around."

"She's done a big day's work already," Pearl said, quickly. "She
worked all her life raisin' us, and now she's goin' to take a rest
once in a while: and watch us rustle."

"Well, upon my word, you can talk some, can't you?" Mrs. Perkins
said, not altogether admiringly. Aunt Kate gallantly interposed on
Pearl's behalf by telling what a fine help the was to her mother, and
soon the conversation drifted into an amiable discussion of whether
or not peas should be soaked before they are planted.

Then Pearl and Mary went into the house and prepared the best meal
that the family supply of provisions permitted. They boiled eggs
hard, and spiced them the way Pearl had seen Camilla do. Pearl sliced
up some of Aunt Kate's home-made bread as thin as she could, and
buttered it; she brought out, from the packing box that they were
still in, one of the few jars of peaches, and then made the tea. She
and Mary covered the table with a clean white flour-sack; they filled
a glass jar with ferns and anemones for a centre-piece and set the
table as daintily as they could, even putting a flower beside each
pate.

"Land alive!" Mrs. Perkins exclaimed, when they carried the table out
under the trees, where she sat with Aunt Kate and Mrs. Watson. "I
haven't et outside since we used to have the picnics in Millford in
old Major Rogers's time. I mind the last one we had. I seen old Mrs.
Gilbert just fillin' the stuff into her basket, and I do believe she
tuk more home than she brought, though I ain't the one to say it,
because I do not like to talk against a neighbour, though there are
some as say it right out, and don't even put a tooth on it."

"Don't you go to the Pioneers picnics, now?" Pearl asked, as she
poured the tea.

"No; I haven't gone since Mrs. Burrell came. I don't like her. She
isn't what I think a minister's wife ought to be, mind you; she said
an awful queer thing at our place the very first time she was there.
She was askin' me why we didn't get out to church, and I was tellin'
her about all the chores we had to do, milkin' and feedin' the stock,
and that, and she didn't say much, but when she got down to pray
before she left, she started off all right, and I wasn't really
noticin' what she was sayin' until I hears her say: 'Lord, take away
the cows and the pigs and the hens from these people, if it is the
pigs and the cows and hens that's keepin' them from attendin' church,
for it is better for them to do with