"You must not make any difference at all for us, Mrs. Brett! We shall not like it if you do. May I bring my friend in now?"

"Well, I should say so!" cried the good woman. "She's out in the carriage, you say? I'll go right out and fetch her in."

Rose was warmly welcomed, and brought into the house; while Hilda fastened Dr. Abernethy to the gate-post, and got the shawls and hand-bags out from under the seat.

"I expect you'd like to go right upstairs and lay off your things!" was Mrs. Brett's next remark. "I declare! I do wish 't I'd known! I swep'

the spare chamber yesterday, but I hadn't any _i_dea of its being used.

Well, there! you'll have to take me as I am." She bustled upstairs before the girls, talking all the way. "I try to keep the house clean, but I don't often have comp'ny, and the dust doos gather so, this dry weather, and not keeping any help, you see--well, there! this is the best I've got, and maybe it'll do to sleep in."

She threw open, with mingled pride and nervousness, the door of a pleasant, sunny room, rather bare, but in exquisite order. The rag carpet was brilliant with scarlet, blue, and green; the furniture showed no smallest speck of dust; the bed looked like a snowdrift.

Nevertheless, the good hostess went peering about, wiping the chairs with her ap.r.o.n, and repeating, "The dust _doos_ gather so! I wouldn't set down, if I was you, till I've got the chairs done off!"

"Why, Mrs. Brett," cried Hildegarde, laughing merrily, "it is the chairs you should be anxious for, not ourselves. We are simply _covered_ with dust, from head to foot. I think it must be an inch deep on my hat!" she continued, taking off her round "sailor" and looking at it with pretended alarm. "I don't dare to put it down in this clean room."

"Oh, _that_'s all right!" cried the widow, beaming. "Land sakes! I don't care how much dust you bring in, but I _should_ be lawth to have you get any on you here. Well, there! now you need a proper good rest, I'm sure, both of you. Wouldn't you like a cup o' tea now?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'NOT A THING IN THE HOUSE!'"]

Both girls declined the tea, and declared that an hour's rest was all they needed; so the good woman bade them "rest good!" and hurried downstairs, to fling herself into a Berserker fit of cooking. "Not a thing in the house!" she soliloquized, as she sifted flour and beat eggs with the energy of desperation, "except cookies and doughnuts; and Marthy always has everything so nice, let alone what they're used to at home. I'll make up a sheet of sponge-cake, I guess, first, and while it's baking I can whip up some chocolate frosting and mix a pan of biscuit. Le' me see! I might make a jelly-roll, while I'm about it, for there's some of Marthy's own currant jelly that she sent me last fall.

They'd ought to have some hearty victuals for supper, I suppose; but I declare,"--she paused, with the egg-beater in her hand,--"stuffed aigs'll have to do to-night, I guess!" she concluded with a sigh. "There isn't time to get a chicken ready. Well, there! If I'd ha' known! but they'll have to take me as I am. I might give 'em some fritters, though, to eat with maple surrup, just for a relish."

While these formidable preparations were going on against their peace of body, the two girls were enjoying an hour of perfect rest, each after her own manner. Rose was curled up on the bed, in a delicious doze which was fast deepening into sound sleep. Hildegarde sat in a low chair with a book in her hand, and looked out of the window. She could always rest better with a book, even if she did not read it; and the very touch of this little worn morocco volume--it was the "Golden Treasury"--was a pleasure to her. She looked out dreamily over the pleasant green fields and strips of woodland; for the house stood at the very end of the little village, and the country was before and around it. Under the window lay the back yard, with a white lilac-tree in blossom, and a well with a long sweep. Such a pleasant place it looked! A low stone-wall shut it in, the stones all covered with moss and gay red and yellow lichens. Beside the white lilac, there was a great elm and a yellow birch. In the latter was an oriole's nest; and presently Hildegarde heard the bird's clear golden note, and saw his bright wings flash by. "I like this place!" she said, settling herself comfortably in the flag-bottomed chair. She dropped her eyes to the book in her lap and read,--

"Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures While the landscape round it measures: Russet lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do stray; Mountains, on whose barren breast The laboring clouds do often rest; Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide."

Then her eyes strayed over the landscape again. "There must be a brook over there, behind that line of willows!" she thought. "I wonder if Milton loved willows. There are pines and monumental oaks in 'Il Penseroso,' but I don't remember any willows. It's a pity we have no skylarks here! I do want Rose to hear a skylark. Dear Rose! dear Milton!

Oh--I am _so_ comfortable!"

And Hildegarde was asleep.

CHAPTER XVII.

OLD MR. COLT.

Supper was over. The girls had laughingly resisted their hostess's appeal, "Just one more fritter, with another on each side to keep it warm,--though I don't know as they _are_ fit to eat!" and on her positive refusal to let them help wash the dishes, had retired to the back doorstep, from which they could watch the sunset. Here they were joined by Bubble, who had found a lodging for himself, Dr. Abernethy, and the pony, in the family of Abner Colt, the mail-carrier. He took his place on the doorstep with the air of one who has fairly earned his repose.

"Well, Bubble," said Hildegarde, "tell us how you have fared."

"Oh, very well!" answered the boy,--"very well, Miss Hilda! They're a funny set over there at Mr. Colt's, but they seem very kind, and they have given me a nice little room in the stable-loft, so 't I can see to the Doctor any minute."

"How is the dear beast?" asked Rose. "I thought he went a little lame, after he got that stone in his foot."

"I have bathed the foot," said Bubble, "and it'll be all right to-morrow. Old Mr. Colt wanted to give me three different kinds of liniment to rub on it, but hot water is all it needs. He's a queer old fellow, old Mr. Colt!" he added meditatively. "Seems to live on medicine chiefly."

"What do you mean?" asked the girls.

"Why," said Bubble, "he came in to supper--I hadn't seen him before--with a big bottle under his arm, and a box of pills in his hand.

He came shuffling in in his stocking-feet, and when he saw me he gave a kind of groan. 'Who's that?' says he. 'It's a boy come over from Bywood,' says Mrs. Abner, as they call her. 'He's goin' to stop here over night, Father. Ain't you glad to see him?--Father likes young folks real well!' she says to me. The old gentleman gave a groan, and sat down, nursing his big bottle as if it were a baby. 'D'ye ever have the dyspepsy?' he asked, looking at me. 'No, sir!' said I. 'Never had anything that I know of, 'cept the measles.' He groaned again, and poured something out of the bottle into a tumbler. 'You look kinder 'pindlin',' says he, shaking his head. 'I think likely you've got it on ye 'thout knowin' it. It's sub-tile, dyspepsy is,--dreadful sub-tile.'"

"What did he mean?--subtle?" asked Hilda, laughing.

"I suppose so!" replied the boy. "And then he took his medicine, groaning all the time and making the worst faces you ever saw. 'I reckon you'd better take a swallow o' this, my son!' he said. 'It's a pre-vent.i.tative, as well 's a cure.'"

"Bubble," cried his sister, "you are making this up. Confess, you monkey!"

"I'm not!" said Bubble, laughing. "It's true, every word of it. I _couldn't_ make up old Mr. Colt! 'It's a pre-vent.i.tative!' he says, and reaches out his hand for my tumbler. Then Abner, the young man, spoke up, and told him he guessed I'd be better without it, and that 't wasn't meant for young people, and so on. 'What is it, Mr. Colt?' I asked, seeing that he looked real--I mean very much--disappointed. He brightened up at once. 'It's Vino's Vegetable Vivifier!' he said. 'It's the greatest thing out for dyspepsy. How many bottles have I took, Leory?' 'I believe this is the tenth, Father!' said Mrs. Abner. 'And _I_ don't see as 't 's done you a mite o' good!' she said to herself, but so 't I could hear. 'Thar!' says the old man, nodding at me, as proud as could be, 'd' ye hear that? Ten bottles I've took, at a dollar a bottle.

Ah! it's great stuff. Ugh!' and he groaned and took a great piece of mince-pie on his plate. 'Oh, Father!' says the young woman, '_do_ you think you ought to eat mince-pie, after as sick as you was yesterday?'

He was just as mad as hops! 'Ef I'm to be grutched vittles,' he says, 'I guess it's time for me to be quittin'. I've eat mince-pie seventy year, man an' boy, and I guess I ain't goin' to leave off now. I kin go over to Joel's, if so be folks begrutches me my vittles here.' 'Oh, come, Father!' says Abner; 'you know Leory didn't mean nothing like that. Ef you've got to have the pie, why, you've _got_ to have it, that's all.'

The old man groaned, and pegged away at the pie like a good one. 'Ah!'

he said, 'I sha'n't be here long, anyway. n.o.body needn't be afraid o'

_my_ eatin' up their substance. Hand me them doughnuts, Abner. Nothin'

seems to have any taste to it, somehow.'"

"Did he eat nothing but pie and doughnuts?" asked Hilda. "I should be afraid he would die to-night."

"Oh," said Bubble, "you wouldn't believe me if I told you all the things he ate. Pickles and hot biscuit and cheese--and groaning all the time, and saying n.o.body knowed what dyspepsy was till they'd had it. Then, when he'd finished, he opened the pill-box, which had been close beside his plate all the time, and took three great fat black pills. 'Have any trouble with yer liver?' says he, turning to me again; 'there is nothin' like these pills for yer liver. You take two of these, and you'll feel 'em all over ye in an hour's time,--all over ye!' I thought 't was about time for me to go, so I said I must attend to the horse's foot, and went out to the stable. It was then that he brought me the three kinds of liniment, and wanted me to rub them all on, 'so 's if one didn't take holt, another would.'"

"What a dreadful old ghoul!" cried Hildegarde, indignantly. "I don't think it's safe for you to stay there, Bubble. I know he will poison you in some way."

"You're talking about Cephas Colt, _I_ know," said the voice of Mrs.

Brett; and the good woman appeared with her knitting, and joined the group on the doorstep. "He is a caution, Cephas is,--a caution! He's been dosing himself for the last thirty years, and it's a living miracle that he is alive to-day Abner and Leory have a sight o' trouble with him; but they're real good and patient, more so 'n I should be. Did he show you his collection of bottles?" she added, turning to Bubble.

"No," replied the boy. "He did speak of showing me something; but I was in a hurry to get over here, so I told him I couldn't wait."

"You'll see 'em to-morrow, then!" said the widow. "It's his delight to show 'em to strangers. Four thousand and odd bottles he has,--all physic bottles, that have held all the stuff he and his folks have taken for thirty years."

"Four--thousand--bottles!" cried her hearers, in dismay.

"And odd!" replied the widow, with emphasis. "He's adding new ones all the time, and hopes to make it up to five thousand before he dies. Large ones and small, of course, and lotions and all. He takes every new thing that comes along, reg'lar. He has his wife's bottles all arranged in a shape, kind o' monument-like. They do say he wanted to set them up on her grave, but I guess that's only talk."

"How long ago did she die?" asked Rose.

"Three year ago, it is now!" said Mrs. Brett. "Dosed herself to death, we all thought. She was just like him! Folks used to say they had pills and catnip-tea for dinner the day they was married. You know how folks will talk! It's a fact though"--here she lowered her voice--"and I'd ought not to gossip about my neighbors, nor I don't among themselves much, but strangers seem different somehow,--anyhow, it _is_ a fact that he wanted to put a scandalous inscription on her monument in the cemetery, and Abner wouldn't let him; the only time Abner ever stood out against his father, as I know of."

"What was the inscription?" asked Hildegarde, trying hard to look as grave as the subject required.

"Well,--you mustn't say I told you!" said the Widow Brett, lowering her voice still more, and looking about with an air of mystery,--"'t was

'Phosphoria helped her for a spell; But Death spoke up, and all is well.'

'Sh! you mustn't laugh!" she added, as the three young people broke into peals of laughter. "There! I'd ought not to have told. He didn't _mean_ nothing improper, only to express resignation to the will o' Providence.

Well, there! the tongue's an onruly member. And so you young ladies thought you'd like to see Bixby, did ye?" she added, for the third or fourth time. "Well, I'm sure! Bixby'd oughter be proud. 'T _is_ a sightly place, I've always thought. You must go over t' the cemetery to-morrow, and see what there is to see."

"Yes, we did want to see Bixby," answered straightforward Hildegarde; "but we came still more to see you, Mrs. Brett. Indeed, we have a very important message for you."