t more than the half of it full. Susan Ellen took up
the cover off the pail, and I walked off into the bedroom, for I thought
I should laugh, certain. Mother put in a big spoonful, and another, and
I heard 'em drop, and she went on with one or two more, and then she
give up. 'I'd give you the jar and welcome,' she says, 'but I ain't very
well off for preserves, and I was kind of counting on this for tea in
case my brother's folks are over.' Susan Ellen thanked her, and said
Joseph would be obliged, and back she went acrost the pasture. I can see
that big tin pail now a-shining in the sun.

"The old man was alive then, and he took a great spite against poor
Susan Ellen, though he never would if he hadn't been set on by John; and
whether he was mad because Joseph had stepped in to so much good money
or what, I don't know,--but he twitted him about her, and at last he and
the old man between 'em was too much to bear, and Joe fitted up a couple
o' rooms for himself in a building he'd put up for a kind of work-shop.
He used to carpenter by spells, and he clapboarded it and made it as
comfortable as he could, and he ordered John out of it for good and all;
but he and Susan Ellen both treated the old sir the best they knew how,
and Joseph kept right on with his farm work same as ever, and meant to
lay up a little more money to join with his wife's, and push off as soon
as he could for the sake of peace, though if there was anybody set by
the farm it was Joseph. He was to blame for some things,--I never saw an
Ashby that wasn't,--and I dare say he was aggravating. They were
clearing a piece of woodland that winter, and the old man was laid up in
the house with the rheumatism, off and on, and that made him fractious,
and he and John connived together, till one day Joseph and Susan Ellen
had taken the sleigh and gone to Freeport Four Corners to get some flour
and one thing and another, and to have the horse shod beside, so they
was likely to be gone two or three hours. John Jacobs was going by with
his oxen, and John Ashby and the old man hailed him, and said they'd
give him a dollar if he'd help 'em, and they hitched the two yoke, his
and their'n, to Joseph's house. There wa'n't any foundation to speak of,
the sills set right on the ground, and he'd banked it up with a few old
boards and some pine spills and sand and stuff, just to keep the cold
out. There wa'n't but a little snow, and the roads was smooth and icy,
and they slipp