Chapter XVIII

“That’s the fourth gig that has been tied to Harry’s fence, since dinner,” said the old lady. “I hope Harry’s business will continue to prosper. Company, company, company. And there’s Ruth, as I live, romping round that meadow, without a bit of a bonnet. Now she’s climbing a cherry-tree. A married woman climbing a cherry-tree! Doctor, do you hear that?”

“Shoot ’em down,” said the doctor, abstractedly, without lifting his eyes from the Almanac.

“Shoot who down?” said the old lady, shaking him by the shoulder. “I said that romp of a Ruth was up in a cherry-tree.”

“Oh, I thought you were talking of those thievish robins stealing the cherries,” said the doctor; “as to Ruth I’ve given her up long ago; she never will settle down to anything. Yesterday, as I was taking a walk over Harry’s farm to see if things were not all going to the dogs, I saw her down in the meadow yonder, with her shoes and stockings off, wading through a little brook to get at some flowers, which grew on the other side. Half an hour after she came loitering up the road, with her bonnet hanging on the back of her neck, and her apron crammed full of grasses, and herbs, and branches, and all sorts of green trash. Just then the minister came along. I was glad of it. Good enough for her, thinks I to myself; she’ll blush for once. Well, what do you think she did, Mis. Hall?”

“What?” said the old lady, in a sepulchral whisper, dropping her knitting-needles and drawing her rocking-chair within kissing distance of the doctor.

“Why, she burst out a-laughing, perched herself on top of a stone wall, took a great big leaf to fan herself, and then invited the minister to sit down ’long side of her, jest as easy as if her hair wasn’t all flying round her face like a wild Arab’s.”

“I give up now,” said the old lady, dropping her hands in an attitude of the extremest dejection; “there’s no hope of her after that; and what is worse, it is no use talking to Harry; she’s got him so bewitched that he imagines everything she does is right. How she did it, passes me. I’m sure she has no beauty. I’ve no patience to see Harry twisting those yellow curls of hers round his fingers, and calling them ‘threads of gold;’ threads of fiddlesticks! She’d look a deal more proper like, if she’d wear her hair smooth behind her ears, as I do.”

“But your hair is false,” said the literal doctor.

“Doctor,” said the old lady, snapping her eyes, “I never can argue with you but you are sure to get off the track, sooner or later; there is no need of your telling all, you know. Suppose I was always alluding to your wig, how would you like it?”