e Fleming or Dose
Roebuck, both of whom were among her samples of girls shown me. "An' dat
patent churn--dat bane for Christina, too, eh, Yake?"

"Christina who?" asked Grandma Thorndyke sharply.

"Christina Quale," said Magnus, "my cousin in Norvay."

This was nuts and apples for Grandma Thorndyke and the girls who came.
Magnus showed them Christina's picture, and told them that I had a copy
of it, and all about what a nice girl Christina was. Now grandma made a
serious thing of this and soon I had the reputation of being engaged to
Magnus's cousin, who was the daughter of a rich farmer, and could write
English; and even that I had received a letter from her. This seemed
unjust to me, though I was a little mite proud of it; for the letter was
only one page written in English in one of Magnus's. All the time
grandma was bringing girls with her to help, and making me work with
them when I helped. They were nice girls, too--Kittie, and Dose, Lizzie
Finster, and Zeruiah Strickler, and Amy Smith--all farmer girls. Grandma
was always talking about the wisdom of my marrying a farmer girl.

"The best thing about Christina," said she, "is that she is the daughter
of a farmer."

I struggled with this Christina idea, and tried to make it clear that
she was nothing to me, that it was just a joke. Grandma
Thorndyke smiled.

"Of course you'd say that," said she.

But the Christina myth grew wonderfully, and it made me more interesting
to the other girls.

"You look too high
For things close by,
And slight the things around you!"

So sang Zeruiah Strickler as she scrubbed my kitchen, and in pauses of
her cheerful and encouraging song told of the helplessness of men
without their women. I really believed her, in spite of my success in
getting along by myself.

"Why don't you bring Virginia out some day?" I asked on one of these
occasions, when it seemed to me that Grandma Thorndyke was making
herself just a little too frequent a visitor at my place.

"Miss Royall," said she, as if she had been speaking of the Queen of
Sheba, "is busy with her own circle of friends. She is now visiting at
Governor Wade's. She is almost a member of the family there. And her law
matters take up a good deal of her time, too. Mr. Gowdy says he thinks
he may be able to get her property for her soon. She can hardly be
expected to come out for this."

And grandma swept her hands about to cast down into nothingness my
house, my