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.”
“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.