ss
and put on a black calico, but it wasn't any more cheerful. She didn't
know what to do, and you could see plainly that no one knew what to do
with her, so they united in sending me to show her the place. I asked
her what she would like most to see, and she said everything was so
charming she couldn't decide. I thought if she had no more choice than
that, one place would do as well as another, so I started for the
orchard. Quick as we got there, I knew what to do. I led her straight
to our best cling peach tree, told her to climb on the fence so she
could reach easily, and eat all she chose. We didn't dare shake the
tree, because the pigs ran on the other side of the fence, and they
chanked up every peach that fell there. Those peaches were too good to
feed even father's finest Berkshires.

By the time Miss Amelia had eaten nine or ten, she was so happy to
think she was there, she quit tilting her head and using big words. Of
course she couldn't know how I loved to hear them, and maybe she
thought I wouldn't know what they meant, and that they would be wasted
on me. If she had understood how much spelling and defining I'd heard
in my life, I guess she might have talked up as big as she could, and
still I'd have got most of it. When she reached the place where she
ate more slowly, she began to talk. She must have asked me most a
hundred questions. What all our names were, how old we were, if our
girls had lots of beaus, and if there were many men in the
neighbourhood, and dozens of things my mother never asked any one. She
always inquired if people were well, if their crops were growing, how
much fruit they had, and how near their quilts were finished.

I told her all about Sally and the wedding, because no one cared who
knew it, after I had been pounded to mince-meat for telling. She asked
if Shelley had any beaus, and I said there wasn't any one who came like
Peter, but every man in the neighbourhood wanted to be her beau. Then
she asked about Laddie, and I was taking no risks, so I said: "I only
see him at home. I don't know where he goes when he's away. You'll
have to ask him."

"Oh, I never would dare," she said. "But he must. He is so handsome!
The girls would just compel him to go to see them."

"Not if he didn't want to go," I said.

"You must never, never tell him I said so, but I do think he is the
handsomest man I ever saw."

"So do I," I said, "and it wouldn't make any difference