ough the spellin'-book wunst, and had got as fur as 'asperity'
on it a second time. But she couldn't read a word when she was married,
and never could. She warn't overly smart. She hadn't hardly got the
sense the law allows. But schools was skase in them air days, and,
besides, book-larnin' don't do no good to a woman. Makes her stuck up. I
never knowed but one gal in my life as had ciphered into fractions, and
she was so dog-on stuck up that she turned up her nose one night at a
apple-peelin' bekase I tuck a sheet off the bed to splice out the
table-cloth, which was rather short. And the sheet was mos' clean too.
Had-n been slep on more'n wunst or twicet. But I was goin' fer to say
that when Squire Hawkins married Virginny Gray he got a heap o' money,
or, what's the same thing mostly, a heap o' good land. And that's
better'n book-larnin', says I. Ef a gal had gone clean through all
eddication, and got to the rule of three itself, that would-n buy a
feather-bed. Squire Hawkins jest put eddication agin the gal's farm, and
traded even, an' ef ary one of 'em got swindled, I never heerd no
complaints."

And here she looked at Ralph in triumph, her hard face splintering into
the hideous semblance of a smile. And Mirandy cast a blushing, gushing,
all-imploring, and all-confiding look on the young master.

"I say, ole woman," broke in old Jack, "I say, wot is all this 'ere
spoutin' about the Square fer?" and old Jack, having bit off an ounce of
"pigtail," returned the plug to his pocket.

As for Ralph, he fell into a sort of terror. He had a guilty feeling
that this speech of the old lady's had somehow committed him beyond
recall to Mirandy. He did not see visions of breach-of-promise suits.
But he trembled at the thought of an avenging big brother.

"Hanner, you kin come along, too, ef you're a mind, when you git the
dishes washed," said Mrs. Means to the bound girl, as she shut and
latched the back door. The Means family had built a new house in front
of the old one, as a sort of advertisement of bettered circumstances, an
eruption of shoddy feeling; but when the new building was completed,
they found themselves unable to occupy it for anything else than a
lumber room, and so, except a parlor which Mirandy had made an effort to
furnish a little (in hope of the blissful time when somebody should "set
up" with her of evenings), the new building was almost unoccupied, and
the family went in and out through the back door, whi