by
Sarah Orne Jewett

Chapter 1
The Last Mile

It had been one of the warm and almost sultry days which sometimes come in November; a maligned month, which is really an epitome of the other eleven, or a sort of index to the whole year’s changes of storm and sunshine. The afternoon was like spring, the air was soft and damp, and the buds of the willows had been beguiled into swelling a little, so that there was a bloom over them, and the grass looked as if it had been growing green of late instead of fading steadily. It seemed like a reprieve from the doom of winter, or from even November itself.

The dense and early darkness which usually follows such unseasonable mildness had already begun to cut short the pleasures of this spring-like day, when a young woman, who carried a child in her arms, turned from a main road of Oldfields into a foot-path which led southward across the fields and pastures. She seemed sure of her way, and kept the path without difficulty, though a stranger might easily have lost it here and there, where it led among the patches of sweet-fern or bayberry bushes, or through shadowy tracts of small white-pines. She stopped sometimes to rest, and walked more and more wearily, with increasing effort; but she kept on her way desperately, as if it would not do to arrive much later at the place which she was seeking. The child seemed to be asleep; it looked too heavy for so slight a woman to carry.

The path led after a while to a more open country, there was a low hill to be climbed, and at its top the slender figure stopped and seemed to be panting for breath. A follower might have noticed that it bent its head over the child’s for a moment as it stood, dark against the darkening sky. There had formerly been a defense against the Indians on this hill, which in the daytime commanded a fine view of the surrounding country, and the low earthworks or foundations of the garrison were still plainly to be seen. The woman seated herself on the sunken wall in spite of the dampness and increasing chill, still holding the child, and rocking to and fro like one in despair. The child waked and began to whine and cry a little in that strange, lonely place, and after a few minutes, perhaps to quiet it, they went on their way. Near the foot of the hill was a brook, swollen by the autumn rains; it made a loud noise in the quiet pasture, as if it were crying out against a wrong or some sad memory. The woman went toward it at first, following a slight ridge which was all that remained of a covered path which had led down from the garrison to the spring below at the brookside. If she had meant to quench her thirst here, she changed her mind, and suddenly turned to the right, following the brook a short distance, and then going straight toward the river itself and the high uplands, which by daylight were smooth pastures with here and there a tangled apple-tree or the grassy cellar of a long vanished farm-house.

It was night now; it was too late in the year for the chirp of any insects; the moving air, which could hardly be called wind, swept over in slow waves, and a few dry leaves rustled on an old hawthorn tree which grew beside the hollow where a house had been, and a low sound came from the river. The whole country side seemed asleep in the darkness, but the lonely woman felt no lack of companionship; it was well suited to her own mood that the world slept and said nothing to her, — it seemed as if she were the only creature alive.

A little this side of the river shore there was an old burial place, a primitive spot enough, where the graves were only marked by rough stones, and the short, sheep-cropped grass was spread over departed generations of the farmers and their wives and children. By day it was in sight of the pine woods and the moving water, and nothing hid it from the great sky overhead, but now it was like a prison walled about by the barriers of night. However eagerly the woman had hurried to this place, and with what purpose she may have sought the river bank, when she recognized her surroundings she stopped for a moment, swaying and irresolute. “No, no!” sighed the child plaintively, and she shuddered, and started forward; then, as her feet stumbled among the graves, she turned and fled. It no longer seemed solitary, but as if a legion of ghosts which had been wandering under cover of the dark had discovered this intruder, and were chasing her and flocking around her and oppressing her from every side. And as she caught sight of a light in a far-away farmhouse window, a light which had been shining after her all the way down to the river, she tried to hurry toward it. The unnatural strength of terror urged her on; she retraced her steps like some pursued animal; she remembered, one after another, the fearful stories she had known of that ancient neighborhood; the child cried, but she could not answer it. She fell again and again, and at last all her strength seemed to fail her, her feet refused to carry her farther and she crept painfully, a few yards at a time, slowly along the ground. The fear of her superhuman enemies had forsaken her, and her only desire was to reach the light that shone from the looming shadow of the house.

At last she was close to it; at last she gave one great sigh, and the child fell from her grasp; at last she clutched the edge of the worn doorstep with both hands, and lay still.

Chapter 2
The Farm-House Kitchen

Indoors there was a cheerful company; the mildness of the evening had enticed two neighbors of Mrs. Thacher, the mistress of the house, into taking their walks abroad, and so, with their heads well protected by large gingham handkerchiefs, they had stepped along the road and up the lane to spend a social hour or two. John Thacher, their old neighbor’s son, was known to be away serving on a jury in the county town, and they thought it likely that his mother would enjoy company. Their own houses stood side by side. Mrs. Jacob Dyer and Mrs. Martin Dyer were their names, and excellent women they were. Their husbands were twin-brothers, curiously alike and amazingly fond of each other, though either would have scorned to make any special outward demonstration of it. They were spending the evening together in brother Martin’s house, and were talking over the purchase of a bit of woodland, and the profit of clearing it, when their wives had left them without any apology to visit Mrs. Thacher, as we have already seen.

This was the nearest house and only a quarter of a mile away, and when they opened the door they had found Mrs. Thacher spinning.

“I must own up, I am glad to see you more’n common,” she said. “I don’t feel scary at being left sole alone; it ain’t that, but I have been getting through with a lonesome spell of another kind. John, he does as well as a man can, but here I be, — here I be,” — and the good woman could say no more, while her guests understood readily enough the sorrow that had found no words.

“I suppose you haven’t got no news from Ad’line?” asked Mrs. Martin bluntly. “We was speaking of her as we come along, and saying it seemed to be a pity she should’nt feel it was best to come back this winter and help you through; only one daughter, and left alone as you be, with the bad spells you are liable to in winter time — but there, it ain’t her way — her ambitions ain’t what they should be, that’s all I can say.”

“If she’d got a gift for anything special, now,” continued Mrs. Jake, “we should feel it was different and want her to have a chance, but she’s just like other folks for all she felt so much above farming. I don’t see as she can do better than come back to the old place, or leastways to the village, and fetch up the little gal to be some use. She might dressmake or do millinery work; she always had a pretty taste, and ‘t would be better than roving. I’spose ‘t would hurt her pride,” — but Mrs. Thacher flushed at this, and Mrs. Martin came to the rescue.

“You’ll think we’re reg’lar Job’s comforters,” cried the good soul hastily, “but there, Mis’ Thacher, you know we feel as if she was our own. There ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for Ad’line, sick or well, and I declare I believe she’ll pull through yet and make a piece of luck that’ll set us all to work praising of her. She’s like to marry again for all I can see, with her good looks. Folks always has their joys and calamities as they go through the world.”

Mrs. Thacher shook her head two or three times with a dismal expression, and made no answer. She had pushed back the droning wool-wheel which she had been using, and had taken her knitting from the shelf by the clock and seated herself contentedly, while Mrs. Jake and Mrs. Martin had each produced a blue yarn stocking from a capacious pocket, and the shining steel needles were presently all clicking together. One knitter after another would sheathe the spare needle under her apron strings, while they asked each other’s advice from time to time about the propriety of “narrerin’” or whether it were not best to “widden” according to the progress their respective stockings had made. Mrs. Thacher had lighted an extra candle, and replenished the fire, for the air was chillier since the sun went down. They were all sure of a coming change of weather, and counted various signs, Mrs. Thacher’s lowness of spirits among the number, while all three described various minor maladies from which they had suffered during the day, and of which the unseasonable weather was guilty.

“I can’t get over the feeling that we are watchin’ with somebody,” said Mrs. Martin after a while, moved by some strange impulse and looking over her shoulder, at which remark Mrs. Thacher glanced up anxiously. “Something has been hanging over me all day,” said she simply, and at this the needles clicked faster than ever.

“We’ve been taking rather a low range,” suggested Mrs. Jake. “We shall get to telling over ghost stories if we don’t look out, and I for one shall be sca’t to go home. By the way, I suppose you have heard about old Billy Dow’s experience night afore last, Mis’ Thacher?”

“John being away, I ain’t had nobody to fetch me the news these few days past,” said the hostess. “Why what’s happened to Billy now?”

The two women looked at each other: “He was getting himself home as best he could, — he owned up to having made a lively evenin’ of it, — and I expect he was wandering all over the road and didn’t know nothin’ except that he was p’inted towards home, an’ he stepped off from the high bank this side o’ Dunnell’s, and rolled down, over and over; and when he come to there was a great white creatur’ a-standin’ over him, and he thought ‘t was a ghost. ‘T was higher up on the bank than him, and it kind of moved along down’s if ‘t was coming right on to him, and he got on to his knees and begun to say his Ten Commandments fast’s he could rattle ‘em out. He got ‘em mixed up, and when the boys heard his teeth a-chattering, they began to laugh and he up an’ cleared. Dunnell’s boys had been down the road a piece and was just coming home, an’ ‘t was their old white hoss that had got out of the barn, it bein’ such a mild night, an’ was wandering off. They said to Billy that’t wa’n’t everybody could lay a ghost so quick as he could, and they didn’t’spose he had the means so handy.”

The three friends laughed, but Mrs. Thacher’s face quickly lost its smile and took back its worried look. She evidently was in no mood for joking. “Poor Billy!” said she, “he was called the smartest boy in school; I rec’lect that one of the teachers urged his folks to let him go to college; but ‘t wa’n’t no use; they hadn’t the money and couldn’t get it, and ‘t wa’n’t in him to work his way as some do. He’s got a master head for figur’s. Folks used to get him to post books you know, — but he’s past that now. Good-natured creatur’ as ever stept; but he always was afeard of the dark, — ‘seems ’s if I could see him there a-repentin’ and the old white hoss shakin’ his head,” — and she laughed again, but quickly stopped herself and looked over her shoulder at the window.

“Would ye like the curtain drawed?” asked Mrs. Jake. But Mrs. Thacher shook her head silently, while the gray cat climbed up into her lap and laid down in a round ball to sleep.

“She’s a proper cosset, ain’t she?” inquired Mrs. Martin approvingly, while Mrs. Jake asked about the candles, which gave a clear light. “Be they the last you run?” she inquired, but was answered to the contrary, and a brisk conversation followed upon the proper proportions of tallow and bayberry wax, and the dangers of the new-fangled oils which the village shop-keepers were attempting to introduce. Sperm oil was growing more and more dear in price and worthless in quality, and the old-fashioned lamps were reported to be past their usefulness.

“I must own I set most by good candle light,” said Mrs. Martin. “‘T is no expense to speak of where you raise the taller, and it’s cheerful and bright in winter time. In old times when the houses were draftier they was troublesome about flickering, candles was; but land! think how comfortable we live now to what we used to! Stoves is such a convenience; the fire’s so much handier. Housekeepin’ don’t begin to be the trial it was once.”

“I must say I like old-fashioned cookin’ better than oven cookin’,” observed Mrs. Jake. “Seems to me’s if the taste of things was all drawed up chimbly. Be you going to do much for Thanksgivin’, Mis’ Thacher? I ’spose not;” and moved by a sudden kind impulse, she added, “Why can’t you and John jine with our folks? ‘t wouldn’t put us out, and ‘twill be lonesome for ye.”

“‘T won’t be no lonesomer than last year was, nor the year before,” and Mrs. Thacher’s face quivered a little as she rose and took one of the candles, and opened the trap door that covered the cellar stairs. “Now don’t ye go to makin’ yourself work,” cried the guests. “No, don’t! we ain’t needin’ nothin’; we was late about supper.” But their hostess stepped carefully down and disappeared for a few minutes, while the cat hovered anxiously at the edge of the black pit.

“I forgot to ask ye if ye’d have some cider?” a sepulchral voice asked presently; “but I don’t know now’s I can get at it. I told John I shouldn’t want any whilst he was away, and so he ain’t got the spiggit in yet,” to which Mrs. Jake and Mrs. Martin both replied that they were no hands for that drink, unless ‘t was a drop right from the press, or a taste o’ good hard cider towards the spring of the year; and Mrs. Thacher soon returned with some slices of cake in a plate and some apples held in her apron. One of her neighbors took the candle as she reached up to put it on the floor, and when the trap door was closed again all three drew up to the table and had a little feast. The cake was of a kind peculiar to its maker, who prided herself upon never being without it; and there was some trick of her hand or a secret ingredient which was withheld when she responded with apparent cheerfulness to requests for its recipe. As for the apples, they were grown upon an old tree, one of whose limbs had been grafted with some unknown variety of fruit so long ago that the history was forgotten; only that an English gardener, many years before, had brought some cuttings from the old country, and one of them had somehow come into the possession of John Thacher’s grandfather when grafted fruit was a thing to be treasured and jealously guarded. It had been told that when the elder Thacher had given away cuttings he had always stolen to the orchards in the night afterward and ruined them. However, when the family had grown more generous in later years it had seemed to be without avail, for, on their neighbors’ trees or their own, the English apples had proved worthless. Whether it were some favoring quality in that spot of soil or in the sturdy old native tree itself, the rich golden apples had grown there, year after year, in perfection, but nowhere else.

“There ain’t no such apples as these, to my mind,” said Mrs. Martin, as she polished a large one with her apron and held it up to the light, and Mrs. Jake murmured assent, having already taken a sufficient first bite.

“There’s only one little bough that bears any great,” said Mrs. Thacher, “but it’s come to that once before, and another branch has shot up and been likely as if it was a young tree.”

The good souls sat comfortably in their splint-bottomed, straight-backed chairs, and enjoyed this mild attempt at a festival. Mrs. Thacher even grew cheerful and responsive, for her guests seemed so light-hearted and free from care that the sunshine of their presence warmed her own chilled and fearful heart. They embarked upon a wide sea of neighborhood gossip and parish opinions, and at last some one happened to speak again of Thanksgiving, which at once turned the tide of conversation, and it seemed to ebb suddenly, while the gray, dreary look once more overspread Mrs. Thacher’s face.

“I don’t see why you won’t keep with our folks this year; you and John,” once more suggested Mrs. Martin. “‘T ain’t wuth while to be making yourselves dismal here to home; the day’ll be lonesome for you at best, and you shall have whatever we’ve got and welcome.”

“‘T won’t be lonesomer this year than it was last, nor the year before that, and we’ve stood it somehow or ‘nother,” answered Mrs. Thacher for the second time, while she rose to put more wood in the stove. “Seems to me ‘t is growing cold; I felt a draught acrost my shoulders. These nights is dreadful chill; you feel the damp right through your bones. I never saw it darker than ‘t was last evenin’. I thought it seemed kind o’ stived up here in the kitchen, and I opened the door and looked out, and I declare I couldn’t see my hand before me.”

“It always kind of scares me these black nights,” said Mrs. Jake Dyer. “I expect something to clutch at me every minute, and I feel as if some sort of a creatur’ was travelin’ right behind me when I am out door in the dark. It makes it bad havin’ a wanin’ moon just now when the fogs hangs so low. It al’ays seems to me as if ‘t was darker when she rises late towards mornin’ than when she’s gone altogether. I do’ know why’t is.”

“I rec’lect once,” Mrs. Thacher resumed, “when Ad’line was a baby and John was just turned four year old, their father had gone down river in the packet, and I was expectin’ on him home at supper time, but he didn’t come; ‘t was late in the fall, and a black night as I ever see. Ad’line was taken with something like croup, and I had an end o’ candle in the candlestick that I lighted, and ‘t wa’n’t long afore it was burnt down, and I went down cellar to the box where I kep’ ‘em, and if you will believe it, the rats had got to it, and there wasn’t a week o’ one left. I was near out anyway. We didn’t have this cook-stove then, and I cal’lated I could make up a good lively blaze, so I come up full o’ scold as I could be, and then I found I’d burnt up all my dry wood. You see, I thought certain he’d be home and I was tendin’ to the child’n, but I started to go out o’ the door and found it had come on to rain hard, and I said to myself I wouldn’t go out to the woodpile and get my clothes all damp, ‘count o’ Ad’line, and the candle end would last a spell longer, and he’d be home by that time. I hadn’t a least o’ suspicion but what he was dallying round up to the Corners, ‘long o’ the rest o’ the men, bein’ ‘t was Saturday night, and I was some put out about it, for he knew the baby was sick, and I hadn’t nobody with me. I set down and waited, but he never come, and it rained hard as I ever see it, and I left his supper standin’ right in the floor, and then I begun to be distressed for fear somethin’ had happened to Dan’l, and I set to work and cried, and the candle end give a flare and went out, and by ‘n’ by the fire begun to get low and I took the child’n and went to bed to keep warm; ‘t was an awful cold night, considerin’ ‘t was such a heavy rain, and there I laid awake and thought I heard things steppin’ about the room, and it seemed to me as if ‘t was a week long before mornin’ come, and as if I’d got to be an old woman. I did go through with everything that night. ‘T was that time Dan’l broke his leg, you know; they was takin’ a deck load of oak knees down by the packet, and one on ‘em rolled down from the top of the pile and struck him just below the knee. He was poling, for there wan’t a breath o’ wind, and he always felt certain there was somethin’ mysterious about it. He’d had a good deal worse knocks than that seemed to be, as only left a black and blue spot, and he said he never see a deck load o’ timber piled securer. He had some queer notions about the doin’s o’ sperits, Dan’l had; his old Aunt Parser was to blame for it. She lived with his father’s folks, and used to fill him and the rest o’ the child’n with all sorts o’ ghost stories and stuff. I used to tell him she’d a’ be’n hung for a witch if she’d lived in them old Salem days. He always used to be tellin’ what everything was the sign of, when we was first married, till I laughed him out of it. It made me kind of notional. There’s too much now we can’t make sense of without addin’ to it out o’ our own heads.”

Mrs. Jake and Mrs. Martin were quite familiar with the story of the night when there were no candles and Mr. Thacher had broken his leg, having been present themselves early in the morning afterward, but they had listened with none the less interest. These country neighbors knew their friends’ affairs as well as they did their own, but such an audience is never impatient. The repetitions of the best stories are signal events, for ordinary circumstances do not inspire them. Affairs must rise to a certain level before a narration of some great crisis is suggested, and exactly as a city audience is well contented with hearing the plays of Shakespeare over and over again, so each man and woman of experience is permitted to deploy their well-known but always interesting stories upon the rustic stage.

“I must say I can’t a-bear to hear anything about ghosts after sundown,” observed Mrs. Jake, who was at times somewhat troubled by what she and her friends designated as “narves.” “Day-times I don’t believe in ‘em ‘less it’s something creepy more’n common, but after dark it scares me to pieces. I do’ know but I shall be afeared to go home,” and she laughed uneasily. “There! when I get through with this needle I believe I won’t knit no more. The back o’ my neck is all numb.”

“Don’t talk o’ goin’ home yet awhile,” said the hostess, looking up quickly as if she hated the thought of being left alone again. “‘T is just on the edge of the evenin’; the nights is so long now we think it’s bedtime half an hour after we’ve got lit up. ‘T was a good lift havin’ you step over to-night. I was really a-dreadin’ to set here by myself,” and for some minutes nobody spoke and the needles clicked faster than ever. Suddenly there was a strange sound outside the door, and they stared at each other in terror and held their breath, but nobody stirred. This was no familiar footstep; presently they heard a strange little cry, and still they feared to look, or to know what was waiting outside. Then Mrs. Thacher took a candle in her hand, and, still hesitating, asked once, “Who is there?” and, hearing no answer, slowly opened the door.

Chapter 3
At Jake and Martin’s

In the mean time, the evening had been much enjoyed by the brothers who were spending it together in Martin Dyer’s kitchen. The houses stood side by side, but Mr. Jacob Dyer’s youngest daughter, the only one now left at home, was receiving a visit from her lover, or, as the family expressed it, the young man who was keeping company with her, and her father, mindful of his own youth, had kindly withdrawn. Martin’s children were already established in homes of their own, with the exception of one daughter who was at work in one of the cotton factories at Lowell in company with several of her acquaintances. It has already been said that Jake and Martin liked nobody’s company so well as their own. Their wives had a time-honored joke about being comparatively unnecessary to their respective partners, and indeed the two men had a curiously dependent feeling toward each other. It was the close sympathy which twins sometimes have each to each, and had become a byword among all their acquaintances. They were seldom individualized in any way, and neither was able to distinguish himself, apparently, for one always heard of the family as Jake and Martin’s folks, and of their possessions, from least to greatest, as belonging to both brothers. The only time they had ever been separated was once in their early youth, when Jake had been fired with a desire to go to sea; but he deserted the coastwise schooner in the first port and came home, because he could not bear it any longer without his brother. Martin had no turn for seafaring, so Jake remained ashore and patiently made a farmer of himself for love’s sake, and in spite of a great thirst for adventure that had never ceased to fever his blood. It was astonishing how much they found to say to each other when one considers that their experiences were almost constantly the same; but nothing contented them better than an uninterrupted evening spent in each other’s society, and as they hoed corn or dug potatoes, or mowed, or as they drove to the Corners, sitting stiffly upright in the old-fashioned thorough-braced wagon, they were always to be seen talking as if it were the first meeting after a long separation. But, having taken these quiet times for the discussion of all possible and impossible problems, they were men of fixed opinions, and were ready at a moment’s warning to render exact decisions. They were not fond of society as a rule; they found little occasion for much talk with their neighbors, but used as few words as possible. Nobody was more respected than the brothers. It was often said of them that their word was their bond, and as they passed from youth to middle age, and in these days were growing to look like elderly men, they were free from shame or reproach, though not from much good-natured joking and friendly fun. Their farm had been owned in the family since the settlement of the country, and the house which Martin occupied was very old. Jake’s had been built for him when he was married, from timber cut in their own woodlands, and after thirty years of wear it looked scarcely newer than its companion. And when it is explained that they had married sisters, because, as people said, they even went courting together, it will be easy to see that they had found life more harmonious than most people do. Sometimes the wife of one brother would complain that her sister enjoyed undue advantages and profits from the estate, but there was rarely any disagreement, and Mrs. Jake was mistress of the turkeys and Mrs. Martin held sway over the hens, while they divided the spoils amiably at Thanksgiving time when the geese were sold. If it were a bad year for turkeys, and the tender young were chilled in the wet grass, while the hens flourished steadily the season through, Mrs. Jake’s spirits drooped and she became envious of the good fortune which flaunted itself before her eyes, but on the whole, they suffered and enjoyed together, and found no fault with their destinies. The two wives, though the affection between them was of an ordinary sort, were apt to form a league against the brothers, and this prevented a more troublesome rivalry which might have existed between the households.

Jake and Martin were particularly enjoying the evening. Some accident had befallen the cooking-stove, which the brothers had never more than half approved, it being one of the early patterns, and a poor exchange for the ancient methods of cookery in the wide fireplace. “The women” had had a natural desire to be equal with their neighbors, and knew better than their husbands did the difference this useful invention had made in their every-day work. However, this one night the conservative brothers could take a mild revenge; and when their wives were well on their way to Mrs. Thacher’s they had assured each other that, if the plaguey thing were to be carried to the Corners in the morning to be exchanged or repaired, it would be as well to have it in readiness, and had quickly taken down its pipes and lifted it as if it were a feather to the neighboring woodshed. Then they hastily pried away a fireboard which closed the great fireplace, and looked smilingly upon the crane and its pothooks and the familiar iron dogs which had been imprisoned there in darkness for many months. They brought in the materials for an old-fashioned fire, backlog, forestick, and crowsticks, and presently seated themselves before a crackling blaze. Martin brought a tall, brown pitcher of cider from the cellar and set two mugs beside it on the small table, and for some little time they enjoyed themselves in silence, after which Jake remarked that he didn’t know but they’d got full enough of a fire for such a mild night, but he wished his own stove and the new one too could be dropped into the river for good and all.

They put the jug of cider between the andirons, and then, moved by a common impulse, drew their chairs a little farther from the mounting flames, before they quenched their thirst from the mugs.

“I call that pretty cider,” said Martin; “‘tis young yet, but it has got some weight a’ready, and ‘tis smooth. There’s a sight o’ difference between good upland fruit and the sposhy apples that grows in wet ground. An’ I take it that the bar’l has an influence: some bar’ls kind of wilt cider and some smarten it up, and keep it hearty. Lord! what stuff some folks are willin’ to set before ye! ‘tain’t wuth the name o’ cider, nor no better than the rensin’s of a vinegar cask.”

“And then there’s weather too,” agreed Mr. Jacob Dyer, “had ought to be took into consideration. Git your apples just in the right time — not too early to taste o’ the tree, nor too late to taste o’ the ground, and just in the snap o’ time as to ripeness’, on a good sharp day with the sun a-shining; have ‘em into the press and what comes out is cider. I think if we’ve had any fault in years past, ‘t was puttin’ off makin’ a little too late. But I don’t see as this could be beat. I don’t know’s you feel like a pipe, but I believe I’ll light up,” and thereupon a good portion of black-looking tobacco was cut and made fine in each of the hard left hands, and presently the clay pipes were touched off with a live coal, and great clouds of smoke might have been seen to disappear under the edge of the fire-place, drawn quickly up the chimney by the draft of the blazing fire.

Jacob pushed back his chair another foot or two, and Martin soon followed, mentioning that it was getting hot, but it was well to keep out the damp.

“What set the women out to go traipsin’ up to Thacher’s folks?” inquired Jacob, holding his cider mug with one hand and drumming it with the finger ends of the other.

“I had an idee that they wanted to find out if anything had been heard about Ad’line’s getting home for Thanksgiving,” answered Martin, turning to look shrewdly at his brother. “Women folks does suffer if there’s anything goin’ on they can’t find out about. ‘Liza said she was going to invite Mis’ Thacher and John to eat a piece o’ our big turkey, but she didn’t s’pose they’d want to leave. Curi’s about Ad’line, ain’t it? I expected when her husband died she’d be right back here with what she’d got; at any rate, till she’d raised the child to some size. There’d be no expense here to what she’d have elsewhere, and here’s her ma’am beginnin’ to age. She can’t do what she used to, John was tellin’ of me; and I don’t doubt ‘t ‘as worn upon her more’n folks thinks.”

“I don’t lay no great belief that John’ll get home from court,” said Jacob Dyer. “They say that court’s goin’ to set till Christmas maybe; there’s an awful string o’ cases on the docket. Oh, ‘t was you told me, wa’n’t it? Most like they’ll let up for a couple o’ days for Thanksgivin’, but John mightn’t think’t was wuth his while to travel here and back again ‘less he had something to do before winter shets down. Perhaps they’ll prevail upon the old lady, I wish they would, I’m sure; but an only daughter forsakin’ her so, ‘twas most too bad of Ad’line. She al’ays had dreadful high notions when she wa’n’t no more’n a baby; and, good conscience, how she liked to rig up when she first used to come back from Lowell! Better ha’ put her money out to interest.”

“I believe in young folks makin’ all they can o’ theirselves,” announced Martin, puffing hard at his pipe and drawing a little farther still from the fireplace, because the scorching red coals had begun to drop beneath the forestick. “I’ve give my child’n the best push forward I could, an’ you’ve done the same. Ad’line had a dreadful cravin’ to be somethin’ more’n common; but it don’t look as if she was goin’ to make out any great. ‘Twas unfortunate her losin’ of her husband, but I s’pose you’ve heard hints that they wa’n’t none too equal-minded. She’d a done better to have worked on a while to Lowell and got forehanded, and then married some likely young fellow and settled down here, or to the Corners if she didn’t want to farm it. There was Jim Hall used to be hanging round, and she’d been full as well off to-day if she’d took him, too. ‘T ain’t no use for folks to marry one that’s of another kind and belongs different. It’s like two fiddles that plays different tunes, — you can’t make nothin’ on’t, no matter if both on em’s trying their best, ‘less one on ‘em beats the other down entirely and has all the say, and ginerally ‘t is the worst one does it. Ad’line’s husband wa’n’t nothin’ to boast of from all we can gather, but they didn’t think alike about nothin’. She could ‘a’ done well with him if there’d been more of her. I don’t marvel his folks felt bad: Ad’line didn’t act right by ‘em.”

“Nor they by her,” said the twin brother. “I tell ye Ad’line would have done ‘em credit if she’d been let. I seem to think how’t was with her; when she was there to work in the shop she thought ‘t would be smart to marry him and then she’d be a lady for good and all. And all there was of it, she found his folks felt put out and hurt, and instead of pleasing ‘em up and doing the best she could, she didn’t know no better than to aggravate ‘em. She was wrong there, but I hold to it that if they’d pleased her up a little and done well by her, she’d ha’ bloomed out, and fell right in with their ways. She’s got outward ambitions enough, but I view it she was all a part of his foolishness to them; I dare say they give her the blame o’ the whole on’t. Ad’line ought to had the sense to see they had some right on their side. Folks say he was the smartest fellow in his class to college.”

“Good King Agrippy! how hot it does git,” said Jake rising indignantly, as if the fire alone were to blame. “I must shove back the cider again or ‘t will bile over, spite of everything. But ‘t is called unwholesome to get a house full o’ damp in the fall o’ the year; ‘t will freeze an’ thaw in the walls all winter. I must git me a new pipe if we go to the Corners to-morrow. I s’pose I’ve told ye of a pipe a man had aboard the schooner that time I went to sea?”