rtemas off,
and much as ever I made him hear; and he wasn't the right man after all,
for he wouldn't give more than a cent and a half a pound for the papers,
and Mrs. Carruthers got two cents. She could not remember what was his
day for coming, but agreed to send him if she should see him again.

* * * * *

Mrs. Carruthers sent the rag-man to-day; but I can't say much for the
bargain, though he was a different man from the one that came Monday,
and it seems it was Monday. He agreed to give me the same he gave Mrs.
Carruthers,--two cents a pound. And I had a lot of newspapers,--all the
papers Artemas has been taking through the winter; for he doesn't like
me to take them for kindlings, says he would rather pay separate for
kindlings, as I might burn the wrong one. And there were the papers that
came around his underclothes and inside the packing boxes he has taken
away. So I expected to make something; but he gave me no more than
forty-five cents! He weighed them, and said himself there were thirty
pounds. That ought to have come to sixty cents at least, according
to my arithmetic. But he made out it was all right, and had them all
packed up, and went off, though I followed him out to the gate and told
him that it didn't amount to no more than I might have got from the
other man at a cent and a half. He said it was all they were worth; that
he wished he could get as much for them. Then I asked him why he took
the trouble to come for them, under the circumstances. But by that time
he was off and down the street.

* * * * *

I was just sitting at the window this morning, and there were Mr. and
Mrs. Peebles walking down the street,--he on one side and she on the
other. I do wonder why they didn't go on the same side! If they hadn't
got so far past the gate, I'd have asked them. I never heard there was
any quarrel between them, and it was just as muddy this side of the
street as that. They have been spending their winters in the city
lately, and perhaps it's some new fashion.

I declare it's worth while to sit at the window now and then, and see
what is going on. I'm usually so busy at the back of the house, I don't
know. But now Lavinia has taken to going to school with the boys, and
they are willing to take care of her, half my work seems taken out of my
hands. Not that she was much in the way for a girl of four, but she
might slip out of the gate at any ti