brick oven from the side of the house; a tornado that carried off
the roof of the old stable, and landed it whole in an adjoining clover
field; and a visit from a family of beggars (an extraordinary phenomenon
in the country), nothing occurred among the Warners for a long
succession of years that had occasioned more than a month's talk of the
mother, and a month's listening of the children.

"They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."

The occupations of Israel and his father (assisted occasionally by a few
hired men) were, of course, those of the farm, except when Israel took a
day now and then to attend to his saw-mill. With regard to domestic
arrangements, everything connected with household affairs went on in the
same course year after year except that, as the daughters of the family
improved in capability of work, Chloe the black girl, retrograded. They
washed on Monday (with the assistance of a woman, hired for the day),
ironed on Tuesday, performed what they called "the little baking" on
Wednesday, and "the big baking" on Friday; cleaned the house on
Saturday, and clear-starched their book-muslin collars; rode on
horseback to Friends' meeting on Sunday morning, and visited their
neighbours on Sunday afternoon.

It was the day after the one on which Israel and his bride-elect had
passed meeting, and consequently, a month before the one fixed for the
wedding, that something like an adventure fell among the Warner family.

It was a beautiful evening at the close of August. The father and son
had been all day in the meadows, mowing the second crop of grass; Mrs
Warner was darning stockings in the porch, with her two daughters
knitting on the bench beside her; Amy being then fourteen, and Orphy
about twelve. Chloe was absent, having been borrowed by a relation,
about five miles off, to do the general work of the house, while the
family were engaged in preparing for a quilting frolic.

"Come, girls," said Mrs Warner to her daughter, "it's just sun-down.
The geese are coming home, and daddy and Israel will soon be here. Amy,
do thee go down to the spring-house, and bring up the milk and butter,
and Orphy, thee can set the table."

The two girls put up their knitting (not, however, till they had knit to
the middle of the needle), and in a short time, Amy was seen coming back
from the spring-house, with a large pitcher of milk and a plate of
butter. In the meantime, Orphy had drawn out the ponderous claw-f