ock, and thought he ought to
have his first say about everything that was going.

"I was talking about the Ashbys, wasn't I? I do' know's I ever told you
about the fight they had after their father died about the old house.
Joseph was married to a girl he met in camp-meeting time, who had a
little property--two or three hundred dollars--from an old great uncle
that she'd been keeping house for; and I don't know what other plans she
may have had for spending of her means, but she laid most of it out in a
husband; for Joseph never cared any great about her that I could see,
though he always treated her well enough. She was a poor ignorant sort
of thing, seven years older than he was; but she had a pleasant kind of
a face, and seemed like an overgrown girl of six or eight years old. I
remember just after they was married Joseph was taken down with a quinsy
sore throat,--being always subject to them,--and mother was over in the
forenoon, and she was one that was always giving right hand and left,
and she told Susan Ellen--that was his wife--to step over in the
afternoon and she would give her some blackberry preserve for him; she
had some that was nice and it was very healing. So along about half-past
one o'clock, just as we had got the kitchen cleared, and mother and I
had got out the big wheels to spin a few rolls,--we always liked to spin
together, and mother was always good company;--my brother Jonas--that
was the youngest of us--looked out of the window, and says he: 'Here
comes Joe Ashby's wife with a six-quart pail.'

"Mother she began to shake all over with a laugh she tried to swallow
down, but I didn't know what it was all about, and in come poor Susan
Ellen and lit on the edge of the first chair and set the pail down
beside of her. We tried to make her feel welcome, and spoke about
everything we could contrive, seein' as it was the first time she'd
been over; and she seemed grateful and did the best she could, and lost
her strangeness with mother right away, for mother was the best hand to
make folks feel to home with her that I ever come across. There ain't
many like her now, nor never was, I tell 'em. But there wa'n't nothing
said about the six-quart pail, and there it set on the floor, until
Susan Ellen said she must be going and mentioned that there was
something said about a remedy for Joseph's throat. 'Oh, yes,' says
mother, and she brought out the little stone jar she kept the preserve
in, and there wa'n'