywhere,
'n' what kind of folks, 'n' where'd they come from, anyhow: that's what
we've got to find out, 'n' I guess it'll be consid'able of a chore!"

"I don't know but you're right. I thought some of sendin' Jabe to the
city to-morrow."

"Jabe? Well, I s'pose he'd be back by 'nother spring; but who'd we get
ter shovel us out this winter, seein' as there ain't more 'n three men
in the whole village? Aunt Hitty says twenty-year engagements 's goin'
out o' fashion in the big cities, 'n' I'm glad if they be. They'd 'a'
never come _in_, I told her, if there'd ever been an extry man in these
parts, but there never was. If you got holt o' one by good luck, you had
ter _keep_ holt, if 't was two years or twenty-two, or go without. I
used ter be too proud ter go without; now I've got more sense, thanks
be! Why don't you go to the city yourself, Vildy? Jabe Slocum ain't got
sprawl enough to find out anythin' wuth knowin'."

"I suppose I could go, though I don't like the prospect of it very
much. I haven't been there for years, but I'd ought to look after my
property there once in a while. Deary me! it seems as if we weren't ever
going to have any more peace."

"Mebbe we ain't," said Samantha, as they wound up the meeting-house
hill; "but ain't we hed 'bout enough peace for one spell? If peace was
the best thing we could get in this world, we might as well be them old
cows by the side o' the road there. There ain't nothin' so peaceful as a
cow, when you come to that!"

The two women went into the church more perplexed in mind than they
would