nswer? I'm gittin' that hard o' hearin' 'tis hard for me to make out."

"Yes, they hollered back," said the other. "An' I see 'em comin' through
the pasture yonder. I guess they got their pails full by the way they
carry 'em."

"That's good," said Mrs. Pritchard with satisfaction. "They can get
twenty-five cents a quart hulled, off'n summer folks. They're savin' up to
help Joel go to Middletown College in the fall."

"They think a lot o' Joel, don't they?" commented the other.

"Oh, the Pritchards has always been a family that knew how to set store by
their own folks," said the old woman proudly, "and Joel he'll pay 'em back
as soon as he gets ahead a little."

The children had evidently now come up, for Virginia heard congratulations
over the berries and exclamations over their sun-flushed cheeks. "Why,
Susie, you look like a pickled beet in your face. Set down, child, an'
cool off. Grandma called you an' Eddie down to tell you an old-timey
story."

There was an outbreak of delighted cries from the children and Mrs.
Pritchard said deprecatingly, "You know, Abby, there never was children
yet that wasn't crazy 'bout old-timey stories. I remember how I used to
hang onto Aunt Debby's skirts and beg her to tell me some more.

"The story I'm goin' to tell you is about this Great-aunt Debby," she
announced formally to her auditors, "when she was 'bout fourteen years old
and lived up here in this very house, pretty soon after th' Rev'lution.
There was only just a field or two cleared off 'round it then, and all
over th' mounting the woods were as black as any cellar with pines and
spruce. Great-aunt Debby was the oldest one of five children and my
grandfather--your great-great-grandfather--was the youngest. In them days
there wa'n't but a few families in the valley and they lived far apart, so
when Great-aunt Debby's father got awful sick a few days after he'd been
away to get some grist ground, Aunt Debby's mother had to send her 'bout
six miles through th' woods to the nearest house--it stood where the old
Perkins barn is now. The man come back with Debby, but as soon as he saw
great-grandfather he give one yell--'smallpox!'--and lit out for home.
Folks was tur'ble afraid of it then an' he had seven children of his own
an' nobody for 'em to look to if he died, so you couldn't blame him none.
They was all like that then, every fam'ly just barely holdin' on, an'
scratchin' for dear life.

"Well, he spread the news, and