ny rate, I threw open the window and blew out
the light, as mad as a hornet.

"Nancy," said I, "this room would strangle a dog, and you might have
known it, if you'd had two eyes to see what you were about. There, now!
I've tipped the lamp over, and you just get a cloth and wipe up the
oil."

"Dear me!" said she, lighting a candle, and she spoke up very soft, too.
"Please, Aaron, don't let the cold in on baby. I'm sorry it was smoking,
but I never knew a thing about it; he's been fretting and taking on so
the last hour, I didn't notice anyway."

"That's just what you ought to have done," says I, madder than ever.
"You know how I hate the stuff, and you ought to have cared more about
me than to choke me up with it this way the last night before going in."

Nancy was a patient, gentle-spoken sort of woman, and would bear a good
deal from a fellow; but she used to fire up sometimes, and that was more
than she could stand. "You don't deserve to be cared about, for speaking
like that!" says she, with her cheeks as red as peat-coals.

That was right before the children. Mary Ann's eyes were as big as
saucers, and little Nancy was crying at the top of her lungs, with the
baby tuning in, so we knew it was time to stop. But stopping wasn't
ending; and folks can look things that they don't say.

We sat down to supper as glum as pump-handles, there were some
fritters--I never knew anybody beat your mother at fritters--smoking hot
off the stove, and some maple molasses in one of the best chiny
tea-cups; I knew well enough it was just on purpose for my last night,
but I never had a word to say, and Nancy crumbed up the children's
bread with a jerk. Her cheeks didn't grow any whiter; it seemed as if
they would blaze right up,--I couldn't help looking at them, for all I
pretended not to, for she looked just like a picture. Some women always
are pretty when they are put out,--and then again, some ain't; it
appears to me there's a great difference in women, very much as there is
in hens; now, there was your aunt Deborah,--but there, I won't get on
that track now, only so far as to say that when she was flustered up she
used to go red all over, something like a piny, which didn't seem to
have just the same effect.

That supper was a very dreary sort of supper, with the baby crying, and
Nancy getting up between the mouthfuls to walk up and down the room with
him; he was a heavy little chap for a ten-month-old, and I think she
must