rumpussin’ among the papers, but no will was forthcomin’, high or low.
Wal, now here comes what’s remarkable. Ruth she told this ’ere, all the
particulars, to yer Aunt Lois and Lady Lothrop. She said that the night
after the funeral she went up to her chamber. Ruth had the gret
front chamber, opposite to Mis’ Sullivan’s. I’ve been in it; it was a
monstrous big room, with outlandish furniture in it, that the Gineral
brought over from an old palace out to Italy. And there was a great big
lookin’-glass over the dressin’-table, that they said come from Venice,
that swung so that you could see the whole room in it. Wal, she was a
standin’ front o’ this, jist goin’ to undress herself, a hearin’ the
rain drip on the leaves and the wind a whishin’ and whisperin’ in the
old elm-trees, and jist a thinkin’ over her lot, and what should she
do now, all alone in the world, when of a sudden she felt a kind o’
lightness in her head, and she thought she seemed to see somebody in the
glass a movin’. And she looked behind, and there wa’n’t nobody there.
Then she looked forward in the glass, and saw a strange big room, that
she’d never seen before, with a long painted winder in it; and along
side o’ this stood a tall cabinet with a good many drawers in it. And
she saw herself, and knew that it was herself, in this room, along with
another woman whose back was turned towards her. She saw herself speak
to this woman, and p’int to the cabinet. She saw the woman nod her head.
She saw herself go to the cabinet, and open the middle drawer, and take
out a bundle o’ papers from the very back end on’t. She saw her take out
a paper from the middle, and open it, and hold it up; and she knew that
there was the missin’ will. Wal, it all overcome her so that she fainted
clean away. And her maid found her a lyin’ front o’ the dressin’-table
on the floor.
“She was sick of a fever’ for a week or fortnight a’ter; and your Aunt
Lois she was down takin’ care of her; and, as soon as she got able to be
moved, she was took out to Lady Lothrop’s. Jeff he was jist as attentive
and good as he could be; but she wouldn’t bear him near her room. If he
so much as set a foot on the stairs that led to it she’d know it, and
got so wild that he hed to be kept from comin’ into the front o’ the
house. But he was doin’ his best to buy up good words from everybody. He
paid all the servants double; he kept every one in their places, and
did so well by ’em all that the gen’l word among ’em was that Miss Ruth
couldn’t do better than to marry such a nice, open-handed gentleman.
“Wal, Lady Lothrop she wrote to Lady Maxwell all that hed happened; and
Lady Maxwell, she sent over for Ruth to come over and be a companion for
her, and said she’d adopt her, and be as a mother to her.
“Wal, then Ruth she went over with some gentlefolks that was goin’ back
to England, and offered to see her safe and sound; and so she was set
down at Lady Maxwell’s manor. It was a grand place, she said, and such
as she never see before,--like them old gentry places in England. And
Lady Maxwell she made much of her, and cosseted her up for the sake of
what the old Gineral had said about her. And Ruth she told her all her
story, and how she believed that the will was to be found somewhere, and
that she should be led to see it yet.
“She told her, too, that she felt it in her that Cap’n Oliver wasn’t
dead, and that he’d come back yet. And Lady Maxwell she took up for her
with might and main, and said she’d stand by her. But then, ye see, so
long as there warn’t no will to be found, there warn’t nothin’ to be
done. Jeff was the next heir; and he’d got every thing, stock, and lot,
and the estate in England into the bargain. And folks was beginnin’ to
think putty well of him, as folks allers does when a body is up in the
world, and hes houses and lands. Lordy massy! riches allers covers a
multitude o’ sins.
“Finally, when Ruth hed ben six months with her, one day Lady Maxwell
got to tellin’ her all about her history, and what hed ben atween her
and her cousin, when they was young, and how they hed a quarrel and he
flung off to Ameriky, and all them things that it don’t do folks no good
to remember when it’s all over and can’t be helped. But she was a lone
body, and it seemed to do her good to talk about it.
“Finally, she says to Ruth, says she, ‘I’ll show you a room in this
house you han’t seen before. It was the room where we hed that quarrel,’
says she; ‘and the last I saw of him was there, till he come back to
die,’ says she.
“So she took a gret key out of her bunch; and she led Ruth along a
long passage-way to the other end of the house, and opened on a great
library. And the minute Ruth came in, she threw up her hands and gin a
great cry. ’Oh!’ says she, ’this is the room! and there is the window!
and there is the cabinet! and _there in that middle drawer at the back
end in a bundle of papers is the will!_
“And Lady Maxwell she said, quite dazed, ‘Go look,’ says she. And Ruth
went, jest as she seed herself do, and opened the drawer, and drew forth
from the back part a yellow pile of old letters. And in the middle of
those was the will, sure enough. Ruth drew it out, and opened it, and
showed it to her.
“Wal, you see that will give Ruth the whole of the Gineral’s property in
America, tho’ it did leave the English estate to Jeff.
“Wal, the end on’t was like a story-book.
“Jeff he made believe be mighty glad. And he said it must a ben that the
Gineral hed got flustered with the sperit and water, and put that
’ere will in among his letters that he was a doin’ up to take back to
England. For it was in among Lady Maxwell’s letters that she writ him
when they was young, and that he’d a kep’ all these years and was a
takin’ back to her.
“Wal, Lawyer Dean said he was sure that Jeff made himself quite busy and
useful that night, a tyin’ up the papers with red tape, and a packin’
the Gineral’s trunk; and that, when Jeff gin him his bundle to lock up
in his box, he never mistrusted but what he’d got it all right.
“Wal, you see it was jest one of them things that can’t be known to the
jedgment-day. It might a ben an accident, and then agin it might not;
and folks settled it one way or t’other, ’cordin’ to their ’pinion
o’ Jeff; but ye see how ’mazin’ handy for him it happened! Why, ef it
hadn’t ben for the providence I’ve ben a tellin’ about, there it might a
lain in them old letters, that Lady Maxwell said she never hed the heart
to look over! it never would a turned up in the world.”
“Well,” said I, “what became of Ruth?” “Oh! Cap’n Oliver he came back
all alive, and escaped from the Algerines; and they was married in
King’s Chapel, and lived in the old Sullivan House, in peace and
prosperity. That’s jest how the story was; and now Aunt Lois can make
what she’s a mind ter out on’t.”
“And what became of Jeff?” “Oh! he started to go over to England, and
the ship was wrecked off the Irish coast, and that was the last of him.
He never got to his property.”
“Good enough for him,” said both of us. “Wal, I don’t know: ’twas
pretty hard on Jeff. Mebbe he did, and mebbe he didn’t. I’m glad I
warn’t in his shoes, tho’. I’d rather never hed nothin’. This ’ere
hastin’ to be rich is sich a drefful temptation.
“Wal, now, boys, ye’ve done a nice lot o’ flax, and I guess we’ll go up
to yer grand’ther’s cellar and git a mug o’ cyder. Talkin’ always gits
me dry.”
[Illustration: Tailpiece, Page 052]
[Illustration: The Minister’s Housekeeper, Page 053]
THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER.
Scene.--The shady side of a blueberry-pasture.--Sam Lawson with the
boys, picking blueberries.--Sam, _loq_.
As, you see, boys, ’twas just here,--Parson Carryl’s wife, she died
along in the forepart o’ March: my cousin Huldy, she undertook to keep
house for him. The way on’t was, that Huldy, she went to take care
o’ Mis’ Carryl in the fust on’t, when she fust took sick. Huldy was
a tailoress by trade; but then she was one o’ these ’ere facultised
persons that has a gift for most any thing, and that was how Mis’ Carryl
come to set sech store by her, that, when she was sick, nothin’ would do
for her but she must have Huldy round all the time: and the minister,
he said he’d make it good to her all the same, and she shouldn’t lose
nothin’ by it. And so Huldy, she staid with Mis’ Carryl full three
months afore she died, and got to seein’ to every thing pretty much
round the place.
“Wal, arter Mis’ Carryl died, Parson Carryl, he’d got so kind o’ used to
hevin’ on her ’round, takin’ care o’ things, that he wanted her to stay
along a spell; and so Huldy, she staid along a spell, and poured out
his tea, and mended his close, and made pies and cakes, and cooked and
washed and ironed, and kep’ every thing as neat as a pin. Huldy was a
drefful chipper sort o’ gal; and work sort o’ rolled off from her like
water off a duck’s back. There warn’t no gal in Sherburne that could
put sich a sight o’ work through as Huldy; and yet, Sunday mornin’, she
always come out in the singers’ seat like one o’ these ’ere June roses,
lookin’ so fresh and smilin’, and her voice was jest as clear and sweet
as a meadow lark’s--Lordy massy! I ’member how she used to sing some o’
them ’are places where the treble and counter used to go together: her
voice kind o’ trembled a little, and it sort o’ went thro’ and thro’ a
feller! tuck him right where he lived!”
Here Sam leaned contemplatively back with his head in a clump of sweet
fern, and refreshed himself with a chew of young wintergreen. “This ’ere
young wintergreen, boys, is jest like a feller’s thoughts o’ things that
happened when he was young: it comes up jest so fresh and tender every
year, the longest time you hev to live; and you can’t help chawin’
on’t tho’ ’tis sort o’ stingin’. I don’t never get over likin’ young
wintergreen.”
“But about Huldah, Sam?”
“Oh, yes! about Huldy. Lordy massy! when a feller is Indianin’ round,
these ’ere pleasant summer days, a feller’s thoughts gits like a flock
o’ young partridges: they’s up and down and everywhere; ’cause one place
is jest about as good as another, when they’s all so kind o’ comfortable
and nice. Wal, about Huldy,--as I was a sayin’. She was jest as
handsome a gal to look at as a feller could have; and I think a nice,
well-behaved young gal in the singers’ seat of a Sunday is a means o’
grace: it’s sort o’ drawin’ to the unregenerate, you know. Why, boys, in
them days, I’ve walked ten miles over to Sherburne of a Sunday mornin’,
jest to play the bass-viol in the same singers’ seat with Huldy. She was
very much respected, Huldy was; and, when she went out to tailorin’, she
was allers bespoke six months ahead, and sent for in waggins up and down
for ten miles round; for the young fellers was allers ’mazin’ anxious to
be sent after Huldy, and was quite free to offer to go for her. Wal,
after Mis’ Carryl died, Huldy got to be sort o’ housekeeper at the
minister’s, and saw to every thing, and did every thing: so that there
warn’t a pin out o’ the way.
“But you know how ’tis in parishes: there allers is women that thinks
the minister’s affairs belongs to them, and they ought to have the
rulin’ and guidin’ of ’em; and, if a minister’s wife dies, there’s folks
that allers has their eyes open on providences,--lookin’ out who’s to be
the next one.
“Now, there was Mis’ Amaziah Pipperidge, a widder with snappin’ black
eyes, and a hook nose,--kind o’ like a hawk; and she was one o’ them
up-and-down commandin’ sort o’ women, that feel that they have a call to
be seein’ to every thing that goes on in the parish, and ’specially to
the minister.
“Folks did say that Mis’ Pipperidge sort o’ sot her eye on the parson
for herself: wal, now that ’are might a been, or it might not. Some
folks thought it was a very suitable connection. You see she hed a good
property of her own, right nigh to the minister’s lot, and was allers
kind o’ active and busy; so takin’ one thing with another, I shouldn’t
wonder if Mis’ Pipperidge should a thought that Providence p’inted that
way. At any rate, she went up to Deakin Blodgett’s wife, and they two
sort o’ put their heads together a mournin’ and condolin’ about the way
things was likely to go on at the minister’s now Mis’ Carryl was dead.
Ye see, the parson’s wife, she was one of them women who hed their eyes
everywhere and on every thing. She was a little thin woman, but tough as
Inger rubber, and smart as a steel trap; and there warn’t a hen laid an
egg, or cackled, but Mis’ Carryl was right there to see about it; and
she hed the garden made in the spring, and the medders mowed in summer,
and the cider made, and the corn husked, and the apples got in the
fall; and the doctor, he hedn’t nothin’ to do but jest sit stock still a
meditatin’ on Jerusalem and Jericho and them things that ministers think
about. But Lordy massy! he didn’t know nothin’ about where any thing he
eat or drunk or wore come from or went to: his wife jest led him ’round
in temporal things and took care on him like a baby.
“Wal, to be sure, Mis’ Carryl looked up to him in spirituals, and
thought all the world on him; for there warn’t a smarter minister no
where ’round. Why, when he preached on decrees and election, they used
to come clear over from South Parish, and West Sherburne, and Old Town
to hear him; and there was sich a row o’ waggins tied along by the
meetin’-house that the stables was all full, and all the hitchin’-posts
was full clean up to the tavern, so that folks said the doctor made the
town look like a gineral trainin’-day a Sunday.
“He was gret on texts, the doctor was. When he hed a p’int to prove,
he’d jest go thro’ the Bible, and drive all the texts ahead o’ him like
a flock o’ sheep; and then, if there was a text that seemed agin him,
why, he’d come out with his Greek and Hebrew, and kind o’ chase it
’round a spell, jest as ye see a fellar chase a contrary bell-wether,
and make him jump the fence arter the rest. I tell you, there wa’n’t no
text in the Bible that could stand agin the doctor when his blood was
up. The year arter the doctor was app’inted to preach the ’lection
sermon in Boston, he made such a figger that the Brattle-street Church
sent a committee right down to see if they couldn’t get him to Boston;
and then the Sherburne folks, they up and raised his salary; ye see,
there ain’t nothin’ wakes folks up like somebody else’s wantin’ what
you’ve got. Wal, that fall they made him a Doctor o’ Divinity at
Cambridge College, and so they sot more by him than ever. Wal, you see,
the doctor, of course he felt kind o’ lonesome and afflicted when Mis’
Carryl was gone; but railly and truly, Huldy was so up to every thing
about house, that the doctor didn’t miss nothin’ in a temporal way.
His shirt-bosoms was pleated finer than they ever was, and them ruffles
’round his wrists was kep’ like the driven snow; and there warn’t a
brack in his silk stockin’s, and his shoe buckles was kep’ polished up,
and his coats brushed; and then there warn’t no bread and biscuit like
Huldy’s; and her butter was like solid lumps o’ gold; and there wern’t
no pies to equal hers; and so the doctor never felt the loss o’ Miss
Carryl at table. Then there was Huldy allers opposite to him, with
her blue eyes and her cheeks like two fresh peaches. She was kind o’
pleasant to look at; and the more the doctor looked at her the better
he liked her; and so things seemed to be goin’ on quite quiet and
comfortable ef it hadn’t been that Mis’ Pipperidge and Mis’ Deakin
Blodgett and Mis’ Sawin got their heads together a talkin’ about things.
“‘Poor man,’ says Mis’ Pipperidge, ‘what can that child that he’s got
there do towards takin’ the care of all that place? It takes a mature
woman,’ she says, ‘to tread in Mis’ Carryl’s shoes.’
“‘That it does,’ said Mis’ Blodgett; ‘and, when things once get to
runnin’ down hill, there ain’t no stoppin’ on ’em,’ says she.
“Then Mis’ Sawin she took it up. (Ye see, Mis’ Sawin used to go out to
dress-makin’, and was sort o’ ’jealous, ’cause folks sot more by Huldy
than they did by her). ‘Well,’ says she, ‘Huldy Peters is well enough at
her trade. I never denied that, though I do say I never did believe in
her way o’ makin’ button-holes; and I must say, if ’twas the dearest
friend I hed, that I thought Huldy tryin’ to fit Mis’ Kittridge’s
plumb-colored silk was a clear piece o’ presumption; the silk was jist
spiled, so ’twarn’t fit to come into the meetin’-house. I must say,
Huldy’s a gal that’s always too ventersome about takin’ ’sponsibilities
she don’t know nothin’ about.’
“‘Of course she don’t,’ said Mis’ Deakin Blodgett. ’What does she know
about all the lookin’ and seein’ to that there ought to be in guidin’
the minister’s house. Huldy’s well meanin’, and she’s good at her
work, and good in the singers’ seat; but Lordy massy! she hain’t got
no experience. Parson Carryl ought to have an experienced woman to
keep house for him. There’s the spring house-cleanin’ and the fall
house-cleanin’ to be seen to, and the things to be put away from the
moths; and then the gettin’ ready for the association and all the
ministers’ meetin’s; and the makin’ the soap and the candles, and
settin’ the hens and turkeys, watchin’ the calves, and seein’ after
the hired men and the garden; and there that ’are blessed man jist sets
there at home as serene, and has nobody ’round but that ’are gal, and
don’t even know how things must be a runnin’ to waste!’
“Wal, the upshot on’t was, they fussed and fuzzled and wuzzled till
they’d drinked up all the tea in the teapot; and then they went down and
called on the parson, and wuzzled him all up talkin’ about this, that,
and t’other that wanted lookin’ to, and that it was no way to leave
every thing to a young chit like Huldy, and that he ought to be lookin’
about for an experienced woman. The parson he thanked ’em kindly, and
said he believed their motives was good, but he didn’t go no further.
He didn’t ask Mis’ Pipperidge to come and stay there and help him, nor
nothin’ o’ that kind; but he said he’d attend to matters himself. The
fact was, the parson had got such a likin’ for havin’ Huldy ’round, that
he couldn’t think o’ such a thing as swappin’ her off for the Widder
Pipperidge.
“But he thought to himself, ‘Huldy is a good girl; but I oughtn’t to
be a leavin’ every thing to her,--it’s too hard on her. I ought to be
instructin’ and guidin’ and helpin’ of her; ’cause ’tain’t everybody
could be expected to know and do what Mis’ Carryl did;’ and so at it he
went; and Lordy massy! didn’t Huldy hev a time on’t when the minister
began to come out of his study, and want to tew ’round and see to
things? Huldy, you see, thought all the world of the minister, and she
was ’most afraid to laugh; but she told me she couldn’t, for the life of
her, help it when his back was turned, for he wuzzled things up in the
most singular way. But Huldy she’d jest say ‘Yes, sir,’ and get him off
into his study, and go on her own way.
“‘Huldy,’ says the minister one day, ‘you ain’t experienced out doors;
and, when you want to know any thing, you must come to me.’
“‘Yes, sir,’ says Huldy.
“‘Now, Huldy,’ says the parson, ‘you must be sure to save the
turkey-eggs, so that we can have a lot of turkeys for Thanksgiving.’
“‘Yes, sir,’ says Huldy; and she opened the pantry-door, and showed
him a nice dishful she’d been a savin’ up. Wal, the very next day the
parson’s hen-turkey was found killed up to old Jim Scroggs’s barn. Folks
said Scroggs killed it; though Scroggs, he stood to it he didn’t: at
any rate, the Scroggses, they made a meal on’t; and Huldy, she felt bad
about it ’cause she’d set her heart on raisin’ the turkeys; and says
she, ‘Oh, dear! I don’t know what I shall do. I was just ready to see
[set] her.’
“‘Do, Huldy?’ says the parson: ‘why, there’s the other turkey, out there
by the door; and a fine bird, too, he is.’ Sure enough, there was the
old tom-turkey a struttin’ and a sidlin’ and a quitterin,’ and a
floutin’ his tail-feathers in the sun, like a lively young widower, all
ready to begin life over agin.
“‘But,’ says Huldy, ‘you know he can’t set on eggs.’
“‘He can’t? I’d like to know why,’ says the parson. ‘He ‘shall’ set on
eggs, and hatch ’em too.’
“‘O doctor!’ says Huldy, all in a tremble; ’cause, you know, she
didn’t want to contradict the minister, and she was afraid she should
laugh,--‘I never heard that a tom-turkey would set on eggs.’
“‘Why, they ought to,’ said the parson, getting quite ’arnest: ‘what
else be they good for? you just bring out the eggs, now, and put ’em in
the nest, and I’ll make him set on ’em.’
“So Huldy she thought there wern’t no way to convince him but to let him
try: so she took the eggs out, and fixed ’em all nice in the nest;
and then she come back and found old Tom a skirmishin’ with the parson
pretty lively, I tell ye. Ye see, old Tom he didn’t take the idee at
all; and he flopped and gobbled, and fit the parson; and the parson’s
wig got ’round so that his cue stuck straight out over his ear, but he’d
got his blood up. Ye see, the old doctor was used to carryin’ his p’ints
o’ doctrine; and he hadn’t fit the Arminians and Socinians to be beat by
a tom-turkey; so finally he made a dive, and ketched him by the neck
in spite o’ his floppin’, and stroked him down, and put Huldy’s apron
’round him.
“‘There, Huldy,’ he says, quite red in the face, ‘we’ve got him now;’
and he travelled off to the barn with him as lively as a cricket.
[Illustration: Huldy came behind chokin’ with laugh, Page 065]
“Huldy came behind jist chokin’ with laugh, and afraid the minister
would look ’round and see her.
“‘Now, Huldy, we’ll crook his legs, and set him down,’ says the parson,
when they got him to the nest: ‘you see he is getting quiet, and he’ll
set there all right.’
“And the parson, he sot him down; and old Tom he sot there solemn
enough, and held his head down all droopin’, lookin’ like a rail pious
old cock, as long as the parson sot by him.
“‘There: you see how still he sets,’ says the parson to Huldy.
“Huldy was ’most dyin’ for fear she should laugh. ‘I’m afraid he’ll get
up,’ says she, ‘when you do.’
“‘Oh, no, he won’t!’ says the parson, quite confident. ’There, there,’
says he, layin’ his hands on him, as if pronouncin’ a blessin’. But when
the parson riz up, old Tom he riz up too, and began to march over the
eggs.
“‘Stop, now!’ says the parson. ’I’ll make him get down agin: hand me
that corn-basket; we’ll put that over him.’
“So he crooked old Tom’s legs, and got him down agin; and they put the
corn-basket over him, and then they both stood and waited.
“‘That’ll do the thing, Huldy,’ said the parson.
“‘I don’t know about it,’ says Huldy.
“‘Oh, yes, it will, child! I understand,’ says he.
“Just as he spoke, the basket riz right up and stood, and they could see
old Tom’s long legs.
“‘I’ll make him stay down, confound him,’ says the parson; for, ye see,
parsons is men, like the rest on us, and the doctor had got his spunk
up.
“‘You jist hold him a minute, and I’ll get something that’ll make him
stay, I guess;’ and out he went to the fence, and brought in a long,
thin, flat stone, and laid it on old Tom’s back.
“Old Tom he wilted down considerable under this, and looked railly as if
he was goin’ to give in. He staid still there a good long spell, and
the minister and Huldy left him there and come up to the house; but
they hadn’t more than got in the door before they see old Tom a hippin’
along, as high-steppin’ as ever, sayin’ ’Talk! talk! and quitter!
quitter!’ and struttin’ and gobblin’ as if he’d come through the Red
Sea, and got the victory.
“‘Oh, my eggs!’ says Huldy. ’I’m afraid he’s smashed ’em!’
“And sure enough, there they was, smashed flat enough under the stone.
“‘I’ll have him killed,’ said the parson: ‘we won’t have such a critter
’round.’
“But the parson, he slep’ on’t, and then didn’t do it: he only come
out next Sunday with a tip-top sermon on the ’Riginal Cuss’ that was
pronounced on things in gineral, when Adam fell, and showed how every
thing was allowed to go contrary ever since. There was pig-weed, and
pusley, and Canady thistles, cut-worms, and bag-worms, and canker-worms,
to say nothin’ of rattlesnakes. The doctor made it very impressive and
sort o’ improvin’; but Huldy, she told me, goin’ home, that she hardly
could keep from laughin’ two or three times in the sermon when she
thought of old Tom a standin’ up with the corn-basket on his back.
“Wal, next week Huldy she jist borrowed the minister’s horse
and side-saddle, and rode over to South Parish to her Aunt
Bascome’s,--Widder Bascome’s, you know, that lives there by the
trout-brook,--and got a lot o’ turkey-eggs o’ her, and come back and set
a hen on ’em, and said nothin’; and in good time there was as nice a lot
o’ turkey-chicks as ever ye see.
“Huldy never said a word to the minister about his experiment, and he
never said a word to her; but he sort o’ kep’ more to his books, and
didn’t take it on him to advise her.
“But not long arter he took it into his head that Huldy ought to have a
pig to be a fattin’ with the buttermilk. Mis’ Pipperidge set him up to
it; and jist then old Tim Bigelow, out to Juniper Hill, told him if he’d
call over he’d give him a little pig.
“So he sent for a man, and told him to build a pigpen right out by the
well, and have it all ready when he came home with his pig.
“Huldy she said she wished he might put a curb round the well out there,
because in the dark, sometimes, a body might stumble into it; and the
parson, he told him he might do that.
“Wal, old Aikin, the carpenter, he didn’t come till most the middle of
the arternoon; and then he sort o’ idled, so that he didn’t get up the
well-curb till sundown; and then he went off and said he’d come and do
the pig-pen next day.
“Wal, arter dark, Parson Carryl he driv into the yard, full chizel, with
his pig. He’d tied up his mouth to keep him from squeelin’; and he see
what he thought was the pig-pen,--he was rather nearsighted,--and so he
ran and threw piggy over; and down he dropped into the water, and
the minister put out his horse and pranced off into the house quite
delighted.
“‘There, Huldy, I’ve got you a nice little pig.’
“‘Dear me!’ says Huldy: ’where have you put him?’
“‘Why, out there in the pig-pen, to be sure.’
“‘Oh, dear me!’ says Huldy: ‘that’s the well-curb; there ain’t no
pig-pen built,’ says she.
“‘Lordy massy!’ says the parson: ‘then I’ve thrown the pig in the well!’