“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: The Minister’s Housekeeper, Page 053]
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!”