y divide, even the hair of her head, with Sarah Hood. And
father said, "Yes, he guessed she would, and come to think of it, he'd
just as soon spare Sarah part of his," and then they both laughed, when
it was nothing so very funny that I could see.

The next caller the geese had was Mrs. Freshett. My! she thought they
were big and fine. Mother promised her a couple of eggs to set under a
hen. Father said she was gradually coming down the scale of her
feelings, and before two weeks she'd give Isaac Thomas, at least, a
quill for a pen. Almost no one wrote with them any more, but often
father made a few, and showed us how to use them. He said they were
gone with candles, sand boxes, and snuff. Mother said she had no use
for snuff, but candles were not gone, she'd make and use them to the
day of her death, as they were the nicest light ever invented to carry
from room to room, or when you only wanted to sit and think. Father
said there was really no good pen except the quill you sharpened
yourself; and while he often used steel ones like we children had at
school to write to the brothers and sisters away, and his family, he
always kept a few choice quills in the till of his chest, and when he
wrote a deed, or any valuable paper, where there was a deal with money,
he used them. He said it lent the dignity of a past day to an
important occasion.

After mother and Mrs. Freshett had talked over every single thing about
the geese, and that they were like Pryors' had been settled, Mrs.
Freshett said: "Since he told about it before all of us, and started
out the way he did, would it be amiss to ask how Laddie got on at
Pryors'?"

"Just the way I thought he would," said mother. "He stayed until all
of us were in bed, and I'd never have known when he came in, if it were
not a habit of his always to come to my door to see if I'm sleeping.
Sometimes I'm wakeful, and if he pommels my pillow good, brings me a
drink, and rubs my head a few strokes with his strong, cool hands, I
can settle down and have a good night's rest. I was awake when he
came, or I'd never have known. It was almost midnight; but they sat
two hours at the table, and then all of them rode."

"Not the Missus?"

"Oh no! She's not strong enough. She really has incurable heart
trouble, the worst kind there is; her daughter told me so."

"Then they better look out," said Mrs. Freshett. "She is likely to
keel over at a breath."

"They must know it.