"Well! we can't sit here!" said I, briskly; "half-past nine already, and only one trunk packed! Never mind. You can put these three bundles in with your clothes."
"How easy 'tis to pack other people's things! But what, then, have you in there,--I mean, besides your shirts, etc.?"
"_Imprimis_. Eight volumes of Scott's Commentaries, brought by Deacon Boardman. I am to exchange them. They are imperfect. _Item_. A dozen of 'Sinbad the Sailor,' sent by mistake to the Association, instead of Doddridge. These books won't press nor give, more than sound doctrine; and I must have room for my gown, without which I am nothing."
The clock struck ten, and we were still struggling with unabated ardor to compress Lorana Briggs's shawl, and the flat packages from Burt's, into the largest carpet-bag, that there might be room for the seventeen letters on top of the minister's luggage, inside the sanctuary of his silk gown.
"We can carry a good deal in your coat-pocket, my dear," said I, cheerfully; for really we seemed to be coming to daylight, a little.
"My galoches at last! Deacon, I can't ask you to come in, we are so untidy; but I couldn't pack as I meant to, this afternoon."
How we dreaded his coming in,--half deacon, half shoemaker, and two-thirds missionary, with his "Panoplist" sticking out of his coat-pocket, and his ears evermore pricked up for the latest news from Bombay! and how angry I had been for three weeks because I couldn't get those indispensable galoches!
It seemed as if he never would go from the half-open door. He reckoned the York folks would stare to see so many patches; he expected ministers down to York warn't quite so carfle and troubled about many things, as they be to Weston; but he added, with a grim joyfulness,--
"We took up a good collection, though, last Sabbath! eight dollars and fifteen cents, clear!"
"Yes, Deacon," responded the minister, with as much heartiness as he could muster, between the pushings, puffings, and pressings at the carpet-bag; "a cup of cold water shall in no wise lose its reward, we're told.--These carpet-bags stretch well!"
"Them poor, dear heathen!" groaned the Deacon.
"Oh, dreadful!" chimed I; "give me that biggest shawl, will you?--no, the other,--Ursula Drury's! Shall we ever finish packing?"